Luke Una on rotary: "there’s a real thirst for this quality of mixer"

"Everyone should do sessions on a rotary mixer… sometimes the comfort zone is the coffin."

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House and disco DJ Luke Una has publicly praised the head of rotary mixer manufacturer MasterSounds, Ryan Shaw, saying that his "fascination with quality overrides all financial gain" and that there's a "real thirst" for its quality of rotary mixers in nightclubs today.

Una paid the compliment during a recent interview with musictech.com alongside the company's founder. The chat was focused around the brand's new Valve MK2 mixer.

In the interview, he said, "Ryan was someone I met through DJing and I loved his focus. Like me, there's a deep fascination with quality that overrides all financial gain. He probably shouldn't have started MasterSounds because it’ll fuck him for the rest of his life. I mean that in a positive way. He's so obsessed with it and he didn't do it for money."

"Magic comes from chaos," Una goes on. "You have to have chaos inside your soul because you do things you probably shouldn't. Ryan's chaos produces magic. He does things that probably don't make sense financially for a lot of companies and you see that in the quality. I’m now using the Valve MK2 at my gigs because it's so fucking good. I think a lot of DJs are frightened of it but everyone should do sessions on a rotary mixer. It takes half an hour to learn, but once you’re into it you’re into it – sometimes the comfort zone is the coffin. The longer, slower mix, the builds, the blends; they work beautifully."

He goes on to say how younger DJs and promoters today are demanding a better quality of sound that comes from rotary mixers, highlighting that nightclubs like Fabric are now more open to DJs bringing their own rotary mixers.

"There is a purity to [the Valve MK2] and, among the young lot coming through, there's a real thirst for this quality of mixer. Now places like Night Tales and Fabric will let you bring your own mixer, while Cobalt Studios and Faith In Strangers show real attention to detail and it works. People are enjoying themselves and they don't necessarily know why – it's because there are no bad frequencies and the sound is warm," he says.

Find out more about the new Valve MK2 rotary mixer by MasterSounds at mastersounds.co.uk.

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