Josh Gabriel
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| Josh Gabriel | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Josh Gabriel |
| Origin | San Francisco, CA |
| Genre(s) | Progressive trance Electronica House |
| Occupation(s) | DJ, Producer, Remixer |
| Years active | 1988–2008 |
| Label(s) | Organized Nature Different Pieces |
| Associated acts | Gabriel & Dresden, Motorcycle, Andain, Bigtop |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| iMac G5, Logic Pro [1] | |
Josh Gabriel is a electronic dance music DJ and producer, formerly of Gabriel & Dresden with Dave Dresden.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Early Years (1988-2000)
In 1988-89, a 20 year old exchange student from California Institute of the Arts, was living in The Hague in Holland and studying at the Institute of Sonology. Josh Gabriel had already been working with digital music since his high-school days, achieving mastery of the DX7 and TX816 by the age of 17. With an Apple Macintosh Plus, operating system 3, and the earliest of music applications like Mark of the Unicorn’s “Composer” and “Performer”, Josh was already at the bleeding edge. In Holland, Gabriel’s inventor spirit took shape as he wrote a computer application to control samples on an Akai S900 in real-time with a joystick. And the inception for what later became Mixman had been born. Along with electronics whiz Jan Pannis, (Stockhausen’s tech-man) Gabriel and Pannis built an apparatus which converted beams of light coming up off the floor into a Midi Control device and the 20 year old Gabriel dressed in black, wearing white gloves performed his real-time beat-trigger device in the clubs of Amsterdam.
By 1993 Gabriel was doing high-end digital sound editing, design and production in Los Angeles, and finally found a business partner and the journey that was to become Mixman began. Mixam had always been conceived as a hardware device, the “Walkman”, the “Discman”, the “Mixman”… and several proto-types were built. The path to hardware was longer than software and in late 1995 early 1996 the first Mixman application was released to the public. Spin Control, included 8 songs from the San Francisco underground Dance Music scene, that were remixable with only a PC, enough RAM and a proper sound card. Mixman was here!
Gabriel's patents for loop-based music remixing are the backbone of industry standard music making software applications used in virtually every producers studio today. By 1999, Mixman had evolved and grown and merged with a larger dot.com. Expanding briefly to the Mac platform and deepening it’s relationship with Record Labels and MTV as well as starting work with Mattel on a controller (eventually became the DM2) -- things looked good. But as happened with many dot.coms the ride got bumpy. In late 2000 Gabriel decided he had had his fill of the corporate life, and decided he wanted to return to “music”. In 2002 Mixman sprung free of the dot.com shackles and returned to independence.
[edit] Gabriel & Dresden (2001-2008)
Josh Gabriel has an undergraduate college degree in music composition from the California Institute for the Arts. Josh founded the music creation tool Mixman in the 1990s. It was one of the first programs to use loops of digital audio for music making. Before he attended music school in Holland and Los Angeles and started experimenting with synthesizers and computers in the early 1980s. At the same time Dave Dresden was a club deejay in a suburb of New York City as well as a renowned US dance music journalist. He became the Music Director of grooveradio.com and met Pete Tong, who asked him to help find music for the Essential Selection. [2] They met at a party being hosted by grooveradio.com at the Miami Winter Music Conference in March 2001. Josh gave Leon Alexander a record, the record was "Wave 3", which Dave then gave to Pete Tong, and he played it on the Essential Selection and also used it for his compilation that same year. Pete gave Dave the opportunity to do a spec mix of New Order and Dave asked Josh to work on it with him. The two joined forces in 2001 and made a name for themselves by creating numerous remixes. In 2002 Gabriel & Dresden released their first single "Lament" (Saw Recordings) in the United States. The duo released numoerous singles and number one Billboard hits like Tracking Treasure Down and Dangerous Power; They also released one self-titled studio album together, Gabriel & Dresden (album).
The duo won the 2007 and 2008 IDMA award for "America's Best DJ". He has achieved 16 Billboard Dance Chart #1 hits as "Gabriel & Dresden", composed music that has appeared on FOX, HBO, NBC and CBS TV shows. Gabriel & Dresden have their own record label, Organized Nature, and they are about to release a new record as Andain, in which he co-wrote and produced. Gabriel has also invented a new pro-audio web application that will be available to the public in Winter 2009.
[edit] Post-Dresden Period (2008-Present)
The duo finished their last tour with two appearances at the WMC in Miami. They played an incredible 5+ hour set at the Pawn Shop on March 28, 2008 and a closing 1 hour set at the Beatport/Remix Hotel Pool Party at the National Hotel on March 30, 2008 (with visuals provided by VJ Psyberpixie). Josh Gabriel will now be touring solo and focusing more on his solo album due out later in 2008.
"Summit" is the first single from his debut solo album due out in 2008 which Josh Gabriel has recently released as a single. Other tracks, "Crosstalk" was originally found in the Toolroom Knights, Vol. 2 compilation mixed by Gabriel & Dresden as well as "Azora" which was found in Renaissance The Master Series Vol. 10 compilation mixed by Dave Seaman. The next release will be called "Tone Program" released on Josh Gabriel's new label, "Different Pieces".
[edit] Discography
For discography as Gabriel & Dresden, see Gabriel & Dresden discography.
[edit] Albums, singles and EPs
- Wave 3 2002
- Alive 2005
- Summit 2007
- Crosstalk 2007 (found on the Gabriel & Dresden's Toolroom Knights, Vol. 2 compilation)
- Azora 2008 (found on Dave Seaman's Renaissance: The Masters Series, Part 10 compilation)
[edit] Compilations
- Mixman: Remixable Hip-Hop · House · Acid Jazz · Underground 1996
[edit] Remixes
- Andain - Summer Calling (Josh Gabriel Mix) 2002
- Andain - Beautiful Things (Josh Gabriel Mix) 2003
- RND() - Nova Santori (Josh Gabriel Mix) 2004
- Layo & Bushwacka! - Let The Good Times Roll (Josh Gabriel Unauthorized Dub)
[edit] Co-productions
- Andain - Summer Calling
- Andain - Beautiful Things
- Tiësto - Walking On Clouds
- Armin van Buuren - Zocalo
- Markus Schulz - Without You Near
[edit] Awards & Nominations
For aawards as Gabriel & Dresden, see Gabriel & Dresden Awards / Nominations.
- Nominated WMC Best Progressive / Trance - Beautiful Things - Andain (Josh Gabriel)
