BT’s Laptop Symphony Demo: 13 August 2011 – Brooklyn, NY

Electronic music pioneer BT (Brian Transeau) made a brief appearance at a retail outlet in Brooklyn as part of Pioneer DJ’s Artmix promotional mini-tour. A flyer had indicated there would be DJ mixers on display from 4 to 8 pm but no one was quite sure when BT would appear, so people started gathering in-store at 4 pm. Eventually after 5 pm, BT made a very welcome appearance. He mingled with fans before taking over the decks and setting up his laptop for a short but sweet and danceable set (it was probably no more than 30 minutes). Aside from the CDJ-2000 decks prominently featured, BT was also there to promote copies of his Stutter Edit production software.

On stage, BT did not actually use the CDJ mixers (as far as I saw). He instead made use of his laptop to put together one of his esteemed Laptop Symphonies, a way of mixing that is not quite a DJ set and quite different from a live performance. BT prerecords some of these Symphonies for broadcast on satellite radio mixing up some of hot house tracks he finds with some underground and unreleased works as well as some of his own songs. Even remixed works from Adele and Florence & The Machine have made their appearance. Fortunately for those of us without satellite radio, a few weeks after air date, the shows make their way onto the official Laptop Symphony site for listening.

Though the Jesse Graves one was designed to mess around with, as many of the attendees did and should have considering the Lego block construction, the other Pioneer CDJ mixers were strictly on display. BT’s creation was textured with paint purple and white flecks while the Steve Aoki one had a more freeform graffiti look. And, as you’ll see soon enough, Crystal Method’s version looked like a full-fledged instrument.

BT designed Pioneer CDJ-2000 mixer:

Jesse Graves designed Pioneer CDJ-2000 mixer:

Steve Aoki / DIM Mak designed Pioneer CDJ-2000 mixer:

The Crystal Method designed Pioneer CDJ-2000 mixer: