DJ Sasha:
Crossfade into the Digital Domain
He’s also into giving people what they want. “The great thing about the computer is that you can really tailor-make sets for specific venues,” he says. “If I’m playing a festival on a Saturday night with 10,000 people, I’ve got to have a specific kind of set. You can throw in extra drum rolls and sound effects over the top to make breakdowns longer, bigger, and wider. But if you play a set in a 500-person club, you can also space out, really dub records out, and extend things. The fact that you can sit down and prepare two very different kinds of sets is amazing.”
Spastic Beginnings
Although Sasha is now comfortable with the versatility that technology has given him to expand his art, his first attempts were less than stellar. Initially the very freedom that he used to make his music unique conspired to make it disjointed. “My first DJ mixes were all over the place,” he says. “The fact that I could mix from 110 to 140 using effects, beat repeaters, that sort of stuff — well, just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. My first few sets were spastic. It was almost like I had to teach myself how to build DJ sets again. I mean it was fun, but it didn’t sound like me.”
Another challenge was handling his huge music library. Sasha found that technology allowed him to refine his sound. “I can now load up my screen with what may be my first two or three hours of music,” he says. He sees a set as a complete picture instead of building it up as he goes. “I find myself doing a lot more preparation for my sets and I really work things out in advance, but that’s good. In order to stay on top, I have to be prepared. The more prepared you are, that’s when the magic moments happen. I seem to take DJing much more seriously.”
Reinvigorated
Digital music has also played a role in how a Sasha set gets created. Previously he’d hunt through records stores on his travels, loading up and adding to his sound as the tour progressed. Now the music comes to him.
“Every week I’m getting 50, 60 new tracks uploaded to my server, of which maybe 50 percent is good,” he says. “So there are 20 to 30 new tracks every weekend. The record shop is now a server.” And instead of having to set up turntables in his hotel room to preview the new music, all he has to do is fire up his PowerBook to check out his new arsenal of music.
But for all the creative freedom that technology has given him, Sasha’s main appreciation for the Mac is its stability. He can’t afford to have his computer crash in front of a capacity crowd. The first performance of his custom controller in combination with his Mac and Ableton Live was at his house. “I just didn’t want to test it out in front of 3,000 people,” he recalls. “Using the computer to do a DJ setup can be fragile. But Ableton on the Mac is definitely very solid. I mean I put my career on it.”
The technology hasn’t let him down and has, in fact, infused not only his music but also his muse with new vitality. “I’m so excited to play out again,” he says. “For me it’s great being a DJ. I had a quiet 2002 and 2003. I’d been touring for almost 15 years and it was like I was asking myself, ‘What’s next?’ I was bored. Now I definitely like where this is going.”
