Remix Hotel NYC

Remix Hotel is a convention that seems to be mostly targeted at and is obviously attended by a demographics of young DJs, electronic musicians and hip hop artists, but even though most of the gear on display might be from the so-called “pro-sumer” market section (when compared with the kind of gear at conventions like AES), the people attending Remix are from across the board and so it becomes increasingly interesting to interact with peers and musicians alike.

I checked out a few of the seminars this year, although I did not want to wait on line for half hour or more for the others. Hank Shocklee’s company organized all and moderated most of the panels. That guy just has a great sense for business and experience in the music field so I enjoyed the panels he moderated because he had a good idea of where to take the panelists and how to keep things moving, balanced, interesting and on topic.

Having the convention at SAE (School of Audio Engineering) where the rooms are somewhat acoustically isolated and where there is good gear in a lot of different rooms makes sense and is nice (it certainly adds to the atmosphere and to the whole experience), but I think Remix Hotel NYC might have to accept the fact that they outgrew the space and need to look for venues that can accommodate more people, to avoid creating huge lines that clog the hallways and keeping people from attending panels they might be interested in seeing.

Except for the crowd issues, I think the single most annoying thing about Remix Hotel attendees is that everyone calls himself/herself a producer…  I understand what they mean and where they are coming from but I just don’t think that owning a computer and a music software makes you producer, sorry. Hank Shocklee hit the nail right on its head when he intervened in one of the panels to point out that it’s about a lot more than just that… Sure, if we take into account the etymology of the word, we are all “producing” music my merely “making” music, but I don’t understand why at some point in time somebody started using that word to make them look cooler even though they never actually produced anything (at least not according to what “producing” meant until a few years ago). I guess this might be a by-product of digital technology (which I absolutely love and embrace, don’t get me wrong) but people like George Martin, Rick Rubin or even Timbaland must be rubbed the wrong way by this. Maybe I am just a bit nostalgic of the original meaning attached to the word, but producing is much more than “making” music, producing includes musical skills, knowing what works where and when, knowing who to hire to play what, knowing how to deal with people (many would argue that producers are also psychologists!) and much much more…

Anyway, aside from my little rant of the day, Remix Hotel was a fun weekend. The highlight for me was the fact that NARAS (the Grammy Awards accademy) had a VIP lounge with (not the greatest) food and (a decent selection of) drinks that definitely facilitated the whole networking aspect of things. I met a lot of cool new people, saw people I hadn’t seen in a while, made new connections etc etc… Actually the lounge was sponsored by the Producers and Engineers wing of NARAS, so I felt right at home and the NARAS people were very welcoming and great…

This was my second year at Remix Hotel NYC and I enjoyed it…