“It’s important to remember that we’re performers and people want to be entertained,” Richie Hawtin allows as we discuss the stagecraft of modern DJing. “But, I think there’s a trend these days to over-entertain and try to get as much attention as possible.”
At a time when all-you-can-eat spectacle has come to define mainstage DJ shows, there is something quietly rebellious about DEX EFX XOX, the new concert series Hawtin debuted at this years’ Movement Festival Detroit and Sónar Barcelona. Like a mad scientist measuring the pulse of his latest creation, Hawtin’s attention remained locked to the equipment spread out before him. No hyping up the crowd, no clapping and jumping up and down, just a focused sonic exploration that grabbed concertgoers by the eardrums and didn’t let go. This was shoegaze techno. Serious, seductive, intoxicating stuff.
“I’ve sunken back into my nerdy era,” Hawtin admits with a laugh when asked about the performances. “Right now, I just want to continue delving even deeper into the art of DJing; to focus on the sound and give people an evolving, heartening version of what DJing is.”
A sage of electronic music, Hawtin has been at the forefront of minimalist techno for over three decades. His Plastikman and F.U.S.E aliases have become bywords for Detroit’s hugely influential second wave, he was a founder of Beatport, and he helped lead the transition to digital DJing through early investments in Serato’s predecessor, Final Scratch. In recent years, he’s routinely graced the stages of the biggest and most prestigious electronic music festivals in the world.
Given all that, you might be wondering just how much “deeper into the art of DJing” Hawtin could possibly go. The answer, it seems, is a lot.
Hawtin’s setup for DEX EFX XOX is a masterclass in music technology, employing Traktor, Bitwig, Hawtin’s own MODEL 1 mixer, two A&H Xone K2 MIDI controllers, a Novation Launchpad, and a bunch of “custom scripts” that allow on-the-fly control over a suite of Roland software emulations, including the TR-808, TR-909, and the SH-101.
“It’s about going beyond what you can do just putting two records on top of each other,” Hawtin says of the new setup. “It’s about going beyond the normal decks, or CDJ, or computer, and having other bells, whistles, gizmos, and toys to modify and tweak out the records.”
Impressive as all that may sound, Hawtin quickly adds that, in the near future, he’ll go even further. “This show was built upon two new controllers from a company in Argentina called Yaeltex [a custom MIDI controller maker], which, because of outside forces, never actually got integrated into the setup. So, it’s all a bit hodge-podge right now but will be fleshed out with these new controllers on the next shows.”
One addition we can expect to hear in future shows is the use of stem separation – something Hawtin has previously avoided. “My shows are all pretty spontaneous,” he says “I’ve been reluctant to use any stem separation because it all has to be done beforehand. But real-time, high-quality stem separation is coming very shortly, and I’m excited because that will allow for even more fluid mixing.
“We have a script that allows me to take the key of whatever song is playing over to Bitwig,” he continues. “Over to some transposition maps, and then to bring in other melodies which are in key. Once the stem separation is working, it will be very easy to get the melody from a stem, rearrange the notes and bring that back in – that’s where this show is going.”
Fans will recognise the DEX EFX XOX name as a riff on Hawtin’s seminal Decks, EFX & 909 shows—and accompanying compilation albums—from the late 90s and early 2000s. Even back then, Hawtin was bringing new levels of improvisation, musicality, and technological complexity to the DJ booth. Something that was not always appreciated by the venues of the time.
“Those performances were a way to tell people that I was doing something new,” recalls Hawtin. “We used to get in fights with club owners on those original tours because they just didn’t understand or accept that we needed them to come to the club early so we could plug everything in and do a sound check.”
Club owners may no longer grumble at DJs arriving with additional gear, but, some 30 years on, Hawtin’s dedication to live performance still feels strangely iconoclastic. Hardware and software is more powerful, diverse, and affordable than ever – yet pre-recorded DJ sets are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. For many, the attraction of live concerts have shifted away from virtuoso music performances toward immersive audio visual spectacle.
DEX EFX XOX makes a strong counterargument. Not only does the show place its emphasis firmly on real, live performance but it makes a concerted effort to strip back the visual components to leave something that will feel familiar to veteran clubbers.
“This show looks back in order to look forward,” states Hawtin. “It’s about remembering where this culture came from. Lighting was always part of the DJ experience, but it wasn’t something that you directly looked at – it was something you were inside of even when you closed your eyes. I’m trying to do something on a main stage that brings us back into that hypnotic state.”
That isn’t to say that Hawtin neglects the visual side of his live shows — he just wants to reset and rebalance the dynamic. “I’m always trying to create and control new audiovisual experiences,” he emphasises. “Every club setup is like an art installation. Now that DJing has taken an incredible step up, it should be comfortable on a main stage, but it’s very easy to lose yourself in all the possibilities of a large show and end up creating something more for the eyes than for the ears.”
Lighting was always part of the DJ experience, but it wasn’t something that you directly looked at – it was something you were inside of even when you closed your eyes. I’m trying to do something on a main stage that brings us back into that hypnotic state.
Many artists might be tempted to settle into a routine when it comes to their live shows, to stick with something that just works. What’s remarkable about Hawtin’s career, dating back to the late 80s, is his drive to continually refine or remake his concert setup, often from tour to tour.
“It’s a lot of work,” he readily admits. “There’s like three or four shows I’m currently working on, full of crazy ideas and they probably won’t all come through to the finish line, but I’m always trying to keep that creative spark alive, keep myself interested, and make sure I’m having fun up there.”
Belief in the power of tinkering is something Hawtin learned young, around a family dinner table cluttered with deconstructed electronics equipment as often as food. His father, who worked in robotics, was not only a source of DIY inspiration – he was there to help out when Hawtin decided to put his spin on DJ mixers.
You might know Hawtin’s MODEL 1 as a highly tactile analogue mixer used by the likes of Carl Cox and Four Tet, but its earliest iteration was actually an attempt to bring MIDI functionality into the DJ booth. “I wanted MIDI control for my late-90s Dex, EFX & 909 shows,” Hawtin recalls.
“Luckily, I had what all my friends in Detroit called my ‘secret weapon’ – my dad. He bought some early MIDI brains, put them inside an Allen & Heath Xone:62 Mixer, and we had pretty much one of the first MIDI DJ mixers.
“That collaboration,” he continues. “And then later conversations with my dad, Andy Rigby Jones, and Allen & Heath, helped develop the Allen & Heath Xone:92 and then eventually the MODEL 1. Funnily enough, the only difference is that when we get to the MODEL 1 there’s no MIDI control, there’s none of the things that we actually innovated back then, because by that time there were MIDI controllers everywhere.”
Few musicians have enjoyed such a long and close love affair with technology as Hawtin. Over the years, he’s been involved with any number of innovations – from experiments with AI music to musical games in the Metaverse. However, as he talks, the focus always returns to human creativity. He’s not a technophile but a pragmatist; always looking for the tools that will support and elevate the act of music-making.
“What really interests me is how we connect to these machines physically,” he says emphatically. “How do we transfer our movements, our emotions, our unique characteristics into the tech? If we don’t have good ways to make that happen then we’re going to end up with a bunch of DJs and producers who all sound the same, and that would be extremely boring.”
I’m curious – does Hawtin think new tools like real-time stem separation might push more DJs to focus on live sound manipulation in the booth?
He pauses for a moment.
“Yes and no.”
“On one level, I see that the scene has exploded with the TikTok DJ generation who maybe think that DJing is just two CDJs and a mixer, but I’m starting to see some of the DJs who’ve been around longer really jumping into these hybrid setups. Once tech like stem separation is inside the CDJ, people will get a bit more creative — but will we see a whole generation of DJs working on their own unique setup? I’m not sure that that’s going to happen.”
Not one to beat up on techno’s fresh faces, Hawtin clarifies immediately: “I don’t want to sound like I’m slagging off the new-school DJs. Really, the production etiquette and technique of young, modern producers is fucking mind blowing. The music they’re making crosses and combines genres more than ever before — there used to be the house lane, the techno lane, the minimal lane. Now, it’s all going back into the melting pot and that’s where a lot of the energy and excitement is coming from.”
His point, however, stands. Why is it that veterans like Hawtin and Carl Cox are leading the push for live innovation and not EDM’s newest entrants? “Part of it is just the convenience of jumping on a plane with a USB stick and jamming out some great tunes,” he muses. “I would have been excited if I could have done that 30 years ago, instead of dragging around three 50kg cases and a friend to help me.”
Hawtin has spent a lot of time thinking about the next generation of electronic musicians. In the 2010s — as EDM was snowballing into a global juggernaut — he offered a series of masterclasses on US campuses, grounding students in the history and culture of techno. Since then, he’s established a PhD scholarship in electronic music at the University of Huddersfield, and collaborated with Erica Synths on the Bullfrog; a series of analog synthesisers designed specifically for the classroom.
The latest entrant in the Bullfrog lineup, Bullfrog Drums, is due to arrive by the end of the year and will focus on teaching the fundamentals of drum programming and sampling. “All the experience I’ve had jamming on 909s for the last 30 years went into this,” he says of the new instrument. “Having fun is a big part of the Bullfrog line— if you’re having fun then you’re going to learn.
While he isn’t able to drop too many details regarding the new instrument, Hawtin says it’ll be a small unit that balances features against simplicity: “It has some limited capabilities because we wanted to make it easy. But, with the CVs on the back, and the ability to hook it up to the Bullfrog or any other device, it’s going to make it a great little touring instrument.”
After spending a lifetime immersed in electronic music Hawtin confesses that it gets harder and harder to be surprised by what he hears. “To be part of that first or second wave of modern techno and electronic music… that moment will never happen again,” he says thoughtfully. “Every day, we were hearing sounds and records that we’d never heard before.”
Does that mean that electronic music has run out of road? Far from it. If anything, Hawtin seems more determined than ever to keep his music moving, and to bring the rest of the scene with him.
“What pushes me along is a belief that electronic music always needs to reinvent and experiment in itself. Electronic music is a language; it has this energy that touches people all over the world. That is what makes our music scene so beautiful and powerful.”
