GABE REAL: My name is Gabe Real, and you’re watching Gearwire.Com.

I use Ableton and Reason and Absynth basically right now. I have a bunch of other synths too but those are the ones that I’m kind of using the most right now. I try to stick to a few that I know really well rather than, you know, picking presets out of a bunch of other ones.

BILL HOLLAND: Are you using any freeware plugins at all or pretty much Native Instruments stuff?

GABE REAL: I have some random plugins that friends had hooked me up with, you know, but for the most part I guess Native would be the main one, yeah, for sure, you know, and Reason, I mean Reason’s got a lot of great synths in it too.

When I DJ, I use Serato. I like to control the CD decks just because I made the switch from vinyl a while ago and I got comfortable with CD decks but I still like to use vinyl every now and then but usually it’s, you know, a Pioneer DJM-800 or an Allen & Heath and Serato and a couple of CDJ-1000 MK3s. It’s my ideal setup usually although I’ve been hearing really good things about Traktor Scratch with the new 3.0 update and a lot of things you can do with it. I was actually Richie Hart and using it down in Miami and it was it kind of blew me away like, and some of the stuff I’ve read online about what you can do with it, I think I’ll probably going to make the switch pretty soon.

People send me stuff, and if I like it I’ll play it or I’ll like I’ll cruise around on Beatport and buy stuff I like or, you know, another DJ I know of will play something and then I’ll -- I guess I go by artists who I like and then I’ll check out their labels and if it’s got just kind of like a funky groove and -- It’s kind of hard to describe a song and then -- It’s just whatever is moving me at the time really.

BILL HOLLAND: Whatever feels right?

GABE REAL: Pardon?

BILL HOLLAND: Whatever feels right?

GABE REAL: Yeah. I mean I really like minimal techno to tech house to like big kind of like Dirtybird-style tech house like I’m really into Justin Martin and Claude VonStroke like the Dirtybird guys. They’re some of my favorites. Worthy, you know, but then I also like a lot of the minor stuff so I’m kind of like everything in between and like there’s a lot of great guys coming out of the U.K. like Jesse Rose and Mowgli, so it’s kind of I’ll do more than that but then lately I’ve been doing a lot, playing a lot, going out of remixed old Booty tracks that have like an updated techno vibe to them.

I started going to Raves back in like ’94 and I fell in love with the culture and the music and I really think about it and I started promoting raves and then with the profit I made out of my first rave, I bought turntables and I never looked back. I’ve just been doing it ever since.

BILL HOLLAND: All right. Anything new coming up?

GABE REAL: I’m working on launching a label for the ball and basically I’m in the studio right now working on content and doing my own A&R as well and trying to find guys from Detroit that are into the same thing I’m into and kind of sharing my passion and vision. The label is called Detek, Detroit Techno, Detek. It’s kind of obvious but it wasn’t taken so I was like cool. And, yeah so I’m working on that for the most part. That’s the upcoming project, and it just wherever I’m DJing, residences and what not.