The DJs of Silicon Valley. They’re Changing Music.
If you’re not watching HBO’s Silicon Valley, you’d better start. Not only is it extremely funny and foul, but it’s also super-realistic when it comes to portraying the culture in that US tech hub.
The vehicle upon which everything revolves is Pied Piper, a fictional compression algorithm that is threatening to be very, very disruptive–if the guys behind the company can navigate the Valley sharks.
I bring this up because Pied Piper was originally designed with music applications–and music-related software and ventures are a big deal for Valley people. Which brings me to this Engadget article on Silicon Valley DJs:
Before Silicon Valley had an app for everything, and before the halcyon years preceding the dot-com bubble, Richard Quitevis and Ritche Desuasido were teaming up and making waves in the DJ industry. Disrupting, even. As DJs QBert and Yogafrog, respectively, both came up in the Bay Area mobile DJ scene of the early ’80s.
In 1996, they formed their own company, Thud Rumble, to help drive their craft forward with affordable gear created by and for DJs. From the early days launching cutting-edge records, to designing mixers for some of the biggest names in music and teaming up with Intel to create low-cost, low-latency instruments, Thud Rumble has had a huge impact on the technology used in the DJ world, all while living in the shadow of larger Silicon Valley companies.
