USA Spotlight#1 – MetaPattern (Atlanta, Georgia)
MetaPattern has been a mainstay of the Atlanta DNB scene for the last 15 years, with gigs across nearly all of the major events across the city, as well as holding a place within the organisational ranks of key groups in the DNB scene for many years.
He has graced the decks with a myriad of top flight DJ’s from both the UK and the USA, and has recently become a well known face on the Twitch DNB scene too. Representing Atlanta, Georgia to the fullest, we present to you, MetaPattern!
MetaPattern! Welcome INSIDE from way over there in Atlanta, Georgia!
Thank you! I’m so glad to be here making some great new friends and connections, as well as spreading the word about ATL DNB! I’ve loved reading about all the other Twitch homies on the site too!
You’re a regular face on the Twitch DNB scene, but before we go down that road, tell us a bit about yourself, and what you do? You’re an AV engineer and programmer right?
That’s right! I was an AV control system (mostly Crestron & QSC) programmer for 8 years, and now I work as a Sales Engineer for a mission-critical IP broadcast & streaming company. I’ve been in ATL since ’96 and was introduced into the DNB scene around ’07.
Starting around 2007 then, you’ve built up quite a resume in terms of projects you’ve been involved with and achievements you’ve made. What is your personal recollection of the music coming to Atlanta though? How did DNB land there?
For me, the main way that I was introduced to DNB in the city was after returning from my first music festival (Ultra in Miami of ’07) and searching for “Atlanta Drum & Bass” in Google, after being exposed to the blistering speed and percussion of DNB at the festival.
The top result was a website & forum called 404 Audio, where I immediately created an account and began slowly integrating into the community. I was only 18 at the time and probably the youngest member, so it was really intimidating at first!
And what would you say have been particular highlights and milestone moments for you since then?
After a decent handful of gigs here and there (plus many, many underground, non-DNB gigs as well), I feel like one of my favourite milestones was in 2015. By this point, the 404 Audio forum had slowed down while the 404 Audio record store had also come and went.
Thesis was the man in charge of 404 Audio at this point and he and the Elevate DNB team (before Elevate DNB truly launched) managed to secure a new weeknight DNB event at a venue where 404 Audio events used to occur.
They asked me to play the opening set that night, which was a blast. That particular night at that venue is what launched the next 4 years of renewed interest in DNB shows for the city, so getting to be the first DJ set of that new era is really special to me!
Other major highlights for me would be getting to close for Andy C and A.M.C. in the same month in 2019, as well as a spot on the DNB stage every year since 2016 for ATL’s Imagine Music Festival.
When looking at the main pillars of Atlanta DNB, you seem to have been affiliated with most of them. Could you tell us a bit about them all? Maybe you could point out some key figures within that Atlanta DNB community for those that are unaware and would like to know more?
404 Audio – Pioneered by Mayhem in the early 2000’s, who then handed the keys to Thesis in 2013, who then handed me the keys in 2022. The motto for 404 Audio is “All things Atlanta Drum & Bass” but we also welcome discussions and DJ’s from all genres.
We may not have a DNB record store anymore, but the website, merch store run by DJ Trulyfe, and now a discord server are currently our primary way of contributing to the ATL DNB scene. Who knows what will come next?!
Torch DNB – Launched in 2011 by Thesis, this show can also be summarized by its tagline: “All Drum & Bass, All night, and always free!!!” Pre-Covid, this show was a monthly free event which highlighted DNB DJ’s from ATL and the surrounding areas. Held at both the original Masquerade venue as well as its new home, this show is THE place to come and network and see your DNB homies.
Elevate DNB – Started by Amanda and Johnny Goodtime in 2015, this was the flipside to Torch DNB each month and featured headliners and other USA+UK DJ’s. Between Elevate and Torch, you basically always had at least two chances each month to catch DNB in the city!
There have been some big names from the UK passing through the city over the years. What kind of an impact would you say these high-profile DJ’s have on the local scene once they’ve been and gone again?
To me, the best part of larger headliners coming through was the support line ups for those shows and getting to see each ATL DJ shine as they brought their very best. Those types of shows would have folks coming out of the woodwork from in and around the city, giving the regular DJ’s and attendees a chance to see even more friends (and hopefully make some new ones) so that our list of regular attendees grew each time.
Since most of the UK DJ’s have to travel through ATL anyways when they come over, it was a really good way to make sure we could sneak an extra state on the front/tail end of a tour. Even if we weren’t the largest turnouts, we always seem to leave a good impression.
Atlanta has its own label then? Tell us a bit about Santoku Records!
Not just one, but up to four labels were active at one point! In the earlier days, you had 404 Audio with its own releases, Evol Intent Recs, then later on came NOISY and Santoku Records. 404 Audio and NOISY have not had any releases recently, and Evol Intent Recs is not based in ATL anymore as the EI guys have spread across the country, but Santoku Records is still here.
Logam is the main force behind Santoku, and I assist with promo and sometimes manage to discover a tune to sign. One of ATL’s DJ’s D:RC does all of the artwork (not just for Santoku, but every Torch DNB flyer too). It has been a while since a release due to Logam beginning a new company, but hopefully sometime soon we can get back into the action!
How did Atlanta survive the pandemic? How did your particular community get around it and keep the vibe going?
While I can’t really speak for all of Atlanta, I can definitely say that the community that I am in kept the vibe going by taking things online via Twitch and the Atlanta DJ Collective! Now, rather than just two or more DNB shows each month, folks are able to tune into ADJC on Twitch almost any day and have the ability to chat and hang out with friends!
We need to talk about United By Bass. They are based in San Diego, but you’re involved with that collective too right? What’s it all about?
This is a really interesting question, thanks for giving me a chance to (try to) explain! So, in San Diego you’ve got a crew called United by Bass, which you can think of as an analogue to Torch DNB and Elevate DNB in Atlanta – they have locals shows, headliner shows, and so on.
We’ve had some cross-promotion between cities in the past which is awesome too. The collective that I am involved with is called United By Breakbeat, which is an online Twitch collective started by Guddah & Co. So while both crews have the UBB acronym, it is really United By Breakbeat that I am closer with, although I have done a guest mix stream for United By Bass as well! Not confusing at all right? Luckily, both UBB teams are cool with each other as far as I know, with many of the San Diego folks also being a part of the Twitch UBB too.
What’s the deal with MC’s in the city then? Who you got sounding off over there?
Oh man, we’ve had some really talented MCs in ATL over the years. Some of my local favourites over the years have been Naferius, Kakrot MC, and MC Evade. Without a doubt the most prominent has been MC Armanni Reign, who I guarantee that you’ve heard in tunes from over the years. He’s been on tracks spanning the entire spectrum of EDM as well as the entire spectrum of Local<->Global producers and toured all over the place.
I am not exaggerating when I say that he is the most talented MC that I’ve ever seen, and I am blessed to get to see him perform (or share the stage WITH him) all the time!
It sounds like Atlanta has a serious scene going on?
You could say that for sure. Comparing numbers with other cities has never been the best way to judge whether any city’s scene is serious, but if you look at the effort and quality of work going into the shows, songs, and people in ATL, you can clearly see that we’re serious about what we love!
2020 saw you seriously get into Twitch, and as we fully represent that platform here, this is what we want to know about next! How did you discover the platform?
I have been watching gaming streams on Twitch for a long time now, speedrunning was my original way that I learned about it. I created an account back in 2017 I think? I uploaded a mix to my channel so that it wasn’t empty, but after seeing how much of the DJ set was muted I just assumed that nobody would want to stream on this platform!
Little did I know that the platform was just protecting me, and if I had focused more about getting people to watch me live then I could’ve had a solid account set up BEFORE Covid was a thing. Oh well!
When did you think about using it to seriously promote your sound and your style?
Once I learned the above info on how to adjust my expectations on how to use the platform, I realized that this was a perfect way to increase my reach beyond the city limits of Atlanta without having to slowly get regional and national IRL bookings.
There’s a dedicated Twitch based DJ collective in the city then? How did that come about, and what’s your place within the team?
Yes, there are a lot of ATL DJs on Twitch, and a pretty big number of them use the Atlanta DJ Collective channel! ADJC was launched in April 2020 by Subconscious, DaddyDough, Thomas B, and me. While I have mostly stepped back in terms of administration, I consider myself one of the ambassadors into the larger Twitch EDM DJ community.
One of my favourite things to do is to get channels to raid into ADJC to help spread awareness and to give our DJ’s a boost in viewers for that set. As the admin of the 404 Audio Discord, I also made sure that ADJC has its own special corner in the server for coordination and communication.
By default, you are broadcasting across the globe every time you go on line. How does it make you feel knowing you’ve got listeners across the Globe during your streams?
So freaking cool! Conceptually it’s no surprise that anyone around the world COULD be tuned in, but after 2 years of streaming I can legitimately say that I’ve made not just a connection, but friendships with people in each time zone of the world! Just knowing that I could travel to Brazil or the UK or Germany or Canada (just about every state in the US too) and have a decent chance at knowing someone or possibly even secure a DJ gig is so cool!
Is it important to you that you’re representing your home city when you stream, as well as delivering your individual DJ style?
Sometimes! I’ve been on fundraising and voter awareness raid trains before and for those types of events I absolutely make sure to put my best foot forward and represent ATL on Twitch. At the same time, I’m frequently trying new formats for streams on my off days that combine DJ’ing or EDM with gaming or puzzles, and those streams may not always capture an audience they way I’d like, so I don’t hold it against myself that I’m not doing a good job representing on those types of streams.
The community on Twitch is a bonafide brother/sisterhood. I’ve made good friends with people that I’ve never seen before in my life, but I know if I simply say hello in the chat, I’ll get a genuine response. How important is that element of the platform to you?
I really, really love it. Sometimes I’ll be having an off day or just a day full of lurking, and then I post one message in someone’s chat and all of a sudden, I see myself tagged like 20+ times from friends saying hello! It can make it difficult to leave a chat sometimes because I hate not responding to each person when that happens!
Tell us about your stream ethic then. These are often a very personalised, with some DJ’s choosing to focus on fun, others sharing their excitable personalities, and some just throwing down kick ass beats. Where do you stand within that spectrum?
My goal is to provide an average or above average DJ experience, an above average visual and technical experience, and then take all of that to a unique place that NOBODY else is doing in the form of adding twisty puzzles, Tetris skills, and beer reviews.
I love interacting with chat on the mic too and having fun, and I’ll always prefer having fun over delivering the most intricate technical DJ set, as I consider the DJing just one aspect of the full MetaPattern package. I just really love how a one hour stream can teach you so much more about a person’s personality, quirks, and hobbies than a one hour club DJ set can.
Twitch DNB is still relatively small and there is still a huge amount of potential networking to be done. There are also a lot of people for whom raving and clubbing just isn’t a possibility any more, or might never have been, so how do you see the whole scene progressing over the coming years?
Hopefully the networking continues to snowball as more and more people get involved, to the point where we effectively have a new generation of DJ’s touring their respective countries/states and performing solely based on the networking that came out of Twitch, while also continuing to stay online so that folks who can’t or won’t go out have a place where they can always find someone streaming their music of choice!
The differences in visuals across streamers is quite astounding. How important is to you that the set looks right? I mean me personally, I quite like the rawness of being inside somebody’s front room, but then I also fully respect what others do in terms of green screens and visuals.
As a viewer, I don’t mind whether I am looking at a messy bedroom, and greenscreen, or a professionally-built studio as long as the music is good and the people on screen and in chat are friendly.
As a pro-AV engineer, I can’t NOT give more props to streamers who have carved out a dedicated space for themselves and present the most visually pleasing setups. Hiding all wires, getting the lighting perfect, taking their OBS game to the next level, and having ways for chat to interact via lighting/scene control are some things that I look for and appreciate.
In terms of your own Twitch journey then, how can you see the platform unfolding for you personally?
It’s tough to say! Back in 2021, I wanted to keep pushing and hopefully one day make it to partner status, while also using my new connections to play at gigs out of state. However, in 2022 my job has really ramped up and I haven’t had as much time to stream, so I see myself “falling behind” some other streamers who have historically been following the same trajectory as me.
Luckily, I don’t beat myself up too badly about it, as it’s important to not compare yourself to others too often. Plus, the out-of-state gigs part is already more than capable of happening, and who knows maybe Q2 2022 I don’t travel as much for work and can get back to streaming more!
So, if you had to try and sell Twitch DNB to a dyed in the wool internet radio listener, or a Facebook live fan, what would you say are the overriding advantages of our favourite platform?
As one of the first ATL DNB DJ’s to livestream my old house parties on FB, not getting kicked off mid-stream is easily enough of a reason to abandon FB streaming for music. It’s tough because FB will try its best to pull some good viewer numbers for you when you begin streaming so that you come back, but after a while they dwindle and leave you wondering if you’re at the mercy of an algorithm or not.
With Twitch it feels like you achieve the numbers yourself once you get some momentum going. Internet radio listeners have been missing out on an entire visual experience that comes with DJ’ing on Twitch, and even though Twitch DNB is a “small” community there is almost never NOT someone online playing your favourite subgenre of DNB, so the choices that you have on Twitch definitely rivals the offerings of internet radio.
Twitch also allows direct interaction that most internet radio websites do not, other than a simple chat. On Twitch, you can have a conversation with the streamer and even get them to do silly or awesome things that would never happen on an internet radio show.
Podcasts are another area that you are actively involved in. Tell us a bit about that? How does it fit into everything else you do?
This was another facet of 404 Audio, my friend Thesis and I would have one episode per month where we would review beers, review the DNB shows of last month, and hype up the upcoming DNB shows of next month.
We would highlight our favourite tracks each month and have guests on as well for interviews. Although we missed the chance to integrate the podcast into our Twitch streams other than a couple of episodes, it still gave us a TON of experience talking on a mic and being comfortable doing things that I now take for granted on my streams.
A lot of DJ’s starting out on Twitch have a tendency to perform on Twitch like how they’d perform a gig at a club: silent, focused on the decks, and minimal interaction with chat. I could have easily had the same approach at first if I hadn’t gotten used to speaking and watching how other streamers made their streams fun by doing things other than DJing while live.
Things seem to be getting back to some level of normality post pandemic, and live music is becoming a thing again. What do you have planned for the summer ahead?
The gigs are slowly picking back up for me, and we’ve got some more folks in the DNB scene starting to throw their own shows, so it’s going to be a brand new page in the history books for ATL DNB!
Now that I can start having larger groups of friends over, I will probably begin doing some house parties and streaming those too. Hopefully I can fit all of this fun in around work as I travel!
MetaPattern, it has been a pleasure talking to you. We wish you all the best for the future!
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Mike H (@djmetapattern) • Instagram photos and videos
