NEXT! The Notion of the Superstar DJ? Sander Kleinenberg’s Over It, Too. Now With Video as His New Frontier, He’s Re-Evaluating the
DJ’s Very Job Description.

By Emily Tan
Photos by Rick Arnold
Published in the April 2005 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 18 - Number 04

New York City – A word of warning: Beware Dutch DJs offering car rides in the rain.

From our recent experience, it’s clear that Sander Kleinenberg likes to shake you up a bit. At his insistence, we dispensed with the regulation hotel-room interview and instead loaded into his friend’s vintage Mustang convertible and sped off somewhat aimlessly through a steady Soho drizzle. Tape running, our conversation commenced as we sloshed over the Manhattan Bridge, did a 180 on a Brooklyn side street and then re-traced our slog over the Hudson River. Before parking, we conspicuously cruised the wrong way down a one-way.

Heyyyyyyy! Click. End of interview. OK, Sander, you’ve got our attention.

The point Kleinenberg was trying to make (we think) is that he’s through with many of the old conventions of the global DJ world. Yes, he’s still playing the super clubs and, yes, he’s racking up as many frequent-flier points as anyone, but Kleinenberg yearns for new frontiers—at the moment, video holds the most intrigue for him. Employing the skills of a video artist and the groundbreaking possibilities of Pioneer’s DVJ-X1 “DVD turntable,” Kleinenberg makes his tracks come alive before the eyes of global clubbers. It’s not an entirely perfect situation yet, he says, as video is only in its nascent stage for DJs now. DJ culture, he predicts, will benefit. Stay tuned.

Additionally, Kleinenberg views the perceived malaise in the upper-tier of DJ culture as an opportunity for DJs to re-define their roles and re-energize their artistry. Don’t be a fatcat, he implies; instead, take chances. Be different. Do the unexpected. Push boundaries. The best elements of DJ culture have always been about moving forward. Take the responsibility and do so yourself.

Of course, Kleinenberg’s more conventional skills can’t be diminished. His rise as a DJ-remixer-producer coincided with the late-’90s progressive-house/trance explosion, and DJ Times has had the privilege of catching his act in one-off London sweatboxes and lush New York ultra-venues, like Crobar where he’s now a resident. If you see him in action, you’ll notice that Kleinenberg—like most top DJs—seems to intuitively sense what works for a primed audience.

On the production end, his much-celebrated tracks “My Lexicon” and “Y.D.W. (You Do Me Wrong)” still draw crowd reaction. His label, Little Mountain Recordings, continues to champion quality tracks, notably Kleinenberg’s own lush numbers like “Buenos Aires,” “Work To Do,” “Triple Seven” and “Soulshelter.” Up until recently, he’s been a busy remixer with notable projects like Junkie XL feat. Peter Tosh’s “Don’t Wake Up Police Man,” Annie Lennox’s “Wonderful,” Spork’s “Freeek” and Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body”—winner of the 2004 Dancestar USA Award for “Best Remix.”

On his latest double-CD mix-compilation, This Is Everybody Too (Thrive), Kleinenberg melds hot tracks from likes of Deepsky and Redanka with some of his best studio work, like “The Fruit”—a cheeky, breaky departure from his more proggy moments. But that’s Sander Kleinenberg in 2005: Dare to be different, even if it scares some of your passengers.

DJ Times: Tell me about your latest compilation, This Is Everybody Too.
Sander Kleinenberg: The inspiration was to open myself up. I gave myself a platform, which was a little bit more off-beat and a little away from the traditional ways DJs present themselves. In terms of a boy-band picture, I want to take this away from where it’s been. I want to do my interviews in an old-school American car. That sums it up. I really believe that this scene needs some spirit, some enlightenment, some fresh ideas. Driving around New York in a car like this, with the weather like this…

DJ Times: In the pouring rain…
Kleinenberg: Sums up how I feel. We need to break out of the mold. It just seems like it became still for a while, not just mix-comps, but the whole DJ scene—you know what I mean? I play other people’s records. I’m not a star.

DJ Times: But you have some solid artist tracks on this album, like “The Fruit,” which I love.
Kleinenberg: Fair enough, but I think it’s a necessity for anyone who takes themselves seriously to unleash that creativity within themselves. I believe that, as a DJ, you have a great view of what goes on at dancefloors all around the world, and whenever I get a chance to translate that into original tracks, I take all that inspiration and bring it home to the studio and try to come up with weird stuff of my own. I think “The Fruit” gets a lot of criticism as well, because it’s so far away from where I was.

DJ Times: Why, because it’s not an overt dance track?
Kleinenberg: Because it’s not “My Lexicon,” and it’s not a melodic, trance-y track, what I used to be doing. I really like to turn things upside-down once in a while, just to make things more interesting for the audience, as well as for myself. I like to be inspired at all times and I hate the idea of stagnation. The idea of doing the same thing over and over again without spicing it up, that’s not what I get paid for. I get paid to take this to the next level. If it means DVD DJing, or making weird artwork for my mix CDs, then fine. I’ll use anything to get across what I want to get across, which is hopefully to find quality, electronic dance music.

DJ Times: You’re using the Pioneer DVJ-X1 “DVD turntable” when you play out. How exactly are you integrating it?
Kleinenberg: Our scene doesn’t really have a face. Our hit records—the hit records that are happening in the clubs—do not appear on MTV, and they don’t have any visual appearance anywhere. I was on tour last year with a great friend of mine, and he said to me, “Listen, it’s all good and well, but the only thing you do is show up with records and yeah, you play great music, but what if you could make this more memorable? What if you can make this more happening, more of a show, make more impact?” It was my friend, Wessel van Dieben, who’s a radio DJ. I had a great time with him, and it was fun to go around the world for a couple of weeks, but he got me thinking: What if there was a way to incorporate more visuals, or more of the virtual world that’s around us?

DJ Times: Are you creating your own visuals?
Kleinenberg: Yeah, I’ve hooked up with a video artist from the Netherlands, and I give him the tracks that I want visualized. We work with a cappellas, but also the idea of working with an artist and then record that artist on tape and then have that artist visually appear during one of your DJ sets. Maybe that’s a way to make a gig more memorable, more unique, make it more mine. Five or 10 years ago, if a DJ would’ve had exclusive insight into a certain producer or had exclusivity on a bunch of tracks, that would make him unique. If I play a really hot record in China tomorrow, and someone there records it, and it’s on the web three days later, then I bet your ass that two weeks from there, some clever guy in Chicago—and I don’t blame him—would rip that, because he’s like, “This is a hot track. I want to play this out.” Great music needs to be out there. The possibilities are endless, because, just think about what you can do with this technology, by making the artist visually, virtually there in the club with you! Or, making the lyrics appear as they happen. Those are the ideas that I’m getting my kicks from.

DJ Times: What content do you use?
Kleinenberg: You’ve got to try and be as original as possible. The most important thing is that it should represent the vibe. We try to re-create what we think is the color of the track. If a track is very lush and very esoteric or atmospheric, we tend to look at images of nature, or images of traveling. When it’s more gritty and more edgy, then we tend to use more hard-edged colors, make it shine out more and go away from the esoteric side of things.

DJ Times: Are you scratching with the DVJ-X1, or things like that?
Kleinenberg: No, I’m not, really. I’m not a hip-hop DJ. It’s not about my skills. I’m really there to feature what I think is interesting music. I’m not someone who’s showing off. I’m not there for myself; I’m there to give people a good time. But, I’ll do the occasional backspin or whatever, as a nice effect.

DJ Times: You use the DVJ-X1 to augment your live sets?
Kleinenberg: Oh, completely. Let’s say that, in essence, it has not changed the way I DJ. The way I DJ is, basically, I try to build up a night. Specifically, I have a couple of hours on my hands, and I set the mood for the rest of the night. I try to control a room, make it mine, and that’s a process which takes a while, but is something that, to me, is the art of DJing.

DJ Times: The tracks you’re going to play are the ones you would’ve played anyway?
Kleinenberg: Exactly. The fact that there’s video in my show has not changed that aspect of DJing. It just added to it.

DJ Times: You have a VJ with you for live gigs, as well?
Kleinenberg: I have a VJ also, yeah. It’s hard to visualize each and every track, because the turnover of records that I play is quite high. I don’t play tracks for more than a couple of weeks, sometimes only a week. To invest in having all of that made into video is a lot. It’s something that we choose not to do, but if I know that it’s a hot track and it’s something that I’ll play for a fair amount of time, it’s something that will get the treatment. We work a lot with a cappellas and just make little touches to tracks. We recorded about 25 sound bites with Jon Fugler, the singer of Fluke. When I’m in New York, I’ll drop stuff about New York; when I’m in Miami, it’s stuff about Miami. It’s personalized, customized.

DJ Times: Is your VJ mixing in what you’re feeding him from the DVJ?
Kleinenberg: At the moment, technically, there are still no video-audio mixers on the market. There’s still not a mixer that enables me to mix video and audio together. You still need two separate devices. Pioneer’s developing one at the moment. In essence, it would really be, not to say, too much of a job to do, but I use the Edirol V4, which is what my VJ controls. I work with whatever mixer—preferably a Rane or any kind of rotary mixer—for doing my stuff. We need each other. When I do this, I’ve got to go and give him a cue and say, “Yo, I’m in, and you’ve gotta bring this forward now and put it up on the screen.”

DJ Times: Do you point at him, or does he see the record or the CDs that you’re playing?
Kleinenberg: We have monitors on both ends [of the booth], but we make sure that in the set-up, he’s as close to me as he can get, so I can squeeze his balls whenever something needs to be done.

DJ Times: Describe your ideal DJ booth.
Kleinenberg: I don’t really have an ideal booth. You have to roll with the punches. My preference, I love the booth at Space34 in Miami, in the main room. That booth is phenomenal, with the soft carpet on the floors.

DJ Times: I meant equipment.
Kleinenberg: The 1200 or 1210 [MK2 turntables] from Technics. I love working with the [Pioneer] CDJ-1000s, and obviously, the [Pioneer] DVJ-X1. When it comes to digital carriers, like CDs or DVJs, the Pioneer would be my pick, but when it comes to vinyl, the Technics are the ones. For a mixer, the V6 of Allen & Heath is phenomenal. I could carry that around, but it’s just a really heavy piece of machinery. To ask every [club] to have it is not realistic. Any Allen & Heath mixer is something I love.

DJ Times: What remixing projects have you worked on since your remix of Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body”?
Kleinenberg: The most important thing I’ve done lately is work on original material, so I’ve not really done any remixes, lately. Apart from the fact that I’ve been on tour for about two months now, you can’t really do it all. There’s been some cool offers since, so when I come back, I’ll look at what I have time for. After this tour, I’m going to take about two, three months off, to not only rest, but work in the studio, and…

DJ Times: I understand your wife just gave birth to your daughter—congratulations! [Ed.—Simone gave birth to daughter Bibi this past Dec. 21 in The Hague.]
Kleinenberg: Yeah, thanks. [Laughs] My first, real, No.-1 production!

DJ Times: OK, so what’s in your home studio?
Kleinenberg: There’s a [Mac] G5, I work with a 2408mk3 MOTU recorder. I work predominantly on Logic [Audio]. I’ve got a [Lexicon] PCM90 [digital reverb] and the [Lexicon] MPX1 [multi-effect digital signal processor]. There’s a Waldorf [Electronics] Q [Rack virtual analog synthesizer], there’s a [Roland] Juno 106 [synthesizer], which is fantastic. I’ve got the Access Virus B, the [Universal Audio] UAD-1 [card for plug-ins], the Roland JV-1080 [synthesizer], [Clavia’s] Nord Rack [analog-emulating synthesizer], I’ve got the Waldorf Pulse [monophonic synthesizer], which I really like, for those mad synthetic basslines. If you want that in analog, that’s a really cool machine. I’ve got the Yamaha ANX1 [synthesizer], which is where the main root sound of “My Lexicon” came from. I’ve got the UAD effects card in there; it’s called [Universal Audio UAD-1] Studio Pak. To me, UAD makes the best soft plug-ins out there, so I bought two cards for that; the Cambridge EQ [plug-in] is the best EQ in my world that came out of a plug-in.

DJ Times: What else?
Kleinenberg: I love working with [E-Magic’s] EXS24 sampler. I remember it used to take me a day to load in all the samples and cut them and make them sound right. Now, it’s like, ftt-ftt! And it’s there, it’s phenomenal. I’ve got the Tubetek multi-band compressor, which is an incredible machine. It’s probably the most expensive thing I bought for this studio. I’ve got the M-Audio and Mackie monitors. I’ve got the [Pioneer] CDJ-1000s and the [Pioneer] DVJ-X1s. The [Allen & Heath Xone:]V6 mixer with tubes on all channels, plus the EQ rack that comes with it.

DJ Times: Mixing desk?
Kleinenberg: My mixing desk is a TL Audio M-3 Tubetracker—it’s an 8-channel tube desk. Underworld worked with it, but they worked with the 48-channel model. I have a channel strip from AMEK, an EQ channel strip designed by Neve. I’m very, very happy with the idea that you can actually now buy SSL J9000-101 sound, because of the fact that it’s all become so simple to re-route and channel different tracks. I bought the SSL and compression, meaning that now I can have access to SSL compression for a fraction of the price of actually buying the whole desk. I made an investment in buying a certain amount of what people see as old-school analog sound—a Rupert Neve EQ, a Rupert Neve dual compressor—and I can recommend to anyone who thinks that, you know, “I’ve got my digital set-up, I’ve got my [Mac] G5, I’ve got my 24A, but hey, fuck man, I can’t find that specific sound I’m looking for! That warmth in the bass, or that warmth in the high end.” I tell everybody to just buy one of those strips. I know it’s ridiculously expensive, and you need to maintain it. It’s like an old car, like what we’re riding in now. But hey, it’s classic.

DJ Times: So then, you feel that there are some sounds created using analog gear that simply cannot be re-created digitally?
Kleinenberg: Yeah, that’s as in life. There’s something about an old-school American V8 engine that makes a certain sound, [something] that makes driving special and gives it that extra kick.

DJ Times: As long as you don’t mind the 11 miles-per-gallon!
Kleinenberg: The 11 miles-per-gallon can be a metaphor for the fact that these machines are pricey. People can be like, “But wait a minute; I can have a $100 plug-in that comes close to what I want, or I can buy a $2,500 simple EQ strip that does exactly what I want!” The digital world is so hands-on; it’s great, because it doesn’t stand in the way of the creative process. But, you need analog for the overwhelming warmth that characterizes analog sound, the element that comes from a tube or from a classic EQ. Run your vocals through a real compression, because it makes the difference. The computer has democratized music. Ten years ago, it cost a million bucks to record an album. Now, you can buy $4,000 worth of gear, and you can go a long way. That’s good in many ways, because it opens opportunities for lesser-known people to have a voice in this industry and lets their talents speak. Two-hundred years ago, you needed to come from a wealthy family to be able to have the financial freedom to go into music and choose this career.

DJ Times: What’s the downside?
Kleinenberg: The downside is that we have 95-percent complete and utter crap on the market! But then, it’s up to me—as I see myself as a DJ, as being a selector—to root out the bad and try and let the good music shine. I get 30 CDs a night from people, and I listen to everything, but…I don’t want to sound arrogant, but in just 10 seconds, you know what you’re dealing with. I have many nights where until 7 in the morning, until my girl would call and be like, “Why on earth are you still in the studio?” It often happens that you listen to 100 tracks, and at 7 a.m., you go through your last three, four CDs and find the gem. The result being that after four, five hours of listening to music, I come across that one record that changes the Saturday night afterwards.

DJ Times: Why did you choose Crobar for your New York residency?
Kleinenberg: I think Crobar is a club that is destined for bigger things to come. The biggest sign is seeing the amount of talent that goes in there from all different scenes. You have [Erick] Morillo, [Roger] Sanchez, basically DJs you’d think are different styles, put them all together in that one room and make it work. To me, house music is finally coming back to re-grouping and making the scene unite again, instead of having to deal with 100 different sub-scenes and little sub-genres that have only a handful of fans. Crobar might be the institution that brings back a united dancefloor. Sasha [and John Digweed] just signed up for a residency, Roger [Sanchez] just signed-up for a residency, I just signed-up for a residency. Electronic music needs to get back to what it’s meant to be: music for celebrating life and for being yourself within. I am very optimistic about what Crobar can do, but Crobar is just a metaphor for where I see the scene at the moment.

DJ Times: Can you recount your best recent club night?
Kleinenberg: I had a phenomenal time in Japan at Womb, because I used the DVJs there, and it was the first time that I really felt like we were doing something that actually had a real impact on the people we were doing it for. The Japanese just seem to be very much in tune with the idea of the visuals being combined with the music, because it’s in their culture. The general manager of Pioneer and the head of product development were there with the CEO. I could see it in his eyes. He was like, “Oh my God, so this is what we do! This is what we’ve worked for!” It’s like the Roland guys making the 303, but making it thinking it would stand on housewives’ organs, because that’s what it was made for. I don’t know if you know, but the original Roland 303 was built as a kind of metronome for use with an organ, and a bunch of kids in Detroit were like, “Yo, wait a minute. Let’s play with this and make something fresh out of it!”

DJ Times: How have American crowds responded to the DVJ when you perform with it?
Kleinenberg: The last six weeks have honestly been the best six weeks I’ve had in the States, ever. I’ve been using it every time. But apart from that, just the gigs and the energy and vibe, the openness and willingness have been phenomenal. I know a lot of people say [dance music] is dead; you read magazines and it’s like, “Rock rules again! But I’m not seeing that. I’m talking about Wednesday night gigs in Washington, full, max, to the core. Atlanta was phenomenal. Miami was fantastic. L.A. was really good. I’ve not had a bad show during the whole tour. When I came into the States, the bad vibes that came out of London had gotten to me for a while. But, I really sense a great, positive energy coming from my dancefloors at the moment. It’s just a healthy revitalization of our scene that I feel.

DJ Times: Do you think the fact that the scene is perceived as going in the opposite direction is an opportunity for dance-music people and DJs to be more free about their pursuits? Now that there’s not as much attention from the mainstream press, will that help the creativity and the music?
Kleinenberg: We’re all using this time, having that pressure away from us. Let’s be honest—how can you market a DJ? That whole idea of the late-’90s, of the superstar DJ and the artist… You can only market if you give the DJ the right tools. At the end of the day, we’re playing other people’s records, and that concept is going to be very difficult to sell to Billboard. They’re going to be like, “Well, they didn’t really make this music.” Until the point where they say, “Maybe all these different records put together by a DJ is like the paint on the canvas.” Until someone really understands that, and—obviously we all understand that, within our community—to try to sell this to someone else is just really difficult. A DJ’s an abstract thing.

DJ Times: Do you think that having the visuals and using them in this way gives you an extra edge? Few big club DJs are using the DVJ-X1, apart from you and James Zabiela.
Kleinenberg: I really hope the future electronic artist will mean someone who not only makes the music, but who will automatically add the visual imagery to accompany it. What about if five years from now, underground labels will only release DVDs? We’d bypass downloading, because the files would be huge and it’ll be more difficult to take that all in. I really believe that the power of the DJ is that it reflects what our culture is today, which is: 90 channels, choices, flipping through the newest things at the speed of light, short attention spans. Much more than a live band, a DJ can be spontaneous every single time. A rock band plays the same fucking set-list every night! A DJ can give it his or her own twist, and you have so much more room to play with. That’s the big attraction to what we do.

DJ Times: What’s your advice to the aspiring DJs, producers and artists out there hoping to break into the industry?
Kleinenberg: I’d say, don’t expect at any point that you will become rich or famous, or successful. Even if you do, you’ve only just begun! It’s hard to get to the top, but it’s fucking harder to stay there.