AD AbsoluteK WEHR Interview
Who the hell are you then? :o)
I’m the Command Attaché to the EH Internet Officer (AD TurtleXiV).
What made you decide to become a DJ for WEHR?
Well, I’ve always been fascinated with music, and audio in general, and I wanted to try out mixing it myself. While it has taken a while to get used to the audio mixing software I use, it was been fun to learn.
I’ve noticed that a lot of people who work for WEHR are also Internet Office people. Do you have to be an IO officer to work on WEHR?
Nope. Anybody that wishes to do a show for WEHR may do so.
Are there any plans on how to make WEHR better? If so, what are they?
Well, lately WEHR has been somewhat silent because myself, and the person who now runs it (Alex Foley) have been busy doing other activities. I would like to see more EH’ers submit shows to be put up on the WEHR site. It isn’t necessary to do a regular show. Also, I would like to see a mechanism where EH’ers can request songs to be put into the next WEHR show on the WEHR website at http://wehr.ehnet.org.
What improvements to you personally want to see?
Well, I would like to support more formats, such as MP3, and Windows Media. But until I get another drive for the IO web server, I will not be able to afford the space.
What about your own sessions? Do you have any plans on how to improve them?
Well, I’d like to talk more in my sessions, maybe present some EH news, have guest interviews, and maybe do a live session. Unfortunately, I’m somewhat busy lately because of college.
Do you listen to any of the other DJ’s sessions? Who do you reckon is the best out of them (no siding with Turtle just coz he’s ya boss)?
Heh, well personally I think my sessions are the best</full of self>, but I like both Turtle and Foley’s sessions. Also, I think the special session that COMM Kumba did with his weird mix of metal was also very well done.
I have worries that the WEHR radio station has just a small range of styles of music, with all this American drivel such as grunge and rap. How do you intend to counter that? (No offence, but the British scene is better)
Heh, while we are all entitled to our opinions, they are not always right :-p. Anyways, I do like some British music. I just don’t really have a whole lot of it (just an Elastica CD, and two Beatles CD’s). Of course, people could always request songs to be played in the next session of WEHR, and I could try finding it.
Do you not get into bother with record companies for playing their tracks and allowing people to listen to them for nothing?
No, because we are streaming though RealPlayer in a much lower quality than would be found on CD’s, you can’t actually download the sessions. Essentially, we are advertising for them.
Personally, what are your top 5 records? Also, what styles of music do you have a tendency for?
Well, that’s a tough one, there are so many records that I like. But if I had to choose I would say these 5 come closest to my favourites:
I know, it must be rather obvious that I like metal & grunge. I have an obvious tendency to go for hard, dark, and/or fast music. But I DO listen to most any kind of music. I like electronic music, some classical, and blues.
Do you own all of your albums, or have you gained some of them by…other means?
Well, I’ve borrowed CD’s from friends, and occasionally gotten mp3’s from Napster when people have requested a song that I do not have.
Would you have a problem with downloading MP3s or obtaining copied CDs? Hell, do you even use them to make your show?
Not really, but if a CD, or mp3 is good enough I will always go out and buy it later.
Is there any way for EH members to make requests for songs?
Unfortunately, no there is not… Yet… But I will make sure that there is a form put on the WEHR website so that EH’ers can request their favourite songs to be played on the next session of WEHR.
Why do you all use Real Player, when most radio stations lean towards Media Player now (like Radio 1, Ministry of Sound…you know, the big ones)?
Well, that’s unfortunately the way things seem to be going. The reason I use Real Player is because they have more free tools for their format than MS has available for their Windows Media format. For example, Real has made free editions of almost all of their tools such as the Real Media encoder, and Real Server which are also available on platforms such as Linux. I know that some people don’t like the fact that they have to download the Real Player and would prefer to use the tools that come with the Windows OS. Unfortunately, I don’t get the same amount of support for making my shows from MS, as I do from Real. However, I do make the occasional shows in the Windows Media format as well.
Would you consider using any other software, at least for compatibilities sake? (I know quite a few people who don’t want to download G2)
Well, the basic free Real Player program is a 4.4MB download which might take about 20 minutes to download. I’d like to note, that that is smaller download than the other media players such as QuickTime and Windows Media Player. Also, there are a lot of sites that use Real Media content on their sites. I will provide the occasional shows done in the Windows Media format as well, but it is not as high a priority.
Hang on, weren’t you in the squadron.org interview too? What made you so popular?
Dunno, maybe it’s because I host about 300 EH Websites, 100 email addresses, and about 25 email lists, or maybe it’s cause I’m just a cool person to talk to :-p
Any last words? :o)
Hrm… Let me see, umm… Nope. :-p