This Happened: On the eve of Xmas 2010, I boarded the northern train from Portland OR to Rochester NY with a laptop, a cheap little USB controller and a pair of PC speakers. Unsuspecting.

Who could know, that the first few tiny flakes falling before departure would evolve ... in transit - to a monstrous, unrelenting blizzard that would stop the Empire Builder 'overnight express' in its snowy, blowy tracks 5 times.

And along the way I mixed this set live for a car of weary travelers. 

I wonder now when it dawned on us that we honestly weren't 100% if we would ever reach our destinations? 

Was it before or after after Minneapolis? Where we backed up 2 miles to reroute around a landslide ahead. Or was it when Homeland Security (yes, DHS) stopped and inspected the train for 5 hours ... because the engine caught fire 🔥 😳 

😂 You have no idea. No, we really couldn't know. 😐

I chose a nice group of tracks in the days leading up to departure, I suppose influenced by the Portland winter cold. Then I played them on the train, mixed around on headphones hour after hour, scanning for magic where the tracks mixed. 

Until a curious girl approached and tapped me, wondering what's up. So, when I was ready, I turned the speakers on and played this for them.

And it must have been some subconscious thing rising, compelling me to choose the final track sequence you hear.  Because when I listen back years later:

 I can *hear* the storm building, from the first chords of haunting housey intro (Minilogue? 🤔) ... through the rise to the furious peak  ... then riding it out during the final miles home as the snow faded,  the train landed .... and we could finally sleep.

Yeah. That happened. lol.

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gear:

Laptop.  USB mixer controller.  Triggering with mouse and external keyboard extenders mapped to the Ableton Live interface.  Pair of Audio-Technica studio phones.  And some speakers that definitely needed more bass.

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tracklist:

{lost most of my tracklists in hard drive crash ... will Shazzam soon!}



Snow Day (DJ Set 2010)

I've helped clients around the world with Ableton Live services.

Friends and peeps I have done work for include Brian Transeau (BT), Bill Hamel, John Graham, Alexander 'Sasha' Coe's Involved (charity benefit tour), Danny Howells, Nick Warren, AK1200, and others.

Starting in 2005 I produced some tracks, put a few records out. I was also low-key obsessed with the DJ set as art form, using Live as a tool to harmonize, restructure and re-edit tracks together in realtime ie. non-linear mixing or 'shuffle mixing'.

At one point I developed a custom 17 inch touchscreen + hardware controller setup to do it live on stage and in the studio. Played gigs around Orlando and Central Florida for a bit.

On my sets mixes are harmonized and tracks deconstructed / reconstructed in new sequences by skipping back and forward through the waveforms. I prepare samples to drop throughout.

After mixing I do post-production, fine tune the samples and/or produce additional parts to fit. Then I master the output to make it pump and shine.

I've chilled on it in recent years other than the sets. But people ask me what I've been up to and want me to keep it coming. 

I'm still obsessed with the art of the DJ set. So here they are.

👊🔥🎧

Snow Day (DJ Set 2010)

Josh Von