Rogerio Romao

About me:

I have been a music lover all of my life – i have listened to it all – pop, metal, grunge, alternative, you name it. Some influential bands for me were Depeche Mode, Pink Floyd, Pixies, The Doors - you can see the diversity. Then electronic dance music came along and changed my life forever. Of course i’d been listening to that since the late 80’s (Pump up the Jam, anyone?), with the whole acid house movement and mainstream bands incorporating those sounds… but it was really in 1994 that it really hit me bigtime. I used to go to a bar by that time, and a cd came out from Kaos Records with a lot of cool music, but especially the big hit So Get Up, from Underground Sound of Lisbon (Dj Vibe & Rui da Silva). We couldn’t play it during normal hours, because that was “crazy music”, but after the bar was closed, me, the bartender and some friends would stay there, just listening to it over and over again. It was magical, so different from anything else, so profound, full of possibilities. This was clearly the future… So i started listening to this kind of music, and shortly started attending my first rave parties, which were huge, with a great vibe and a lot of ilegal substances going around! I didn’t plan on being a dj at first, i was in it for the ride and the love for the music. But around early 1997, i found myself going to Lisbon to the record shops, buying some vinyl records – i had to have those tracks myself. So, logical consequence, around a year later in 1998, the bug bit me and i had to start djing – it was almost a physical desire i had. With a lot of effort, i bought my first mixer and set of Technics turntables (i miss them!), and started learning on my own. After some months, i played my first live set ever, an afterhours party with lots of friends there. It was a technical disaster, of course, but i was among friends, so it was ok… Things developed from there, i practiced lots, started getting more and more gigs, and by 2000 i was playing 2 times a week as a freelancer, in a lot of places. Many memorable nights and sets followed through the years, and a lot of fun too. I like playing long sets, starting more on the deep side, going techier and finishing with big room epic sounds. I like doing long smooth mixes, throwing in the occasional effect, acappella or mixing technique. Also had a 1 year experience as a resident dj, and a 5 years, 2-hours weekly mix-show on the radio, called Groovy Sessions. I enjoy and play most styles of house, deep, tech, progressive, tribal, minimal, techno, etc. I hate when dj’s just play that one mini-sub-sub-genre and dis everything else – until there’s a new hip mini-sub-sub-genre and then they start playing that and dissing the one they were playing before! Gotta respect the roots, i say. Bring on the new, but don’t trash the old. It was also around 1997/98 that i started playing around with making my own music. The first program i had was Magix Music Maker, i think it was version 1 or 2. Very basic, so i quickly became proficient at it, and finished quite a few techno tracks with it. There’s a couple of them i still remember, they were very cool, i wish i still had them around in some form. Then i got Rebirth and went to acid heaven – it was difficult doing anything in it that wasn't acid music, but it also taught me how to work with drum machines and synthesizers and step sequencing and it was a lot of fun. But i did this mainly for fun, had no real aspirations other than that, and my busy schedule of djing didn’t leave me much time for it. Cue some years forward, 2004, and the production bug bit me hard this time, started learning more about it, went through a course, got my first published track on a cd from Dance Club magazine that showcased the new talents in 2005 and never looked back. These days i have many released tracks and remixes in several labels (check out the discography page) and i’m pretty much an hardcore audio geek by now! My sequencer of choice now is Ableton Live, i love it and i’m probably gonna have many posts in the blog related to it. I’m also the owner and producer of Groove Packs, a company that makes Live Packs for the Ableton sequencer and also Sample Packs that can be used in any sequencer. Check it out!