So, the big question - how was the baptism under fire for our beloved sub-brand? Two words, fucking brilliant! Obviously one can't expect to pull a huge crowd with a newly established nightclub on January, but the people who came...hoooboy, talk about dedication and staying power! My hat's off to you ladies and gents, I can only imagine how your feet must have hurt on Sunday. People like you and the atmosphere you create makes all the effort worth it.

For me personally Shadow Project was one of the most enjoyable gigs I've had in a long time and I'm certain that goes for Mesmic as well. Everything worked perfectly; the music was great, the crowd was into it, the visuals on the big screens looked awesome, the venue was just the right size and technical problems were non-existant. We are without a doubt committed to keep organizing Shadow Project events in the future - just let me sleep for a week before we'll even start thinking about it ;-)

In conclusion, I would like to thank our guest DJs Azar and ZoneX. Not only are you both great guys but your sets were pure dynamite - looking forward on DJing again with the both of you! Thanks goes also to our venue Seurahuone Night and its representative Kaapo Miettinen for his support and flexibility. Last but not least, a heartfelt thanks to those near and dear to us; wives, girlfriends, friends and the lot. Even though you're not all huge fans of our music your support means the world to us.

Keep an eye on the horizon, Shadow Project will return.

Development of the version 3.0 has been a long road. Work began as early as January 2011 and underwent several refactoring cycles. As I have stated before, technology was never the tallest barrier to overcome - it was the layout concept which would have remained elusive for much longer if not for the help of Brett Parson and his logo design. Once I had the superb logo design as a starting point, the layout practically created itself.

Previous version of ACDN was alive for almost three years which is quite respectable. One of the reasons why we took our sweet time with V3.0 was that V2.0 was handling things well enough. On the surface that is, some of the stuff under the bonnet was truly facepalm-worthy and I'm not too proud to admit it. Ditching V2.0 means we finally have a consistent brand image throughout out the website, gig posters, T-shirts etc.

So what's new in version 3.0? Here are some features worth mentioning:

- Sleeker and more user friendly layout and navigation
- Flash-free, HTML5-based audio player (mobile friendly)
- Podcast episode rating
- Podcast episode social media sharing
- Extensive use of micro format schemas
- Dedicated Shadow Project page
- Shadow Project episodes added to main RSS-feed

The new website has been thoroughly tested using Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and iOS. Those unfortunate enough to use Internet Explorer might notice the site doesn't look quite as snazzy. Only two words for IE users; tough shit. Honestly, I can't be bothered to support a bug-ridden and horribly outdated excuse-for-a-browser. To put it in layman terms, Internet Explorer is a steaming pile of cow dung and anyone who participated in its development should be executed for crimes against humanity.

Anyway, enough with the ranting. On behalf of the whole extended ACDN family, we sincerely hope that you enjoy the new website. As always, feel free to contact us with any questions, comments or suggestions you might have.

Shadow Project Vol. 03

Vol. 03 is all about energetic and unrelentic techno mixed by AuralCandy.Net's very own resident-DJ Mesmic. Be sure to check out the previous volumes of the Shadow Project series.

Download (74 MB)

01) Thomas Gold - Work That [Original Club Mix]
02) Phunk Investigation - Insane Machine [Original Club Mix]
03) Stefano Noferini - Take [Original Vibes]
04) Detroit Grand Pubahs - Numb, Deaf & Dumb [DJ Pierre's Afro Acid Mix]
05) John Graham - Boom Boom [Original Mix]
06) Angel Stoxx - I'm Just A Drum Machine [Original Club Mix]
07) Umek - You Might Hear Nothing [Original Mix]
08) Koen Groeneveld - Rudder [Original Club Mix]
09) Afterlife - I Miss U [Manu Da Bas Remix]
10) Len Faki - BX 3 [Original Mix]

AuralCandy.Net presents SHADOW PROJECT

MK-Ultra and Mesmic are back with a vengeance! Joining them are the hard hitters from Helsinki and Lahti, Azar and ZoneX. With nearly four decades of combined experience between them this quartet is guaranteed to blow your socks off. Audio visual experience is made complete by a blasting PA-system and dual 50" screens for visual effects.

Date & Time: 21st January 2011, 22:00 - 04:00

Venue: Seurahuone Night

Address: Aleksanterinkatu 14, 15111, LAHTI

Tickets: 5 € (+ 2 € service fee)

Genre: trance, techno, psytrance

DJs: Azar, Zonex, MK-Ultra & Mesmic

Facebook: AuralCandy.Net presents SHADOW PROJECT

I had been racking my brain for months trying to come up with an layout idea. Turns out I just needed someone more talented to give me a kick in the ass. Kudos to Brett Parson for giving me that proverbial kick - even though he's not aware of this. A while ago we hired Brett to design a ACDN T-shirt, since he did such a brilliant job with our gig posters. It didn't take us long to realize that the design was actually so good it should be our official logo.

Rebuilding the website is not just about aesthetics or revising our brand image. Primary objective is to address key usability and maintains issues of the current version. User layer will rely heavily on HTML5 and CSS3 in order to get rid of Flash and reduce graphics size. Micro format schemas are utilized extensively for improved metadata and SEO. According to our statistic a fairly large percentage of visitors are using mobile devices instead of computers, therefor the new version will also be more mobile friendly.

Building blocks of the foundation will remain the same; Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP with the addition of third-party libraries such as Smarty. Version 3.0 will also include few new feature such as improved social media integration and possibility to rate episodes, as well as slight policy changes - namely Shadow Project episodes being included in the main RSS feed.

And yeah - I was not gonna leave you hanging without a preview. Papa MK over and out!

PS: A while ago I wrote a rather sulky blog entry about my views regarding social media. Since then I've somewhat readjusted my views on the issue. I still refuse to touch Facebook with a ten feet pole, but I've become quite the avid Twitter user. So, if you happen to be a Twitter user I urge everyone to follow our feed. At the moment it's the best way to keep up with the behind the scenes action.

ACDN shirts are priced 16.90 € per piece (+ shipping charges). Be sure to check exchange rates for local pricing if you're residing outside Euro currency area. Payment options include PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, American Express or bank transfer (payment options may vary depending on location).

The man behind the design is none other than the renowned illustrator Brett Parson from United States. You might recall seeing Brett's work before, for he is the mastermind behind our much-acclaimed 2nd Anniversary and X-Mas Party gig posters. This ageless design sitting on stylish black canvas is guaranteed to make you stand out.

Don't forget to spread the word about these awesome shirts. Share the link in Facebook, Twitter or wherever. Take my word for it, everybody's going to want one ;-)

A lot has been going on in our personal lives - me switching jobs couple times and Mesmic getting married, to name a few - which has meant that during the third year of our run we've been mostly sticking to our core business. Partially for this reason we won't be having a public third anniversary party, but chosen few out there have received invites to a very exclusive BD-303 party. However, X-mas party is still a possibility so watch this space.

Even though our third year has been slightly more low-key when it comes to ancillary activities, there's still plenty of significant events to mention. On February we launched the trance/techno based sub-series Shadow Project and on June we reached a respectable 50th podcast episode milestone. New partnerships with record labels have been made in order to deliver the latest and greatest house music fresh out of the oven. In addition, release frequency has been consistently better than during the first two years.

Last but not least, it's also worth mentioning that this blog has reached the ripe age of one year. I would like to express my thanks to all product vendors for supplying their products up for review so our dear readers don't have to stick just my long-winded ramblings.

In conclusion, a little heads-up; Mr. Brett Parson, the man behind our much-acclaimed gig posters, is currently working on the ACDN T-shirt design. Final design is due any day now, so we'll start taking pre-orders in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned!

I had a vague idea that I should be done via the MIDI Clock, but turns out it was rather complicated so hopefully somebody else finds my experiences useful. Even though these instructions are for Denon DN-X1600 they work with DN-X1700 as well and to varying degree with other MIDI-enabled mixers like the Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus.

1) Connect the DN-X1600 to a groovebox, e.g. the Roland MC-505, with a MIDI-cable from DN-X1600's MIDI-out to external device's MIDI-in port.

2) Set the groovebox to slave mode i.e. to receive MIDI Clock from an external source. Consult your user's manual how to do this. Roland MC-505 users can access these settings by pressing SHIFT + Keypad 11.

3) Connect the groovebox's line output to one of DN-X1600's line inputs. Set the channel to DVS-mode (P1/P2/P3/P4) by turning the SOURCE SEL knob.

4) Open Traktor's configuration menu (gear icon). Choose Decks and set one of the decks as Live Input at the Deck Flavor section. It's not obligatory but for the sake of clarity it is recommended to use the corresponding Traktor deck and mixer channel. E.g. if the groovebox is connected to mixer channel 3, set Traktor deck C as Live Input deck.

5) Go to Input Routing and select the the input channel to which the groovebox is connected as the source for the corresponding deck.

6) Go to MIDI Clock and tick Send MIDI Clock. You can later adjust the Sending Offset if necessary, but leave it for default setting (0ms) for now.

7) Go to Controller Manager, set Device as Generic MIDI, set both In-Port and Out-Port as All Ports and set Device Target as Focus.

8) Turn on DN-X1600's MIDI clock forwarding by pressing the MIDI CLK button.

9) Open Traktor's MIDI Clock panel (metronome icon) and press Play and Sync.

The groovebox should now receive the master BPM from Traktor. However, it's worth pointing out that the groovebox does not necessarily sync perfectly to Traktor, it just receives the BPM. Sync the groovebox and Traktor by using the pitch bend buttons located at the MIDI Clock panel. Speaking from personal experience I highly recommend mapping said buttons to a controller. Syncing the groovebox to Traktor is immensely useful but the best part is that thanks to audio re-routing Traktor's built-in software effects can now be applied to the groovebox.

Isn't it just beautiful how things come together?

Thanks to Denon DN-X1600's very clever MIDI-layering I was able to map a fair amount of functionality to the mixer itself, so I wanted something compact and convenient that fits my laptop backpack and handles clip and preset launching. After some quick research I came across the Korg Nanopad which not only fits my needs perfectly but is very reasonably priced as well.

Korg Nanopad is an excellent choice for a number of reasons. For starters it has twelve pads and twelve just happens to be MixEmergency's magic number; The media bank and all the effect, transition, text overlay and image overlay preset banks have twelve slots. Nanopad has a SCENE-button to toggle between four control banks, meaning the user can map up to 48 individual commands. For example, media launch in scene #1, transition presets in scene #2, effect presets in scene #3 and text overlay presets in scene #4. It's also worth pointing out that different scenes can be mapped to different applications, e.g. scenes #1-3 dedicated to MixEmergency and scene #4 controlling the sampler bank in the DJ software.

After using the Korg Nanopad for few weeks, I have to say I'm very pleased with it. I've come to expect high build quality based on other Korg Products I've owned and used (e.g. Kaoss Pad) and the Nanopad does not disappoint. Potential buyers should take notice that there are two models on sale, the original Nanopad and the Nanopad2. As far as I can tell, the only difference is that the Nanopad2 has sixteen pads. I specifically wanted the first generation model because twelve pads feel more intuitive with MixEmergency's workflow.

Now only if I could think of some use for the XY-pad...

To be perfectly honest, I've never really bought into this whole social media fad for a number of reasons. Allow me to elaborate by using Facebook - which I utterly loathe - as an example. I hate its tendency to feed inherent narcism by suggesting that others are genuinely interested to know what you had for breakfast, how cute your cat looks or that your kid just took a dump of a weird color. I detest how it reduces real human relationships into nothing more than a stamp collection. I especially abhor how it regresses adults to the mental level of preteens and creates a public spectacle of every little bump in human interaction.

It pisses me off to unfathomable lengths that everybody and their mother, employer, dog and fetus are on Facebook just because everyone else is there as well. Yes, I'm well aware of the sociodynamic critical mass effect but it's aggravating having to repeatedly explain why I'm not on Facebook. If sub-standard technical quality and laughably poor usability and are not sufficient reasons, I refuse to be part of the most elaborate Orwellian surveillance contraption of all time. All in all, I find using Facebook about as tempting as getting ass-raped by a rabid manatee, so I rather just leave our group to Mesmic's capable hands.

So what about Twitter? Call me a grumpy old git who's hopelessly stuck in the past, but I've never quite understood its point. According to my perception it's some kind of crossbreed mongrel between a blog and RSS-feed, but sucks as both. Sure, it's convenient to aggregate all your information sources into one feed, but that's nothing new or revolutionizing. Twitter's only unique feature is that the messages are limited to 140 characters and for that reason(?) it's one of the most popular websites in the world. Oh, such marvel of engineering! I'm baffled, I truly am.

Assuming you're still reading this rant, you might wonder why does a guy who supposedly hates social media so much open up a Twitter account? Well, I kinda didn't - I just used Twitterfeed which automatically publishes our RSS-feeds on Twitter. Perfect for lazy social media haters like me who can't be arsed to manually publish the same content on dozen different websites.

Time for this old git to kick back and enjoy the brief moment of being a hip netizen. Life is good 8-)

Virtual DJ, my weapon of choice for playing audio, has had video mixing capability for ages but it's geared towards mixing music videos while I'm more into mixing clips, applying effects etc. I stumbled upon MixEmergency which, despite being marketed as add-on for Serato Scratch Live, is perfectly capable acting as a stand-alone VJ app and with a little ingenuity can be used in conjunction with other DJ softwares as well.

MixEmergency is capable of mixing video files, images and Quartz compositions - visualizers built with Quartz Composer, which is particularly interesting for VJs; among other things, audio signal can be used as an data input module. For those of you who don't speak geek, this means you can make the visual stuff bounce to the beat of the music. MixEmergency is shipped with a wide selection of video/transition effects and additional plug-ins can be downloaded from the Inklen homepage. There's also an image/text overlay function which is great for e.g. announcing the current DJ. Last but not least, MixEmergency supports Syphon, a technology for streaming screen output from application to another.

What really ties everything together is the MIDI-mapping. MixEmergency has the most user friendly and handiest MIDI-mapping tool I've seen in along time. My Denon DN-X1600 is great for the intended purpose because I can map all the EQ's, faders and buttons to MixEmergency, so as a result I'm able to control both audio and visuals at the same time. Some remaining controls were mapped to my Allen & Heath Xone:1D and I was thinking about buying the Korg Nanopad for launching clips from the media bank.

My initial though was that MixEmergency is a bit over-priced (179 USD) until I realized its potential. Professional VJ mixers like the Edirol V4 will cost you an internal organ yet still being capable mixing only standard-definition video. There are few HD video mixers out there but they are intended for broadcast usage rather than VJing - not to mention the price range is outside the grasp of mere mortals. In that context, even with added cost of a MIDI-controller, MixEmergency offers great value for money.

I do have few gripes about MixEmergency though. I prefer apps that use Mac OS X's native GUI toolkit so I'm not a huge fan of the SSL-like user interface, but at least it's very intuitive. My only serious complaint is the media bank which can house only 12 clips at the time. Multiple clips can be added by dragging and dropping a folder to the media bank, but the user still has to take his or her hands off the controller and fiddle with the computer. Moreover, even on my 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro with 4GB memory MixEmergency seems to be quite the resource hog.

Even with its shortcomings there's no denying that MixEmergency is simply tons of fun. In fact, more fun than I've had with any software in a long time. I'll be sure to follow the development of MixEmergency closely - it's already a good product but with a little fine tuning it has the potential to be excellent.

Let's take a moment to reflect our journey so far; tens of thousands of listeners from over 120 countries, hundreds of thousands of page visits, thousands of gigabytes of data transfer, 445 tracks and more than 44 hours of the best house music world has to offer. While these numbers might be interesting, impressive even, at the end of the day there's just one number that matters:

People.

At first glance one might think it's all about me and Mesmic, but that's not the whole story. If one counts all the music producers, records label contacts, graphic artists, audio commercial producers, stock resource providers, photographers etc. the number of people who directly or indirectly contributed to ACDN is counted by the hundreds. However, that number doesn't contain the most important contributors of them all:

You.

No seriously, I swear I'm not just being an ass-kisser. We would have not kept the project going for this long if nobody showed interest, but because of you we remain motivated to go on. Having said that, there's one thing I'd like to ask from you all: be active. Join our Facebook group, send e-mails, Skype us - anything! Tell us what you love and hate, help us to make the next 50 episodes even better.

Looking back all the time and effort we've put into this project, it fills me with pride and satisfaction being able to say that there's not much we would've done differently if given the chance. Sure, there are few things we could've done differently to make life easier for ourselves, but that's not how we roll. I'd like to think that our willingness to go the extra mile and pay close attention to details and production values are few of the reasons why ACDN has reached its popularity.

In conculsion, it's time to announce the lucky winner of our The Big Fifty Contest. Complimentary license for the Beatler software provided by the nice folks at Cancel Monday goes to Miko K from Finland. Congrats, bro! The rest of you can enjoy a moment of nostalgia looking at the cover image collage below.

Vol. 02 is all about aggressive and gritty balls-to-the-wall techno. Be sure to check it out and don't forget to participate in The Big Fifty Contest. Snap to it people, the clock is ticking!

MK-Ultra - Shadow Project Vol. 02

Download (71 MB)

1) Simmetune - Der Flächenzauberer
2) BitShift - Controlled Failure
3) Twister aka Paul Edge - Metamorphosis Of Narcotics [John Selway Rework]
4) Hiroshi Oki - Retarin
5) Nuclear Ramjet - Down The Wall
6) Alic - Snake
7) Zeitgeist - Apocalyptech
8) Reblok - Eugenism
9) Ken Ishii - Extra [Original Mix]
10) Simmetune - Synthetik

Just in case you missed the previous installment, here's Vol. 01 as well. Highly energetic and uplifting trance for your enjoyment, mixed back-to-back by Mesmic and yours truly.

MK-Ultra & Mesmic - Shadow Project Vol. 01

Download (64 MB)

1) Stephen JK - Puristick [Groove Vocal Mix]
2) Marc Dawn - Expander [Flutlicht Remix]
3) Kami meets Moonsouls - Under The Sea [Khaomeha Remix]
4) Beat Service presents Sunstroke - Sky Cafe [DNS Project Vocal Mix]
5) Bryant P & Aerium - As If She Loved Me [Original Mix]
6) Transparent Vision - Mercury
7) Tory Kay - Let The Leaves [2 Freax Remix]
8) Igor S - Boomerang
9) Soulforge - Lunar Touch [Entry Interface Mix]
10) Magnus - First Born

On the long run the only sane solution would be to find a bigger apartment to house all my gear - we each have our problems of sorts, it seems. Then there's the learning curve; MC-505 has a user's manual as thick as the local phone book so it won't be until my summer holiday before I have any realistic chance of really getting to know this beast. Oh well, nice to have the toys ready and waiting once I finally have time to play with them.

Another case of impulse shopping gone wrong was my tragic attempt to build a small and quiet Shoutcast server. I found a good deal on a Mini-ITX motherboard and processor combo from an online auction site but rest of the necessary components (case, memory, hard drive) ended costing twice as much. No matter, this was still an acceptable cost assuming everything goes smoothly. Famous last words, eh?

Now this is where things started to go wrong. When I installed the motherboard to the case I noticed that the lid won't fit because the processor cooler is too big and apparently there aren't any smaller coolers available for this particular processor model. A lidless case would've sufficed for the time being if not for the fact that the only place to mount the hard drive happens to be the lid. When I tried booting up the computer the damned thing would not even peep. Turns out the case's own power supply doesn't put out enough juice for the processor, so I had to replace it with a relative large power supply I mutilated from an old case I found lying around at the back of a closet.

At this point the computer started to look really gruesome but I though "What the hell, call it Mark One.". Momentarily things looked bright. Ubuntu booted happily from a CD and installed itself but when I tried booting up from the hard disk nothing happened. Having built and serviced quite a few PC's back in the day this was to be expected but after unsuccessfully messing around with BIOS-settings I just thought "I'm too old for this shit." and gave it a rest.

So there I am - stuck with a Frankenstein computer that does positively fuck all and the irony is that in order to have a working and esthetically acceptable Shoutcast server I'll most likely have to buy a new motherboard and processor combo to replace the original, supposedly bargain components. My great-grandfather used to have a saying "Poor people can't afford to be cheap.". I'm starting to understand what he was talking about.

These days we receive quite a few promo-releases from records labels and independent artists - and by "quite a few" I mean more than we have time to listen to. Nevertheless, both Mesmic and myself purchase a lot of tracks from Beatport as well - and by "a lot" I mean four digit numbers. While Beatport has a very comprehensive track catalogue, I've never been a fan of its cumbersome Flash user interface. Fortunately the chaps at Cancel Monday had the same idea when they created Beatler - a Beatport client software that utilizes Mac OS X's native GUI toolkit.

To put it in less geekier terms, just think of a hybrid between iTunes and Beatport and you get the idea. Having said that, Beatler doesn't just replace Beatport's default Flash UI, it also throws in some neat tricks of its own; multiple shopping crates, continuos playback, smarter favorite tracking, automatic iTunes playlist generating, hot key control etc. If you're a Mac user and a frequent Beatport shopper, do yourself a favor and give Beatler a spin.

In other news, ACDN is approaching yet another milestone. By our estimated schedule we'll be releasing our 50th podcast episode during the first half of June 2011. In anticipation of the event ACDN proudly presents The Big Fifty Contest. Rules are simple: send e-mail to bigfifty@auralcandy.net and tell us your all time favorite ACDN episode. We'll draw one lucky winner amongst the participants who will receive a free license to Beatler software provided by the nice folks at Cancel Monday.

Voting starts immediately. Cast your votes no later than 10th June 2011. Good luck!

Version 3.0 of the website framework is currently a work in progress, although it's anyone's guess when it will be launched. Despite its age the current version is still fulfilling its purpose, so we'd rather take our time and create something significantly better instead some half-assed layout upgrade. My day job required me to study Drupal recently and for a while I considered the possibility of using it for the next version. The idea was quickly abandoned because Drupal, like most CMS's, is convenient only as long as you're satisfied playing on its terms. For someone particularly neurotic about details and performance it's not really the way to go.

After the recent Shadow Project blog entry we received feedback that the QR code conundrum was a bit too tricky, so it's time for a full disclosure. Shadow Project is our new spin-off series featuring trance, techno and our other favourite genres outside the realm of house music. Vol. 01 offers a selection of highly energetic trance mixed back-to-back by Mesmic and yours truly. Shadow Project mixtapes will be released somewhat infrequently and will not be listed amongst our usual podcast episodes to avoid confusing new listeners.

MK-Ultra & Mesmic - Shadow Project Vol. 01

Download (64 MB)

PS: As a symbol of compassion ACDN has donated 50$ to Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund at GlobalGiving. We plea to all our listeners to join the effort.

There is a myriad of things that can go wrong; technical problems like pops, crackles, squeaks, distortion or other unexpected noises caused by equipment glitches. Even veteran DJs are prone to performance cock-ups like train wrecked, poorly timed, harmonically clashed or otherwise botched transitions. Lastly there are artistic issues such as lack of theme, coherency, flow or inconsistency with cover image and title.

Experience and preparation prevents most hick-ups, but the Murphy-factor remains. Thanks to post-processing minor issues in one category alone are not necessarily deal breakers - few odd pops or an ill-fitting cover image are not the end of the world if the set is otherwise solid, but issues in two or more categories equals rejection by default. There are days when the set simply refuses to take shape. More often than not it's due to bad mindset or lack of clear objective.

Then there's the just plain random crap like this; I recently upgraded my 15" MacBook Pro to a newer generation model and noticed my Allen & Heath Xone:1D controller was no longer working. Turns out Apple engineers in their infinite wisdom have made significant alterations to the USB-bus architecture without bothering to properly inform hardware manufacturers and thus causing problems with bus-powered devices like the Xone:1D.

I've had less-than-pleasent dealings with Allen & Heath tech support in the past. Back when I contacted them regarding the Xone:1D rotary encoder bug, they told me I would've had to send my device to service center abroad because the firmware is not user upgradable. Brilliant! This time, however, I'm happy to report everything went better than expected. UK lads were already on the case and the new MIDI-driver update fixed the problem.

Just another day at the ACDN office.

What is the Shadow Project? Unfortunately no one can be told what the Shadow Project is, you have to hear it for yourself. Nah, just messing with you. I could tell you, but I'm not going to - not just yet anyway. What would be the fun in that? Let's have you guys give it a shot first. Instead of FedEx'ing you a Nokia cell phone I'm going to give you some (rather obvious) clues.

Clue #1 - Prophecy

It has been stated earlier in this blog that aside house music the ACDN crew is very fond of other genres as well. Likewise, it has been stated that given the appropriate circumstances we might expand our horizons to other genres like, say, trance. If such expansion was to happen, it might or might not be officially tied to the ACDN brand.

Clue #2 - Red Or Blue

The Spanish word piñata does not refer to brightly colored pills, but to a brightly colored toy. Typical characteristic of a piñata is that it contains a hidden surprise inside. Incidentally, that is also the name of our recent podcast episode.

Clue #3 - Key Maker

The fore-mentioned podcast episode also has a rather peculiar cover art. Those seemingly random black and white boxes might or might not be something known as the Quick Response Code. These rather ubiquitous QR Codes can store all kinds of information such as, say, web links. Most modern cell phones are shipped with a suitable scanner software out of the box. Simply fire up the scanner app, point the camera towards the door made out of light (aka your screen), scan the QR Code and follow the path of The One. Alternatively you can use an online version.

There you have it, Mr. Anderson. The fate of Zion is resting upon you. OK, maybe not but happy hunting nevertheless - Leather pants and shades optional.

Even though the ACDN website has remained relatively unchanged ever since the second revision was launched in 2009, the most prominent addition this year was undoubtedly this blog. Some minor improvements here and there; with the addition of a secondary server, storage space and bandwidth are no longer an issue so we started releasing longer episodes and use higher bit rate for improved sound quality.

Style wise 2010 was leaning towards tech and progressive more than before but not without respecting our roots in the soulful side of house music. Personally I'm pleased about the versatile selection of music we presented last year, although there were some odd ventures so far outside our usual repertoire that calling it house music with a straight face took some nerve. Honestly speaking, evolving as a DJ while trying to stay true to what has become the ACDN brand can be challenging sometimes. Even though ACDN was, is and will be a house podcast, we don't mind leaving our comfort zone from time to time. Question is what do you listeners want 2011 to sound like? Let us know, any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately, there's one thing that we were not able to improve compared to the previous year, and that's frequency of new releases. We don't have any set deadlines or release schedules, but as a rough guideline we try to release at least two episodes every month. Despite our best efforts - or at least best wishes - life sometimes has tendency of getting in the way and throwing some curveballs.

Speaking of life outside ACDN, late 2010 was also eventful for me personally. After some consideration I resigned from my old job where I had been working for the past 3 years and moved to another company. While I usually try to avoid dealing with my personal life in this blog, in this case the topic is relevant because work had become increasingly stressful and consuming to such extent that it was starting to hurt my spare-time projects, namely ACDN.

So what's in store for 2011? At this point the only thing I can say for sure is "more of the same". ACDN will continue supplying a world-class selection premium house music in all its forms. Our top priority will be releasing new episodes more frequently and consistently. The rest is still a bit iffy, but rest assured - we've had our thinking caps on.

I've become a Mac advocate during the last three years. That, however, doesn't mean that I'm a zealot fanboy who queues 3 days on a cold pavement if Steve Jobs takes a dump on a precision-machined aluminum plate and calls it iCrap. Alas, no product is without its faults, not even Macs. I'm sure every user has their own pet pewees, but for me personaly it's Finder.

For frequent use the damn thing just doesn't cut it as a proper file manager. Even simple stuff like like proper copying and pasting in list mode is major pain in the ass, not to mention moving files around. Then there's also the pesky way how Finder lists folders amongst the files. As much I abhor Windows these days, there's one thing I haven't been able to let go; show me the bloody folders first no matter how I decide to order my files!

Upside of living on a planet with nearly 7 billion fellow hairless apes is that if you have a problem, someone else most likely has the same problem and is willing to fix it for you for a small fee. This is where TotalFinder comes in. In a nutshell, TotalFinder adds tabs, dual view mode and ever-so-useful folders on top. Antonin from Binary Age was kind enough to provide me a complimentary license for testing purposes, but the mere price of 15 USD is hardly highway robbery. In comparison, Path Finder 5 by Cocoatech which I was previously using costs nearly 40 USD.

The biggest difference between Path Finder and TotalFinder is that the former is a stand-alone application designed to replace Finder, where as the latter is a plug-in that augments Finder with new features. I'm inclined to favor TotalFinder's approach, since this way one doesn't need to learn new shortcut-keys and all the useful features like quick look are still available.

So there you have it, boys and girls. Lesson of the day is to make life easier with nifty little utilities that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

Preparations include listening through hundreds if not thousands of tracks while making playlists - not to mention the actual gig which we play all night just by the two of us. After living and breathing house music 24/7 it's understandable to want something completely different for a change. In my case it has been drum & bass, chill out, techno and funk. Passion for house music is still there, sometimes one just needs a break to reignite the spark.

Speaking of something completely different...as some might remember, ACDN crew is no stranger to joys of food and drink. We have long standing traditions regarding home-made Salmiakki Koskenkorva (aka Salmari), but for our manager's housewarming it was necessary to raise the bar. In addition to Koskenkorva vodka, main ingredient of Salmari is salty licorice candy called Turkinpippuri (Turkish Pepper). For most mortals either Koskenkorva or Turkinpippuri is more than enough by itself. Combining the two, for many, is a recipe for disaster. But for those seeking the ultimate shot, plain Salmari just doesn't suffice. Ladies and gents, I give you Harmi®.

You're probably thinking "What in the name of James Brown is that?". The ominous looking dark nectar is habanero-enhanced Salmiakki Koskenkorva aka habanero-Salmari aka Harmi®. This stuff is so hardcore you can't even buy its ingredients from your locale supermarket, but fortunately there's this thing called Ze Intarwebs. Just head over to Chilikauppa and order a bag of Nagakiukku (Naga Fury).

Making Harmi® is not rocket science. All you need to do is crush a bag of Nagakiukku and melt the bits into a splash of water by boiling in a kettle on low heat. I also like to add some regular Turkinpippuri for color and flavor. If you're completely out of your mind, you can also add some chopped habanero pepper to the brew. On hindsight it was a bit overkill.

Try to resist the temptation of taking a whiff while the syrup is steaming - vividly reminded me of the time I was voluntarily teargassed in the army. Pour in a bottle of vodka and stir it for a while. If you're feeling fancy, you can run the liquid through a coffee filter few times to clear up the murky color. Okay, you're done. Pour the sucker into a bottle and freeze it for couple hours.

Enjoy at your own risk. Expect some involuntary facial contortion, cursing that would make even a sailor blush and some excessive sweating. Let us know if you survive the ordeal.

The gig was bit of a mixed bag. On the plus side the venue was packed, which is always a good thing. However, majority of the customer base was leaning towards the barely legal department, which usually spells trouble. I can't recall another gig when I've had so many people bitch and moan about the fact that we're playing only house music. Philistines! Apparently it's not enough to plaster the whole city central and the venue premises with posters that reveal this little detail, or to have a full-page article on the local newspaper telling the same thing. Sure, you always get few people who don't get the point but thirty or forty? Come on!

Usually most people get the picture when you tell them "Sorry, we're having a theme night. House music only." but it seems young people these days have no manners nor listening comprehension skills. Kids, few words of advice; when the conversation reaches a point where the DJ tells you to fuck off, the chances of you hearing that teenybopper hip-hop track are slim to none. For that you can go to any other joint - and there's plenty to choose from. Don't come to the only house music party in town and whine that the DJ isn't playing what you want to hear. It's not the DJ's fault nor problem that you came to the wrong place.

Complaints aside, despite the crowd being one of the toughest we've ever faced we managed to draw a full dance floor every once in a while so I haven't lost hope just yet. Even in the most unfavorable of conditions there are always those few awesome people who are really into it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the brunette lady who came up to the DJ-booth to tell me we're playing the best music she's ever heard in a nightclub. With all my heart, thank you! People like you who make it all worthwhile. Unfortunately I didn't catch your name, but I gave you my business card so you know who you are.

With all its pros and cons, our first Xmas Party was definitely immemorial. Can't say I've ever been sandwiched between two groping and grinding groupie chicks while mixing house tracks and wearing a Santa Claus costume before. Take my word for it - grabbing asses and tweaking mixer knobs all at the same time is a lot harder than it looks!

Sound Studio is a textbook example how a DAW-software should be. Every step of the production process from recording, audio processing, metadata editing and file compression is wrapped into a lightweight and user friendly interface. Due to patent issues Sound Studio can't save files in MP3-format out of the box, but that functionality can be added by installing the LAME framework. To quote a phrase, Sound Studio just works. Like most nice things in life it's not free, but definitely worth every penny.

Speaking of things that are worth the money, most people think I'm out of my mind when I casually mention having paid 150€ for a backpack. Well, the Axio Urban hardpack isn't your grandma's laptop bag. Fortunately I haven't had to put mine to a test yet, but its polycarbonate shell is designed to withstand high velocity impacts like one would experience in, say, a motorcycle accident.

I commute to office almost every working day, so I travel by train about 45000 kilometers a year - incidentally that's more than the diameter of Earth. Since I always carry my MacBook Pro with me, it's important to have not only adequate protection but ergonomic carrying apparatus as well. Axio also doubles as a my gig pack - it's a perfect fit for a laptop, audio interface, headphones and assortment of cables. Potential buyers be aware; carrying a futuristic hardpack like Axio exponentially increases the amount of gawking and prying questions from random bystanders. I guess that's the price one has to pay for looking cool.

From all things cool to more geekier topics. I already mentioned Coda, the Swiss army knife of web development, in my prior blog entry. However, there's one thing Coda doesn't do and that's database management. For this purpose I've found that Sequel Pro suits my needs perfectly. Aside all the usual DBMS stuff, it can do all kinds of nifty tricks like SSH-tunneling. Best of all, it's open source which means it won't cost you a dime.

I started my military service immediately after high school and was discharged mid-semester so I couldn't apply to polytechnic until the following spring. To add insult to injury, Finnish legislation dictates that one is eligible for unemployment benefits only after a 5-month waiting period - effectively meaning I had no income source of any kind.

My then-girlfriend was living across the country and it was my turn to visit her. Too bad I was flat broke. Guess how many credit cards does a 20-year old unemployed high school graduate have? All my friends were just as broke as me so borrowing from them wasn't really an option. Youthful pride prevented me from asking my parents, so desperate measures were required. Reluctantly I lugged my vinyl crates to the local used records store only to score a mere fraction of the money once invested in them.

All the romantics out there are going to be disappointed. Unfortunately my valiant sacrifice didn't ensure a happily ever after, we just broke up in a rather banal manner. So there I was with no job, no money, no girlfriend and no vinyl. Just to prove that the universe hates me, I landed a job no sooner than the following week. Textbook example of bittersweet if there ever was one.

Migration from vinyl to digital was a huge leap forward in terms of usability and creative performance. In turn it eradicated the record collecting aspect, which was half the fun. Oh the joy of browsing through crates of vinyl in the local record store and finding that rare treasure. Because vinyls can't be replicated like CDs or MP3s, each record became an irreplaceable piece of history - almost like a diary of sorts.

Many younger DJs might have a hard time understanding this emotional attachment to pieces of black plastic, can't say I blame them though. I'm closing in to my thirties, so I belong to the last generation who started DJing predominantly using vinyl. These days it doesn't make much sense to start as vinyl-jockey, so whenever I hear some purist raving "Real DJs use vinyl" I just roll my eyes and facepalm. What's ironic, most of these cats don't even know who Francis Grasso was. Just because you've never rubbed wax it doesn't make you any less of a DJ. Having said that, every DJ - newbie or veteran - should still understand and appreciate the historical significance of the medium. It's our collective duty as DJs to remember where we came from.

The other night I was browsing through my few remaining vinyls to give them a spin on my new turntable. I came across The Prodigy's album "The Fat Of The Land" that my fore-mentioned ex-girlfriend had got me for my birthday back then. Couldn't help feeling a circle had completed. You just don't get that with bunch of zeros and ones.

2nd Anniversary Party is in the history books and now it's time to focus on the first-ever AuralCandy.Net Xmas Party! At the time of writing this it's still nearly 5 weeks until the showdown, but by starting the promotion early we try to make sure party people won't miss the upcoming gig.

In Finland late November is traditionally a time of year when many people go out clubbing. Perhaps the proximity of Christmas encourages people to go out more often than usual before calming down to spend the holidays peacefully with family and friends. Let's hope the timing is right for having a funky house music party!

At the 2nd Anniversary Party we played mainly tech/progressive house, but the Xmas Party's theme is leaning more to the soulful side focusing on vocal/disco/funky house. These sub-genres are often regarded as the easiest ones to approach by newcomers, so hopefully we'll manage to attract house-newbies as well as veterans.

House scene is practically non-existing here in Lahti, but that's something me and MK-Ultra are hoping to remedy. We have a large listener base in Finland so there's definitely potential. Aside the fact that we enjoy throwing a good party - and promoting ACDN is obviously on the agenda - our live events are just as much about raising people's awareness of house music.

For those of you who are using Facebook, I would kindly ask you to spread the word of our Xmas Party by forwarding invites to your friends and loved ones. Also, keep in mind that ACDN has both Facebook group and Digg profile that are constantly updated with the latest podcast releases, news, events and interesting links to mention a few. In conclusion, here are the Xmas Party details. Poster artwork by the brilliant Mr. Brett Parson, as usual.

Date & Time: 19th November 2010, 22:00 - 04:00

Venue: Disco Glow

Address: Rautatienkatu 21 B 27, LAHTI

Age Limit: 18 years

Tickets: Free entry (+ service fee)

Facebook: AuralCandy.Net Xmas Party

It's fair to say that a lot of DJ's don't still fully grasp all the benefits of digital DJing. It's not just about easy storage and access to your tracks - it's about the ability to deconstruct, recompile and blend tracks in a non-linear manner. However, until the recent years the biggest problem was that there weren't all that many professional grade controllers to choose from.

Since it's partially related and some of you might be interested, I'm going give you an inventory of our gear accompanied by a photo. Sorry about the low quality, it was taken with a cell phone on poor lighting conditions.

- Pioneer DJM-5000 (mixer/USB audio interface)
- Denon DN-X1600 (mixer/USB audio interface)
- Pioneer SEP-C1 (USB MIDI/HID controller)
- Allen & Heath Xone:1D (USB MIDI controller)
- Korg Kaoss Pad KP2 (effects processor/sampler)
- Edirol FA-66 (FireWire audio interface)
- M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (PCI audio interface)
- M-Audio Studiophile AV40 (reference monitors)
- Sony MDR-V700DJ & MDR-V500DJ (headphones)
- Virtual DJ (professional DJ software)
- Mixed In Key (key analyzer software)
- Sound Studio (DAW software)

All things considering the Xone:1D and SEP-C1 are quite expensive for what they actually do, then again we had very particular requirements. I've never been fond of those all-in-one devices - there's still enough old school left in me that I want my mixer and deck-equilevants as separate devices. There's also the fact that most combo-devices are cheap toys for beginners, but there are some interesting exceptions like the Denon DN-MC6000. To narrow the selection even more, most stand-alone controllers include a redundant CD-player and/or a sound card.

In conclusion I would like to share few insights for any aspiring DJ's out there, some learned the hard way from personal experience.

1) Ignore the fanboys and use the hardware/software that works best for you.

2) Don't waste your money on cheap low quality hardware - you'll just end up selling it in few months.

3) Most important rule of all: always remember it's about you and your skills, not about your gear. Even the most expensive toys on the market won't automatically make you a good DJ, nor will the cheapest gear prevent you from rocking the party. There are a lot of insecure cats out there who love to label and categorize who's a DJ and who's not. My advice is: pay no attention to that. Just keep doing your thing, share the passion for music.

Having said that, you may find it surprising that we use Flash on ACDN website - for the pre-listening function, to be precise. The LongTail Video's JW Player actually works quite well for a Flash-application. Currently there's really no cross-browser compatible way of adding audio/video to a website other than Flash. Quite recently there has been a lot of hype in the news how HTML5 will replace Flash - mainly due to the addition of the new <audio> and <video> tags. We should be so lucky!

I'd like nothing more than to dump Flash and start implementing standard HTML5, but sadly that's not possible because browser vendors can't agree on which audio formats they should support. Firefox supports Vorbis and WAV but not MP3 due to some patent and open source ideology issues. Safari supports MP3 and WAV, while Chrome supports Vorbis and MP3. The only format that Opera supports is WAV.

Long story short, the problem is that there is no single audio format that would be compatible with all browsers. In my opinion, if there would be one format that all browser vendors should support it's the ubiquitous MP3. Given Firefox's substantial market share, it's mostly up to Mozilla Foundation wether or not the <audio> tag will ever be useful. I understand where they are coming from, but sometimes it's better to forget ideology for a moment and think about practicality and user's needs. Same goes for the Theora vs. H.264 debate on the video side.

Then of course there is Internet Explorer, being the pathetic joke that it is, which doesn't support <audio> tag whatsoever. If those asshats at Microsoft had a single working brain cell, they would have dumped Trident and switched to Gecko or WebKit ages ago. But hey, why support anything useful like HTML5, CSS3, SVG or comply to W3C standards when you can screw around with proprietary crap like ActiveX or Silverlight. The upcoming IE9 is promised to change all that, but given their track record I won't start holding my breath just quite yet.

It's beyond my comprehension why any sane person would willingly be using Internet Explorer. The myriad of security holes and the user interface that keeps getting worse after each revision would be adequate reasons to abhor it. Fortunately majority of our visitors know better - only a small minority (7%) still insist on torturing themselves with IE. Cheers guys, thanks to people like you the web is always dragging five years behind!

To be perfectly honest the amount of visitors was a bit disappointing, but I guess that was something to be expected. We know all too well from past experience that Finland and Lahti in particular aren't exactly the most fertile ground for house music. In many ways that is the fundamental reason why we decided to promote ACDN as a global product since day one.

Still, It felt fitting to have the anniversary party held in Lahti so people close to us could join the celebration. If given the option to choose the location based on our listener rates, it would've been Paris, Berlin, Chicago or Amsterdam. Then again, one does not simply walk into Mordor...

In conclusion, big shout-outs to Annika, Anne, Gabryna, Marjo, Marko, Merja, Miko, Miika, Petri, Riikka, Sauli and many others whose name I didn't catch. Your presence and support was sincerely and whole-heartedly appreciated. I would also like to thank our venue Seurahuone Night and Sokos Hotel; we enjoyed your complimentary drinks, food and hotel room very much!

My track list of the evening:

1) The Sound Republic - Bumpin' Enjoyment [Jason Hodges Readin' Minds Remix]
2) Junior Jack - Stupidisco [Hott 22 Main Vocal Mix]
3) David Folkebrant - Blue Coloured Mouse [Emil Gallier Remix]
4) Spencer & Hill - Heads Off Spinnin' [Elements Remix]
5) Defunk - The Bitch [Original Mix]
6) Red8'z - Halcyon [Original Mix]
8) Akihiro - See
9) Antigone - More Man Than Man [Future Perfect Vocal Remix]
10) BMR - Check It Out [Original Mix]
11) Deadmau5 - Duo Cad Sordid [Original Mix]
12) Lifelike feat. Kris Menace - Discopolis [Chris Lake's Unreleased Re-edit]
13) Federleicht - On The Streets [Kollektiv Turmstrasse's Let Freedom Ring Remix]
14) Ecco - I Like Dancing [TMP Likes That Sax Remix]
15) Hoxton Whores - Pop The Lights [Tuff Instrumental Mix]
16) Santiago & Bushido feat. Colette - Make Me Feel [Original Mix]
17) The Junkies - Quartro Uno Sei [Federico Locchi Mix]
18) Souledz - You Can't Hide Your Love
19) MiniTech Project - Waver Program
20) Jose Gonzalez - Crosses [Lance Jordan Remix]
21) The Montanas - Play It [Hott 22 Vocal Mix]
22) First Choice - Smarty Pants [Redsoul Groove Mix]
23) Justin Michael & Phonic Funk feat. Maiya - My Destination [M-Sol Mix]
24) Solsonik - I'm In Love Again
25) Rockers Revenge - Walking On Sunshine [Hot 22 Rhodes Revenge]
26) Agi 67 - October Sky [Magentax Remix]
27) Santiago, Nino & Alaa - Summer Days [Original Mix]
28) Groovepusher feat. Charlie Brown - I Won't feat. Charlie Brown [Hoxton Whores Remix]
29) Marko Kantola - Anywhere [Rough Mix]
30) Funkagenda - Breakwater [EDXs Ibiza Sunrise Remix]
31) Melleefresh & Deadmau5 - Sex Slave [Original Mix]
32) Tactic Tech - White Mashine
33) Sir Mix-a-lot - Baby Got Back

I would say that the timing for our gig here in Lahti is ideal. Now that summer holidays are over and universities, polytechnics etc. have started, a lot of people go out clubbing on weekends - especially on Saturdays. Hopefully we'll have loads of people coming in through the doors of Seurahuone Night.

About the music itself, both MK-Ultra and myself are hard at work planning our DJ-sets for the big night. I finally got into the process of making a preliminary track list to choose from in my sets next Saturday. So far the track list is quite long, but during the next few days I will gradually choose the best combination of music to be played. Naturally there has to be room for some last minute changes, since reactions of the audience must be taken into account when playing live sets.

At the moment I'm listening through the tracks and making notes how well they mix with each other. Harmonic mixing can take you only so far, in the end it’s the chemistry of the tracks that makes a nice set. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of time and effort to archive it, but honestly you never know in forehand how it comes out.

I'm planning to play a lot of fresh house music releases accompanied by new remixes of classic tracks. Style wise the name of the game will be progressive house, tech house and electro house. I hope to see you all on Saturday night!

One last thing; a lot of people have been asking who has designed our gig poster. The gentleman responsible is Brett Parson from United States. The voluptuous blonde on the poster is our mascot whom we have dubbed Kandi - homage to the once legendary Hed Kandi label. Isn't she hot or what? Chances are you'll be seeing more of her in the future.

Train info for people arriving from the Helsinki region.

19:12 Helsinki - 20:00 Lahti, Pendolino 79
19:19 Helsinki - 20:54 Lahti, Regional train R
19:41 Helsinki - 20:41 Lahti, Regional train Z
20:12 Helsinki - 21:06 Lahti, InterCity 113
20:19 Helsinki - 21:54 Lahti, Regional train R
20:41 Helsinki - 21:41 Lahti, Regional train Z
21:19 Helsinki - 22:54 Lahti, Regional train R
21:41 Helsinki - 22:41 Lahti, Regional train Z
22:41 Helsinki - 23:41 Lahti, Regional train Z

Moral of the story is that all the cool kids use FireWire. When it comes to FireWire audio interfaces, I can't praise enough how great the Edirol FA-66 is. Of all the audio hardware I've ever used, this one has to be the most reliable and problem-free kit ever. It was nothing short of perfect with my 13" MacBook and it has been nothing less with my current 15" MacBook Pro.

I became close to doing one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I put my FA-66 up for online auction after buying my Denon DN-X1600 mixer. The DN-X1600 is an otherwise excellent mixer, but its USB audio interface sucks just like all the other USB audio hardware out there. Despite the Mac OS X updates and Denon's firmware updates it's still not free of glitches. Luckily the FA-66 had not received any bids yet, so I was able to cancel the auction.

If you happen to own an Edirol FA-66, hold on to it like it's the crown jewels - even more so if you're a Mac user. Hopefully at least Apple keeps supporting FireWire in the future to avoid the vicious circle; computer manufacturers try to save a few odd bucks and ditch FireWire because so few need it - and in return audio interface manufacturers stop making FireWire-devices because even fewer have it. I fear the dreaded day when we're all stuck with no other choice than glorified mouse ports.

On a different subject, CMS's are for sissies - hardcore cats code websites from scratch by hand. It takes time, effort, skill and unhealthy amount of craftsmanship pride, but it's the only way to squeeze out every last drop of performance and SEO.

For developing and maintaining a website like ACDN which is built upon PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML and AJAX, a proper text editor is essential. I've tested dozens of editors over the years, but my current weapon of choice is Coda. Actually, it's is much more than a text editor. Coda is also a fully featured CSS-editor, FTP-client, SVN-client, terminal and an e-book reader. Furthermore, built-in functionality can be expanded via third-party plug-ins.

Update: Firmware v1020 seems to fix the kinks of DN-X1600. So far so good.

However, this blog entry is not a kebab recipe. Today at the ACDN kitchen special we're going to make burgers. Creating this recipe has actually taken quite a bit of thinking to maximize the culinary pleasure. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by telling how many grams of ingredients you need or how long you need to cook them. I trust you people have mastered such rudimentary cooking skills that you're able to use your own judgement. Just in case, it might be a good idea to first read through the recipe once before attempting to recreate it.

Here's the list of ingredients. Poppamies is a good place to acquire the cayenne ketchup, BBQ-sauce and salsa.

- Ground beef (aka minced meat)
- Red onions
- Chicken egg
- Strips of bacon
- Hamburger buns (preferably large ones)
- Cayenne ketchup (Pepper King's mild)
- BBQ-sauce (Bull's-Eye Original)
- Cheddar cheese (pre-wrapped sheets)
- Goat cheese
- Pineapple rings
- Salsa (Daniel's Fire Roast)
- Beefsteak tomatoes
- Slices of pickle
- Hamburger dressing

Start by heating the oven to around 100° C, fire up the stove and pour some oil on the pan. Chop the red unions into tiny bits and fry them on a hot pan. Mix the ground beef, onion and the egg and pat the paste into hamburger paddies. Put the buns to the oven and fry the paddies and the bacon strips from both sides on a pan. When you have fried the paddies on one side, turn them over, pour a generous splash of BBQ-sauce over the paddy and cover it with a sheet of cheddar cheese. The cheddar will melt over the paddy and contain the BBQ-sauce under it.

Slice up some tomatoes and the goat cheese. Take the buns out from the oven and cut them in half. Smear some cayenne ketchup all over the lower half of the bun. Then place the cheddar-covered paddy over the bun. Place a strip or two of bacon on top of the paddy, place the goat cheese slice on top of the bacon, then place a pineapple ring on top of the goat cheese. Fill the hole in the pineapple ring with a generous spoonful of salsa. Cover the salsa with tomato and pickle slices and smear some hamburger dressing on the bottom surface of the top half of the hamburger bun. Close the lid and gently press down the towering burger to make it a bit more compact. You're done, now let's eat the damn thing!

I personally recommend Coca-Cola to wash down the burger, but not just any Coke - go with the canned stuff. I'm a passionate advocate of canned Coke due to the superior thermal conductivity and carbonic acid preserving properties of the container. Feel free to have a brewskie instead, but I'm not much of a beer drinker so I can't really recommend a suitable brand.

Remember, eating good food should be a social event. As delicious this burger is, it reaches it full potential only in good company. Invite some friends over, fire up the stereo and put ACDN on, feast on some burgers and fall asleep on the couch next to your belly. Have fun, let us know how it went.

I may end up regretting I told you this, but our affection for other genres (i.e. trance, drum & bass) goes so deep that we've even considered launching sub-channels or sister podcasts. We receive loads of promo releases from the record labels, but sadly a large portion of them are never used because they're not house music.

That being said, please don't start holding your breaths just yet. There's no realistic chance of the sub-channels ever materializing before we can afford to quit our day jobs, recruit couple new DJs and full-time graphic artists - but then it would not be the same podcast as we know it. ACDN has been, and most likely will always be, a two man project - in artistic sense, that is. Three, if you count our recent manager Markku. Even in his case, we'd been friends for years before he took on the mantle. Frankly, I can't imagine trusting anyone else with that responsibility.

Aaaanyway...the point of all this rambling is that we do listen to other genres as well. If you happen to be into psychedelic trance (psytrance) and/or techno, do yourself a favor and visit Ektoplazm. This great netlabel/music portal not only offers loads of great releases for free (320Kbps MP3/FLAC/WAV) but also hours of interesting reading. The blog is filled with articles regarding evolution of business models in the music industry, pros and cons of free music distribution, copyright legislation issues etc.

The founder of Ektoplazm, Basilisk is clearly a kindred spirit. Like me, He's a DJ, web designer/programmer and a graphic artist. I can also relate to his idealistic determination to keep it real - as in sticking to free music distribution policy and optimizing the web site for user friendliness rather than commercialism. There are two kinds of DJs; The ones who struggle to become part of the scene, and those who become a scene by themselves. Basilisk is clearly the latter.

My hat's off to you, gents. You made a convert out of me.

Typical Finnish stag party consist of dressing the groom in a silly outfit and humiliating him with chores while the entourage gets boozed and laughs their asses off. Knowing Mesmic for more than a decade I can say with certainty it's not his scene. Thus, I conceived a two-part master plan - group activity and the grand finale.

For group activity I took the guys for a game of Megazone - in a nutshell, laser shoot fighting in a maze wearing sensor vests. On hindsight Megazone was a better idea than paintball. At times good sportsmanship proved challenging even without painful hits. For the last match we decided to raise the stakes; ACDN vs. The Entourage (3 vs. 7) - losing team has to sing Aikuinen nainen in the nearest karaoke bar. Magnitude of this bet might be hard to grasp for non-Finns, but suffice to say it's a fate worse than death.

Against seemingly uneven odds, ACDN wiped the floor with The Entourage. Sore losers that they were, the bet got turned around and groom was appointed for karaoke duty. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. At this point, we're still enjoying the after-game sauna (the real Finnish one, not those sissy steam rooms). I glance out the window; it's raining cats and dogs. Cold sweat starts to creep down my spine - grand finale is at risk.

After a manly dinner and Mesmic's crowd-roaring interpretation of "Aikuinen nainen", rain stops and sun starts to shine - effectively saving my plans. First half of the group takes Mesmic home waiting for further instructions. While he is getting boozed and wondering what's in store, other half is hard at work. Finally, the phone rings and Mesmic hears my ominous words:

"Pack your gear. You have a gig tonight."

While driving across town, confused Mesmic tries to figure out where the guys are taking him. Eventually, the car arrives and the overwhelmed groom finds a stage set up in the middle of City Park - complete with PA-system and a portable generator. He plugs in his gear and starts dropping beats instantly gathering dozens of listeners.

Success of the grand finale depended on two factors - weather and the cops. Mister Murphy already gave me some slack with weather, so when I spot an approaching police car I'm about to shit my pants ("Permits you say, officer?"). While I'm experiencing the longest seconds of my life, Mesmic is so hyped up that he barely even notices the cops. For whatever good deeds, the Karma Treasury grants me a hefty credit and the cops decide they'd rather have a doughnut than bother us.

Night starts to get dark and the crowd disperses, so it's time to pack up and leave. Timing couldn't be better, since the very second we're done it starts to rain again. I guess Ukko digs house music.

Once again, huge thanks to Harri, Heikki, Ilkka, Markku, Miika, Miko, Niko and Tuukka for participating and making the day worth remembering.

Welcome to the first entry of the new AuralCandy.Net blog! As you might already know, our second anniversary is right around the corner. We would love to have all our listeners be able to take part in the nightclub event, but sadly it's not possible due to the fact that our listener base consists of over 120 nationalities. Therefor it felt appropriate to bring something new to the website as well.

There's one thing that we've always felt was missing a bit - human contact. Big numbers on the statistics and hundreds of gigabytes of traffic are a sign that we've been doing something right, but they're hardly as satisfying as having someone come up to you and say "Hey man, I really dig what you're doing".

That being said, this blog is not just about getting feedback from the listeners - it's more about letting you guys and girls get a glimpse of what's happening behind the scenes. Until now you've seen only the end result, so hopefully you'll find it interesting to get some insight into our creative process as well.

Let me give you an example. Have you ever wondered how we come up with the names of our episodes - do we just pull the names randomly out of our asses or is there actually some thinking involved?

Sometimes names are born out of emotionally significant experiences. My first release Sunset at 40.000 feet refers to one of the most beautiful sights I have ever witnessed; the view above the clouds while flying over Paris. Beginnings And Endings had a different name originally, since it was first intended to be a praise for a person once significant to me. However, circumstances changed as did the track selection, and that particular episode became a personal healing process to cope with an ended relationship.

Fortunately not all names have gloomy hidden meanings. Some names are esoteric inside jokes, like The Big Wheel which is actually a goofy dance move - its origin has been lost down to the deep dungeons of alcohol-ravaged brain cells. Then there are the obscure wordplays and literature references like 10 Kinds Of People (I'll give one hint: binary) or Zen And The Art Of House Music. I could write a whole blog entry just to explain Journey or Beyond, but suffice to say that usually the shortest episode names have the most complex meanings behind them.

Honestly speaking, I'm not too proud to admit that sometimes we do pull the names out of our asses. Take Mysterium Fidei - I created the cover art, but had absolutely no clue what to call it. Mesmic didn't have anything in mind either, so I resorted to using latin phrase wiki and picked randomly the first quote that sounded cool. In case you're wondering, it means "mystery of faith" - somewhat ironic considering we're both utterly non-religious.

All right, that pretty much wraps up our first official blog entry. If you'd like us to cover some specific topic or you have some comments, feel free to leave them to the shoutbox. Catch you on the flip side.