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Oldskool online station streaming 192kbps.

WELCOME TO THE DJ NIK GNASHERS HOMEPAGE

You can hear me spinnning live audio + video on many internet radio stations contact me for details: nikharper_4@hotmail.com (or use the contact form towards the end of the page).

I currently use: TECHNICS SL1210M3D Turntables (X2), PIONEER DJM600 mixer, NUMARK CDN44Mk2 CD Players, SONY MDR-v500 Headphones, Quality Dynamic microphone, boxes of lovely sexy classic vinyl records, a PC (P4 3Ghz, 1024 Ddram, logitech webcam), and 10Mb cable.

I love most styles of music, and actually played the guitar for 12 years (hides from shame lol). At the time of writing this I am playing lots of Oldskool Hardcore, House, Trance, Progressive, Breaks, and Electro. I would like more oldskool vinyl ideally but I really do play allsorts of styles and enjoy all genres of music.

I think the past 10 years have seen DJ styles catagorised in the same way as music styles, which I dont think is a good thing. Hard style DJ's all seem to mix the same way and sound identical, as do most Trance DJ's, as do most DnB DJ's etc, there seems to have been a formula developed over time which 99% of DJ's stick to depending on which style they are playing. Well SOD THAT I say !!! To me, a really great DJ can spin any style of music, and mix each track in a different way, utilising many different styles.

To give one example - Carl Cox - This guy to me is the ultimate DJ. Not only can he play any style from 100bpm to 200bpm, he can also scratch like a turntablist ! I will always try to aspire to reach the level of ability that man has, and to think he was doing 4 turntables back in the early 90's while a lot of todays so called 'great' DJ's were still being breast-fed. I am a vinyl and analogue audio purist, because analogue is better ... why ? ... Read the end of this page to find out.

Pictured to the left, is myself from 2003.

Many years ago, a famous person once said "I have a dream". Late in 2004 I also had a dream, one that involved finding other people with the same enthusiasm, dedication, and sheer passion for music that I have myself.

My first musical influences were aged 4/5/6 yrs, when I used to play my Mum's old SKA 45's (7" singles) and dance/sing along to Prince Buster and other classic artists of the time. I fell in love with the beats and dance-music style that SKA and Reggae provided. As I grew up in the 1970's, I started to listen and appreciate other music of the era such as Funk, Soul, and Disco. I was totally taken over by the sheer energy that burst out of every 'non-pop' record I heard.

Pictured right is me (on the left) aged 15.

In the early 1980's, I discovered (along with a few friends) a new type of music coming out of america. We stayed up late at night to record this totally amazing new sound coming from the radio on our crappy cassette recorders. This 'new' music came to be known as HIP-HOP. For the next 6 years os so, I became totally a part of the B-Boy/HipHop movement, developing a passion for breakdancing, graffiti, and record 'scratching' sounds in my music. Most nights of the week you would find me and a few mates in town, gathered round our prized square of 'Lino', performing windmills to the robotic sounds of Grandmaster flash and early 'electro' albums, pumping out of our customised ghettoblasters (only stopping for a quick 'toot' on a joint !). I managed to get my first set of single speed decks and battery powered mixer around this time, and my love of vinyl took off big time.

The picture above right, shows me (on the left) aged 15 in my breakdancing gear (the person on the right was an old friend), I just wish I had a picture of our 'sacred' lino, or my amazing custmised ghettoblaster ! I totally loved the electro music, and the early rap of the time, but it soon changed and hip-hop became Gangsta-Rap, losing all its innocence and instead of B-Boys battling their differences on the Lino, it became more of a 'gang culture' kind of movement which I hated. The lyrics of KRS-1 from boogie down productions track 'stop the violence' sums this up for me. "See when im in a club, I came to chill-out, not watch someones blood just spill-out, thats what these other people want to see, another race fight endlessly".......

Middle: Me @ the Cell, Lincoln.

Right: Me and my partner.

RESPECT IS DUE: To the following people:

THE ELITE TEAM (especially mark & little robbo), This was Lincolns finest breakdancing crew back in the mid 80's, THE STAR FORCE 1 CREW (especially jay the turtler), Lincolns 2nd best breadancing crew, NEZZY my old breakdancing partner and co-owner of the famous lino (some amazing nights in the entrance to waring & gillows shop, my ghettoblaster boomin attracting ppl to watch us breakdancin), ELSEY (dave) / CATTY (lee meacham) / CHRIS DAVY / SPEEDY (pete rattigan) / TONY ARTER / SAM PALMER, for the most wicked times. Remember the nights we spent listening to latest hiphop vinyls all night in sam palmers attic bedroom smoking spliffs fkin top days, also the 40 mile mountain biking rides we used to go on. CHINNY for shinning up the drainpipe at the old cinema in town, and spraying his chinnyface tag right at the fkin top ! highest tag in the whole city respect ! WAYNE PERRY (R.I.P.). LEGSY no longer a mate but we had some good times in the past mixing and breakdancin. CHRIS BUTLER / STEVE SMITH / SIMON PHELPS for mad mad crazy druggy days loved every min of it mates, st giles crew in effect. STEVE WESTMORE my best mate since the age of 5 now abroad but still in touch wicked m8 always. STEVE & CLAIRE who I used to share a house with, sadly no longer in touch but we had some awesome times. GAZZA in skeg, who is still in contact, COLIN the TREE / RIFF (R.I.P.) / SMIFFY (paul) and the other crazy druggy's. Big Up the st giles crew who I had some great times with, including GIPPO / BILLY BICEPS / MICK LEWIS / JAMIE BARNES / DOGGER / MULL for some wicked guitar sessions at gippo's house 8 ppl with 8 guitars all singing & playing at same time ace fun, and the line of hot knives ready hahaha ! JFK (jon) for being a fantastic mate for a great number of years and still is to this day - Much Respect to you. DJ Y-MO who I met at music college and got me back into vinyls again giving me 45 house 12" records for nothing top man many thanks. Also the many freinds I have made since I came online including DJ TOMMI (top man cheerz for the tunes you sent buddy), MUSH, ALEX (DJ RETRO - many thanks for the isotonik 12"), HANDI, SPINDIZZEE, JEROEN (TonicXL), SOP (brandon), SPARKY (mikey), DARKBEATS & Gaz W (respect & many thanks for the records you let me have), Mark T (many thanks for the phantasy & gemini 12"), Tyrone (DJ Killerstorm), DJ Bigshorty (many thanks for the united dance album 87-92 box set your a star m8), and many more ppl, peace.............

The chatroom below is from the amazing Qchat system. Qchat is free, and run by some very nice people. By entering into the room, you can roam and visit other rooms that form the Qchat network, including quizrooms, scrabble, and many more. Simply type a name into the username box and hit enter.

LINKS:

 GNASH CHAT - free chatroom CLICK HERE ..This room is not moderated over 18's only.

 This link opens a FANTASTIC free skrabble game where you can play other players from around the world and chat at the same time, its very very good !!! CLICK HERE

 THE BEST OLDSKOOL RADIO & COMMUNITY ONLINE

 This is a long (over 1 hour) clip from 1992 amnesia house book of love rave event CLICK HERE

 This link is to a short 9min clip of an all-nighter 1991 CLICK HERE

 This link to a 7 min clip from shelleys (stoke) CLICK HERE

 This is a link to a clip of birmingham rag market rave 1991 PART 3 CLICK HERE

 This is a link to a clip of birmingham rag market rave 1991 PART 4 CLICK HERE

 MC PITMAN VIDEOS (v funny hip-hop) (realplayer only).............. ..............CLICK HERE VIDEO 1............. CLICK HERE VIDEO 2............ CLICK HERE VIDEO 3............. CLICK HERE VIDEO 4

 AWESOME RETRO GADGET WEBSITE CLICK HERE

 The History Of HouseMusic Explained CLICK HERE

 Test Your Internet Connection...

WHY DOES ANALOGUE SOUND BETTER ?

Why do some people prefer the sound of a vinyl record instead of a cd ?

Many people say analogue sound is better than digital, or more specifically, vinyl records are better than cd's, but what is the real truth ? I have read a lot of arguements from both analogue purists and digital lovers, and if you google for - analogue better than digital - you will find hundreds of sites on the subject. This is probably the best way to form your own opinion, rather than listening to what other people say (and in the large majority of cases the these other people havnt got a clue what the real truth is).

If you buy a CD album from a music store, and it is a commercial release, it will have audio recorded to the RED BOOK STANDARD. This is a standard of quality set over 30 years ago when CD's became a recording medium. Digital recording basically means that the audio is converted from the original analogue form, into digital using an AD converter. It is not necessary to know how an AD (or analogue to digital) converter works, it converts the raw analogue sound waves at the various frequencies (or oscillations) into a series of binary code (naughts and ones) that a digital audio system can understand. This is where the problems start.

The standard audio quality recomendations for the RED BOOK STANDARD are as follows...The frequency range from 20Hz (or 20 oscillations per second) up to 20,000Hz. The human ear can hear slightly below 20Hz, and (in perfect hearing) up to 22,000Hz. The electronic analogue instruments used in making music can emit frequencies down to 1Hz and some as high as 30,000Hz. A vinyl record can reproduce frequencies as low as 7Hz, and as high as 27,000Hz. Even though our ears may not be able to hear the actual notes of the 22,000+Hz frequencies, we can hear something and we do detect these frequencies in other ways, so much so that we can tell when they are missing. In a similair way, the bones in our ear cannot accurately detect the notes of a 10Hz bassline, but we can certainly FEEL the sound !!!

Apart from the missing frequencies in a RED BOOK CD recording, there is another defect in digital audio - it cannot reproduce perfect sine or triangle waves. This is a major flaw, as over 90% of all sound (be it instruments or natural sound) are pure sine waves. The way anything digital tries to reproduce sound waves is based on naughts and ones and as such it can only move up or across when drawing a sound wave, it can never go diagonally. The illustration below will show you how innaccurate a digital sine wave is. The raw 10kHz signal in black is a perfect sine wave, which most 25+ year old analogue synthesizers can perfectly reproduce.

As you can see, the DVD audio sine wave is more accurate than the CD. This is because it has a higher SAMPLE RATE. When a CD is recorded, the sound is sampled 44,100 times a second, and each sample has a BIT DEPTH of 16bit (over 65,000 different possible volume levels for the sample). A DVD has a SAMPLE RATE of 192,000 times a second (192kHz) and a bit depth of 24bit, and as such it records more of the original analogue information, thereby making it a more accurate reproduction of the original analogue audio. A vinyl record can EXACTLY reproduce the original analogue sound 100%. Because of the way analogue equipment works, there is some slight distortion to the sound, and cheap turntables can add a rumble noise that can be picked up by the stylus, but the 100% original sound is there and is reproduced exactly.

So in this way, a vinyl record is better than a cd. Better in this instance means it can reproduce the original analogue sound much more accurately than any digital form of recording. When you think of the fact that all guitars are analogue and emit perfect sine waves, this goes some way in explaining why a CD recording of guitar music sounds nothing like the original sound ... if the actual guitarist were playing the instrument in front of you, it would sound completely different to the digital recording. The only reason digital recording is so popular is because it is a lot easier to do, it is a lot cheaper to do, and it requires a lot less skill to do. But given the choice between driving a ford or a ferrari I know which one I would choose !!!

Digital Dj's consider this: While you are prommoting the awful cd/mp3 mixing systems and hammering more nails in the coffin of the vinyl DJ, just think what will happen in 10 years time....
When clubs can just programme a whole evenings music and a computer will auto-mix it 'live' to the dancefloor, meaning they no longer have to rely on paying a 'real' dj who might (god forbid) make a slight error during the mix. Of course, computer auto-mixing will ensure that every mix sounds the same and there is nothing to distinguish one club from another (exactly like cd/mp3 DJ's now so no change there then !). The end result ... DJ's will become a thing of the past, and that will be a very sad day indeed..........

My Qualifications include an A.N.D. in music technology & city&guilds 7307 teaching. I am available for bookings (live gigs), also any interested online radio/video streaming stations/networks please contact me via the form above.

copyright: Nik Gnashers 2004 / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008