01-16-2007, 12:48 PM
Rarely do you find someone in the scene that loves the scene as much as these guys do. They have worked long and hard, put in time,money sweat, and i'm sure tears, in order to bring this music to the masses....
I dont personal know these guys, but after reading what they had to say, i would love to hang out with true to the music people like them, if more people were as interested in moving the music like they are, then the edm scene would be so much further along then it is now.
please take the time to not only read, but also to check out their station, and give a little support back to someone who has put so much support in.
1. Where is OG based?
Orbital Grooves was started on September 23, 2002 in Tampa Florida by Max
Rathbone. The station was a spin off from a message board and used to be
called Dance BBS Radio. The initial idea for the station was to create a
location online where one person could dj and his/her friends could tune in
from various locations. This was right when the shoutcast technology was
first emerging. Initially our station could support only about 6-10
listeners on a 64k stream. Currently we can host over 500 on a cd quality
128k stream and we also run a low-bandwidth stream for those with a dialup
connection. I personally joined the site as a dj on January 29, 2003. I
became a staff member within a few months and we haven't looked back since.
Max and I have our roles with he doing all the technical aspects of the site
and me being responsible for the site operations and station
growth/direction. I currently live in Orlando so you can say the site has
roots all over Florida. In addition to our staff members, we have a
volunteer team called superusers with members all over the world.
2. What styles do you play on OG?
We welcome djs to play any form of electronic dance music. That means all
house, trance, breakbeats, drum n bass, and everything that may fall as a
sub-genre under those. As long as it is up-tempo enough to be considered
dance music, we welcome it. In addition to our main site, we have a
breakbeats only station (ogrbreaks.com) and we are currently developing a
talk channel for spoken content.
3. How exactly does your station work?
Very easy actually--All a dj needs (other than mixing ability) is a
broadband connection of at least 150 kbps upload and a 3-dollar adapter cord
from any electronic supply store. This cord takes an RCA feed on one end and
puts it out as a stereo feed on a 1/8 tip (think headphone size plug). The
dj then plugs this into the 'line in' on their PC and through the use of
free software and they are ready to go. Any person with minimal technical
knowledge could get this setup going in about 30 minutes with one of our
superusers guiding them. We really strive to make things as user-friendly as possible. Once people see how easy it is to share their music with the
world, they are usually hooked.
4. Do you do guest dj's and if so do you archive the shows?
Our entire roster could be considered guest djs. We encourage everyone to
sign up for an account. Our member djs span the entire globe and play all
forms of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Within each dj's timeslot, they have
the freedom to have guest djs play that do not necessarily have affiliation
with our site. Basically a dj's two hours are theirs. As long as they abide
by our PG-13 content rating and follow the few guidelines we have, guest djs
are welcome and encouraged. We do not automatically record shows but do ask
our volunteers and djs to record shows so they can be uploaded to our re-run
server. Whenever we do not have a live dj on the air, we broadcast recorded
sets from various djs. There is always something playing on Orbital Grooves.
5. How long you been online?
We have been on the air since September 23rd, 2002. Since that time we have
had several site upgrades and expansions of our listener capacity. We have
also added many features such as video streaming (for djs that have
webcams), podcasting, customized playlists, and a download archive of over
four hundred 2-hour sets that grows each week. All of our podcasts and
downloads are free for the world.
6. Tell us your favorite shows or moments in OG radio
It is impossible to pick a favorite moment. We love broadcasting from remote
events as it brings us a very good amount of exposure. We love the
excitement that new djs bring to the site and we always enjoy the experience
and knowledge that our veteran djs provide. Some of the ones off the top of
my head would be:
-Having our anniversary parties where we get to put faces with people we've
only known online
-Upgrading to a listener capacity of over 500 hi-fi streams
-Breaking the top 250 in shoutcast tracked radio stations
-Having our station listed on the iTunes radio listing
-Having professional promotion kits made that featured demo cds, pamphlets,
and related promo gear
-Launching updated versions of our site that include features no other
Internet Radio Station offers
But I would say the single greatest thing is the establishment of our
community-like situation. Without a doubt, the most common thing we hear is
how friendly everyone is, how supportive the djs are, and how positive the
vibe is surrounding our station. It humbles us to think that we have created
something of this magnitude; a place where people from all over the world
gather in support of one of their greatest loves: Music. It is extremely
rewarding to watch our members in action. It is awesome to see how friendly and active our djs are to members of our chat room.
We simply don't tolerate negativity. There is enough hate in the world today. We want OGR to be a
place where people can network with others, and do so while enjoying the
best Electronic Music the world's djs have to offer.
7. Are you a DJ also? If so, how long and what style?
Yes I currently dj and produce EDM. I have been mixing for just under 4
years and have been producing for a little over 15 months. You can find free
mixes and links to my original tracks at my site. The address is
http://www.djlucas.us and I have just started a
free podcast so people can subscribe to the feed and get the latest content
automatically. I tend to lean towards the progressive side of EDM, so my
genres of choice are progressive breakbeat and trance. My musical production
leans towards the breakbeat spectrum with a heavy influence of ambient and
progressive elements.
8. Could our readers add your station to their website for their visitors?
Please do! We love cross promotion and have many buttons and dynamic banners
that they can incorporate easily into their site. We support link exchanges
and would be very grateful for anyone who would put some OGR info on their
site/blog/etc. Please have all those interested send an email to
promotions@orbitalgrooves.com and we'll get started right away.
9. What's in the future for you and OG radio?
Our major goal for OGR is to secure a corporate sponsor. This will allow us
the financial freedom to expand to the level that we have always dreamed of.
Within the site operations, we envision a multi-channel setup that spans as
many genres of all music as possible. We would also like to grow our
services division in 2007 as much as possible. One thing that people do not
realize about our station is that we are a full service web host that offers
competitive plans on web-site creation, hosting, storage space, and
customized radio stations. We currently host 4 other stations under our
umbrella and would love to have more. These are independently run stations
where the station admin(s) decide what is played, who can dj, etc. In these
cases, OGR provides an awesome interface that is completely automated and
requires very little maintenance from either side. We also will be
increasing the amount of free downloads and podcasts that we provide to our
visitors as this area has become very popular this year. OGR would also like
to get involved in broadcasting more events live. If you are throwing an
event and would like to open it up to worldwide exposure, please contact us
today. I would also like to see more business growth in our software
solutions area. We have the technical ability to provide cutting edge,
user-oriented solutions to businesses of all operating platforms and
focuses.
Personally, I hope to release my first original cd by the end of this year
or in early 2007. I would also like to start a local night in Orlando that
focuses on a warm vibe and positive atmosphere. I'd like to establish a
weekly venue where the local djs are still encouraged and where people of
all ages can come to relax, mingle, network, and enjoy truly intelligent
EDM. I also hope to collaborate with other EDM producers to make music and
venture into producing some new genres as well. Of course one of my personal
goals is always to do whatever I can to help OGR develop into the vision
that Max and I share.
Thank you for the opportunity to give your readers some information about
our radio station and what are ideas are for how the EDM scene should
operate. I sincerely appreciate the time taken by you to publish this, and
that which is given by your readers for going through this interview.
The following links are related to this information:
All OGR information - operations@orbitalgrooves.com
OGR Main Site - http://www.orbitalgrooves.com
OGR Breakbeat Site - http://www.ogrbreaks.com
OGR on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/orbitalgroovesradio
Lucas Site - http://www.djlucas.us
Lucas on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/inteligentedm
Lucas Personal Email - lucas@djlucas.us
I dont personal know these guys, but after reading what they had to say, i would love to hang out with true to the music people like them, if more people were as interested in moving the music like they are, then the edm scene would be so much further along then it is now.
please take the time to not only read, but also to check out their station, and give a little support back to someone who has put so much support in.
1. Where is OG based?
Orbital Grooves was started on September 23, 2002 in Tampa Florida by Max
Rathbone. The station was a spin off from a message board and used to be
called Dance BBS Radio. The initial idea for the station was to create a
location online where one person could dj and his/her friends could tune in
from various locations. This was right when the shoutcast technology was
first emerging. Initially our station could support only about 6-10
listeners on a 64k stream. Currently we can host over 500 on a cd quality
128k stream and we also run a low-bandwidth stream for those with a dialup
connection. I personally joined the site as a dj on January 29, 2003. I
became a staff member within a few months and we haven't looked back since.
Max and I have our roles with he doing all the technical aspects of the site
and me being responsible for the site operations and station
growth/direction. I currently live in Orlando so you can say the site has
roots all over Florida. In addition to our staff members, we have a
volunteer team called superusers with members all over the world.
2. What styles do you play on OG?
We welcome djs to play any form of electronic dance music. That means all
house, trance, breakbeats, drum n bass, and everything that may fall as a
sub-genre under those. As long as it is up-tempo enough to be considered
dance music, we welcome it. In addition to our main site, we have a
breakbeats only station (ogrbreaks.com) and we are currently developing a
talk channel for spoken content.
3. How exactly does your station work?
Very easy actually--All a dj needs (other than mixing ability) is a
broadband connection of at least 150 kbps upload and a 3-dollar adapter cord
from any electronic supply store. This cord takes an RCA feed on one end and
puts it out as a stereo feed on a 1/8 tip (think headphone size plug). The
dj then plugs this into the 'line in' on their PC and through the use of
free software and they are ready to go. Any person with minimal technical
knowledge could get this setup going in about 30 minutes with one of our
superusers guiding them. We really strive to make things as user-friendly as possible. Once people see how easy it is to share their music with the
world, they are usually hooked.
4. Do you do guest dj's and if so do you archive the shows?
Our entire roster could be considered guest djs. We encourage everyone to
sign up for an account. Our member djs span the entire globe and play all
forms of Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Within each dj's timeslot, they have
the freedom to have guest djs play that do not necessarily have affiliation
with our site. Basically a dj's two hours are theirs. As long as they abide
by our PG-13 content rating and follow the few guidelines we have, guest djs
are welcome and encouraged. We do not automatically record shows but do ask
our volunteers and djs to record shows so they can be uploaded to our re-run
server. Whenever we do not have a live dj on the air, we broadcast recorded
sets from various djs. There is always something playing on Orbital Grooves.
5. How long you been online?
We have been on the air since September 23rd, 2002. Since that time we have
had several site upgrades and expansions of our listener capacity. We have
also added many features such as video streaming (for djs that have
webcams), podcasting, customized playlists, and a download archive of over
four hundred 2-hour sets that grows each week. All of our podcasts and
downloads are free for the world.
6. Tell us your favorite shows or moments in OG radio
It is impossible to pick a favorite moment. We love broadcasting from remote
events as it brings us a very good amount of exposure. We love the
excitement that new djs bring to the site and we always enjoy the experience
and knowledge that our veteran djs provide. Some of the ones off the top of
my head would be:
-Having our anniversary parties where we get to put faces with people we've
only known online
-Upgrading to a listener capacity of over 500 hi-fi streams
-Breaking the top 250 in shoutcast tracked radio stations
-Having our station listed on the iTunes radio listing
-Having professional promotion kits made that featured demo cds, pamphlets,
and related promo gear
-Launching updated versions of our site that include features no other
Internet Radio Station offers
But I would say the single greatest thing is the establishment of our
community-like situation. Without a doubt, the most common thing we hear is
how friendly everyone is, how supportive the djs are, and how positive the
vibe is surrounding our station. It humbles us to think that we have created
something of this magnitude; a place where people from all over the world
gather in support of one of their greatest loves: Music. It is extremely
rewarding to watch our members in action. It is awesome to see how friendly and active our djs are to members of our chat room.
We simply don't tolerate negativity. There is enough hate in the world today. We want OGR to be a
place where people can network with others, and do so while enjoying the
best Electronic Music the world's djs have to offer.
7. Are you a DJ also? If so, how long and what style?
Yes I currently dj and produce EDM. I have been mixing for just under 4
years and have been producing for a little over 15 months. You can find free
mixes and links to my original tracks at my site. The address is
http://www.djlucas.us and I have just started a
free podcast so people can subscribe to the feed and get the latest content
automatically. I tend to lean towards the progressive side of EDM, so my
genres of choice are progressive breakbeat and trance. My musical production
leans towards the breakbeat spectrum with a heavy influence of ambient and
progressive elements.
8. Could our readers add your station to their website for their visitors?
Please do! We love cross promotion and have many buttons and dynamic banners
that they can incorporate easily into their site. We support link exchanges
and would be very grateful for anyone who would put some OGR info on their
site/blog/etc. Please have all those interested send an email to
promotions@orbitalgrooves.com and we'll get started right away.
9. What's in the future for you and OG radio?
Our major goal for OGR is to secure a corporate sponsor. This will allow us
the financial freedom to expand to the level that we have always dreamed of.
Within the site operations, we envision a multi-channel setup that spans as
many genres of all music as possible. We would also like to grow our
services division in 2007 as much as possible. One thing that people do not
realize about our station is that we are a full service web host that offers
competitive plans on web-site creation, hosting, storage space, and
customized radio stations. We currently host 4 other stations under our
umbrella and would love to have more. These are independently run stations
where the station admin(s) decide what is played, who can dj, etc. In these
cases, OGR provides an awesome interface that is completely automated and
requires very little maintenance from either side. We also will be
increasing the amount of free downloads and podcasts that we provide to our
visitors as this area has become very popular this year. OGR would also like
to get involved in broadcasting more events live. If you are throwing an
event and would like to open it up to worldwide exposure, please contact us
today. I would also like to see more business growth in our software
solutions area. We have the technical ability to provide cutting edge,
user-oriented solutions to businesses of all operating platforms and
focuses.
Personally, I hope to release my first original cd by the end of this year
or in early 2007. I would also like to start a local night in Orlando that
focuses on a warm vibe and positive atmosphere. I'd like to establish a
weekly venue where the local djs are still encouraged and where people of
all ages can come to relax, mingle, network, and enjoy truly intelligent
EDM. I also hope to collaborate with other EDM producers to make music and
venture into producing some new genres as well. Of course one of my personal
goals is always to do whatever I can to help OGR develop into the vision
that Max and I share.
Thank you for the opportunity to give your readers some information about
our radio station and what are ideas are for how the EDM scene should
operate. I sincerely appreciate the time taken by you to publish this, and
that which is given by your readers for going through this interview.
The following links are related to this information:
All OGR information - operations@orbitalgrooves.com
OGR Main Site - http://www.orbitalgrooves.com
OGR Breakbeat Site - http://www.ogrbreaks.com
OGR on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/orbitalgroovesradio
Lucas Site - http://www.djlucas.us
Lucas on MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/inteligentedm
Lucas Personal Email - lucas@djlucas.us