Secret Weapon

“Secret Weapon” is a work in progress performance that takes inspiration from the early pioneers of extended DJing to create a performance where Live Coding acts as both a tool to mix between tracks, and a sonic template of its own. In developing this performance I took inspiration from pioneers such as The Belleville Three (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson) who essentially created techno in the 1980s and were important figures in the development of similar genres such as House and Techno. I learnt a lot about this history in the book Assembling a Black Counter Culture by DeForrest Brown Jr in which I was particularly drawn to an excerpt from an interview with Atkins in 1988 where he describes his mixing techniques:

As I was already making my own music, I had the idea that Derrick and me could bring a drum machine into a party for mixing in between records." […] “We unveiled our secret weapon, which was that we’d brought a Roland 808 to the party to play live rhythm tracks between the records.

This reinterpretation of that technique pays homage and introduces new technological processes. This homage is reflected in the highly-curated song selection, which currently includes tracks from Jeff Mills, Steve “Silk” Hurley, alongside contemporary artists such as Moma Ready and Ouri.

The technical core of Secret Weapon is a MIDI mapping for Mixxx. Pre-written code for common actions such as scratching, playing from a cue point, and jumping forward / backward a number of beats are positioned on opposite sides of the code editor (Pulsar), mimicking a CDJ / vinyl / mixer setup. In the centre of the screen are TidalCycles patterns for generating drums and melodies to be played on top of the tracks.

Using MIDI messages, TidalCycles controls parts of the Mixxx DJ software, creating unpredictable cuts and edits, high-pitched scratches, and stuttery glitches. This is combined with the Pioneer DDJ-400 MIDI controller which allows me to do traditional DJing techniques in tandem with the chaotic patterns being created by TidalCycles.

Timing plays a very important role in the Secret Weapon performances. Musical patterns from TidalCycles are introduced alongside a track that is playing from Mixxx, and as such need to be in sync with each other. To ensure this happens I also rely on a visible dialog, created by musician pulu, showing the state of TidalCycles clock.

In practice the clock can be used to know when to introduce a TidalCycles pattern or when to release a loop in Mixxx. This is often done on 8, 16, or 32 bar / cycle loops.

To date Secret Weapon has been performed for a live audience once. The DJing aspect of Secret Weapon provides a level of consistency and predictability that is both useful for myself and the audience. Being able to see the waveform view of the turntable helps me to plan my next actions and, for the audience, locates them in a particular timeline.

The use of Live Coding breaks this predictability, but does so in a safe, beat-locked way. The code visualisations themselves also help to make sense of what is happening.

The DJ controller adds a level of control not usually afforded through pure Live Coding. Effects can be applied almost instantly, tracks moved and recalled with only a few hand gestures.