Just got my copy of Richie Hawtin’s DE9 | Transitions mix DVD. It’s cool. It’s a 96 minute mix, done in Dolby 5.1, but there’s also a MP3 version for plain old stereo people, like me, and for putting on iPods and such and also a CD with a cut down 74 min version. “However you want to hear my mix, take your pick.”

There’s also a bonus live mix and a short interview with the Man of Plastik himself. He talks about his interest in the future of DJing. Describing how once software takes care of beat matching the DJ’s role is to craft great transitions between tracks. This is really interesting to me. During my set at Norm and Ruth’s party on Saturday, I didn’t really build with the tracks I was playing. I did fairly basic chop-the-crossfader style mixing, unlike say what Liam Howlett achieves in his Dirtchamber mix or Soulwax or the turntablists and hip-hop producers like DJ Shadow do all the time.

Hawtin also talks a bit about how he put the mix together, creating it in Live and then mastering for 5.1 in ProTools. You get to see his studio and his Live session file, it’s huge. After reading yesterday about Liam Howlett’s use of a Roland W30, it’s interesting to compare the different approaches of dance musicians and think about how I can repeat their practices.