Interview: Phil Mainville A.K.A. CTRL

_{www.insomniakmedia.com}

Phil Mainville, also known as CTRL, is a resident DJ at many locations across the city, between 302 Discotheque on Wednesdays and Beily's Ultralounge on Saturdays, Phil releases Always Killing It, a monthly hour and a half mix that ranges from Indie Dance to Dubstep and everything in between.

A few months ago I got a chance to ask Phil a few questions, and this is the short and skinny of it.

When and why did you start DJ'ing?
I started DJing around Christmas '09. I had fallen in love with Justice and after watching their documentary 'A Cross The Universe' and Daft Punk's 'Alive 2007' I knew that DJing was something I'd like to try.

What was your starting gear and what are you using now?
Scratching was never my goal so instead of getting vinyl turntables I wanted a setup that was digital with lots of versatility. At that time, the Pioneer 400 series had recently been released and were some of the first turntables to also double over as midi controllers. So I purchased 2 CDJ-400s and a DJM-400. Shortly after I purchased a Serato SL1 interface to run Serato Scratch Live, as well as an Akai MPK Mini for additional midi control.


_{CTRL's setup}

What DJ software do you use?
I've only given Serato Scratch Live a worthy amount of time, however Traktor is something I'd like to try one day.

Biggest influence?
Justice and Daft Punk are probably my favorite artists. They both have heavy rock influences as well as unique images with Justice's religious feel and Daft Punk's robotic disguise. Other influential artists include MSTRKRFT, Boys Noize, The Bloody Beetroots, SebastiAn.

There's always been a big stink about using sync to match BPMs when DJ'ing, what'd you think of it?
Sync is fine as long as you're spending your time doing other things to wow the crowd. It's simple in a Top 40 ultralounge where they mostly care about what you're playing instead of how you're delivering it. And at EDM shows most of my music stays between 125-132 BMP, therefore what's the difference between hitting 1 button and tweaking the tempo/jog?



Be sure to check out more of CTRL's mixes, every first day of the month, located on his Soundcloud page: Always Killing It
Also if you like what you heard, you can like CTRL on Facebook.