Achieving techno Zen with Chris Liebing

Is there anything you find yourself doing in every set to get people into that moment?

Oh there’s really nothing you can do and it’s something I had to learn over years, and I’m still learning. You always have to adapt to the circumstances and there are many factors that influence the outcome of a night. Maybe two or three people on the dancefloor having a bad time and looking at you not smiling and you think ‘oh my god they’re not having a good time, what the fuck am I doing!’ I think part of it is the experience you’ve accumulated over the years of DJing that helps you get into that thing because the less you have to think about, your set-up or the technology you’re using or the music you want to play, the better it is, the less you are distracted by what you need to do.

You’ve got quite a technologically advanced set-up with Native Instruments, how much does that help you get into the flow of a set?

In the beginning it distracts you to get into the flow because playing with a more complicated digital set-up, where you’re using loopers and samplers and drum machines, you have to think a lot about what button you have to press. But this Native Instruments set-up I describe like my instrument and the more I get familiar with it, the more I don’t need to think about what button I have to press and then it’s like playing really good guitar; you don’t have to think about where to put your fingers to play a chord. The better you are at that, the easier it will be to create anything that comes out of this moment without planning it or thinking about it too much. The set-up that I’m using now with big help from Native Instruments and PLAYdifferently and the Model One mixer and amazing soundcards that make it sound great like Antelope Audio, it really makes a huge difference. It is the most intuitive for me and also the most stable and the best sounding and it helps me to get into that flow.