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New rhythms

PHOTO:S. SIVA SARAVANAN

Trendsetter DJ Karthikbab at his music studio

DJ Karthikbab entered the music scene when youngsters were dancing to the tunes of A. R. Rahman. And, the refreshing music inspired this DJ to set new trends. "It is amazing the way A.R. Rahman uses technology and musical instruments," says Karthikbab and plays his karaoke remix of akkambakkam from Kireedam, in an all-new music mix.

"Retaining the feel of the original composition is important. Knowledge about the flow of the track, the loop pattern, tempo, rhythm and beats matters," the DJ adds, whose karaoke re-mixes are not mere instrumental versions of popular songs.

He combines technology - music mixing software such as sound forge and music director's gold - and talent to infuse new life into songs.

"Sometimes, I hire keyboard artistes to introduce new beats," says the DJ, who has an enviable collection of 800 karaoke re-mix tracks, beginning with classics such as aasayae alaipolae and the evergreen kalangalil aval vasantham. His karaoke CDs of Tamil, Hindi, English and Malayalam numbers are heard in places as far as the U.S., Singapore and Malaysia, and Sri Lanka through the network of Tamil Manrams. He has set up a DJ music studio for entertainers who create theme based music for stage shows. "When a kid wants to perform a fairy tale, we create the story, step by step with the music, sound effects and the voice dubbing and create a cinematic background for the performance," he explains.

He has worked on about 70 school projects, which include public awareness themes such as banning plastic bags, cutting of trees, traffic rules, and so on.

He has also composed script-oriented music for comedies in the popular TV show Asatha povadhu yaaru.

He has an impressive sound effects library with around 10,000 sound samples - animal sounds, jungle effect, sci-fi robot effects, kitchen sounds, water flow, train accidents, car crash, screams, etc. "I need to put in 12 hours of hard work to create a two-second effect," he explains.

Karthikbab says being a DJ is not easy. You need to be up to date with all music titles. He has performed livemixing for the IT crowd in Bangalore and travels to Cochin, Chennai, Ooty, Coonoor, Trichy and Kumbakonam for corporate events, birthday parties, mehendi ceremonies and farm house parties.

"I carry 30,000 to 50,000 tracks and do live re-mixing. We change the tempo of the song, add special effects such as echo, change the tempo, etc. to make it faster. People want new sounds which they have not heard before."

He will soon launch an album titled `Seashore for meditation and relaxation', based on the sounds of Nature.

"People who live in the metros miss out so much on Nature. So, the album will have the sounds of waves and breeze and a lot of temple music, to give a therapeutic feel," he says.

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