Dane Stirrat on his latest remix, The Eden Experience & more

Dane Stirrat is an established South African DJ, a music producer, and an event promoter.

Dane is part of The Eden Experience crew.

Yup, those cool folks who deliver some of the raddest outdoor day parties during the Cape Town summer season.

In 2019 he moved to the UK to further his career but is still involved with The Eden Experience and, thankfully has not given up on the DJing and music production.

In fact, Lane 8 (AnjunaBeats / This Never Happened) recently ran a remix competition for the track, ‘Brightest Lights’ in March this year and Dane entered.

Sadly, he did not win but he has shared his remix on his SoundCloud page.

Give Dane’s remix a listen right here while reading the rest of this mini interview. 😉

Dane Stirrat · Lane 8 – Brightest Lights Feat. Poliça (Dane Stirrat Remix)

Anyway, we chatted to Dane about his remix, what he has been up to during lockdown and what the ‘Eden boys’ make of the future of events.

Tell us a bit about the remix competition you entered.

Lane 8 (Anjuna Beats / This Never Happened) released a remix competition for his track, ‘Brightest Lights’ in mid-March

He had this to say regarding his incentive around it, “ultimately about trying to spread positivity and love regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in.

I’ve tried to practice what I preach and really give back to you all for supporting me so intensely during this campaign, and I’d like to continue that with a new initiative: a Brightest Lights remix competition.” – Lane 8

Your remix maintains the spirit of the original but certainly adds some extra oomph with a groovy progressive touch which makes it more dancefloor orientated than the original. Take us through your thought process before you started.

With such a beautiful vocal and somewhat ‘easy going’ original track, the thought behind my remix was to keep the space and impact that the vocal has on the original track, but get it more towards a night time / dancefloor style track as you mentioned.

It has quite an interesting and fast changing chord progression throughout so I didn’t want to get too technical with that, but create somewhat more tension, suspense and drive thus adding some more groovy percussion, quite a few layers of drums / perc, lots and lots of rises and background FX, a subtle organ type synth and the lead synth you can hear that is quite prominent throughout.

If you listen carefully enough you will hear I added some ambient sounds of birds.

I got inspiration from a sunrise walk I did a few weeks back and all I could hear were the birds and it was so powerful in that moment, so I felt this would complement the track nicely and always remind me of that morning walk, but I guess if you aren’t listening out for them you may not notice them.

Did it turn out like you planned?

To be honest, I feel it may have turned out better than I originally thought, as I merely start with the vocal and a basic chord progression and build the track from there.

So, the only real planning I did was to make it more driving, more dance floor orientated and give it somewhat of a unique twist. I am super happy with the way it turned out and I cannot wait to play it out.

As I mentioned on my socials it is dedicated to all my friends and family spread around the world, as we may not be together, but we unite through music!

It was super humbling getting feedback from Lane 8 himself on the remix.

I must also give lots of credit to Mike Kelly (Sky Bear Studios / Ambious Records) for all the hard work he did on the final mix and master.

His experience and patience really came through and I owe a lot to him for that crisp, fat, spacious sound you hear in the master! Thanks Mike!

Tech question: What DAW are you using and what is your go-to plugin right now (FX or instrument).

I have used Logic Pro for around 11 years now.

Logic 9 for about 7 years and Logic X for the last 3 years or so.

I have always been a huge fan of Sylenth and have used it quite extensively, so if I had to choose one, I’d say Sylenth.

I’ve created and collected quite a few sound banks over the years so it’s always rad to keep building on them and add new sounds to a VST (Virtual Studio Technology) Plug-in that I know pretty well.

Recently though I have been doing a lot more sample editing of audio files, so that has been rather fun and a different way of doing things – you really can create some remarkably interesting sounds.

EDEN: It wouldn’t feel right not asking about The Eden Experience. Any plans to go virtual or are you guys going to rather bide your time and wait until the event landscape opens again?

The Eden team have been in pretty constant comms over the past few months regarding possible virtual events and the path forward, however, we are just hanging tight for now until things start becoming a tad clearer.

At this stage we are aiming for Feb 2021, as realistically we don’t think November will be able to go ahead.

But with that being said we will most definitely keep everyone updated as soon as things change or become clearer, so keep an eye out on our socials and website.

Last question: What have you been doing during lockdown to stay sane and stay productive?

It took a while to get into a routine which is completely normal, but the last few weeks I have been training in the mornings and starting my day how I would normally as if I was heading out into the city.

Other activities include making music, playing music, reading, listening to a lot of podcasts.

I would highly recommend the School of Greatness by Lewis Howes.

Meditating every single morning when waking, yoga at least 3 times a week, watching lectures/presentations online about topics that interest me.

Also cooking lots, daily walks, and bike rides, getting a lot sleep, drinking lots of water, and just not being too hard on yourself during this confusing time – everything will be okay.

Don’t watch too much of the news… 😉

Dane Stirrat on his latest remix, The Eden Experience & more