If you're the sort that's been paying enough attention to dance music to know a disco ball when you see one, then Sasha should need no introduction. For nearly two decades, the British DJ Sasha - real name Alexander Coe - has been one of the leading lights of the underground, both in terms of his musical tastes and in terms of his use of technology. An early champion of many of the technologies that are now commonplace in recording studios and DJ booths around the world, Sasha knows what works - and what doesn't - and isn't afraid to talk about his experiences and opinions on all things technical. He took a few minutes out of his busy schedule while on his way to Australia with John Digweed to talk with Area709’s Matthew Belleghem about how modern technology is transforming his DJing experience.

High on the list of technologies that have impacted Sasha’s work both in the studio and in the booth is the popular music production software Ableton Live. “Once I switched to Ableton and started DJing with it, I really got back into playing again, and really got excited by it,” he explains, his enthusiasm for the software clearly evident in his voice. “It's a mixer with endless channels – and it's a great creative tool. You're not just limited to a couple of decks, there's a lot of stuff you can do with it. You can completely re-edit others songs, and if you want to layer in beats from another track, you can do that, too. There's just so much you can do as a DJ.”

Whenever any new technology comes along that changes the landscape of a creative industry, there are always a handful of nay-sayers quick to criticise technological advances – and as Sasha sees it, software-based DJing is no different. “There's definitely prejudice with any kind of jump forward, any kind of change, I think. Some people have used the fact that I use Ableton just to have a dig at me because they don't like my music. The thing about Ableton is if you didn't like my music before, it's not suddenly transformed me into a completely different DJ. I'm still playing the records that I feel are my favourite records out there, putting them together the way I feel they should be put together.”

To Sasha, part of the criticism that has been directed at Ableton-based DJ setups has its roots in the computer’s traditional mouse-and-keyboard interface. “Unless you have a controller, or something similar to that, it is hard to use Ableton as a DJ. I went and built my own thing for that reason, and I'm surprised there hasn't been something similar on the market, to be honest.” Sasha's custom-built piece, which he calls the Maven, is a digital MIDI controller with analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue converters built in, running on open-source software that interfaces with Ableton Live. The closest the market has seen so far to compare Sasha's custom bit of kit, the Allen & Heath Xone 3D, hasn't particularly impressed Sasha. “It's nice, but I think it tries to be too many things, unfortunately,” he says.

Despite the advantages it confers, Sasha admits that using Ableton in a live setting does have its ups and downs. “I can't say everything about using it is a positive,” he confides. “I do miss the interaction, and sometimes I will switch and play a set on CDs and that feels very different. CDs felt different to playing vinyl, too. At the end of the day they're just tools for playing music - and each tool that you use shifts your brain into slightly different places. With Ableton I'm not focused on beatmatching, I'm focused on finding those records that really work together.”

Sasha also acknowledges that bringing Ableton into the booth hasn’t made his sets any easier, either. “It's still a thought process - it's not like I mix a tune in and then sit down and light a cigarette and talk with my mates for ten minutes while the record is playing,” he says with a chuckle. “I'm definitely very focused when I'm playing.” But while focusing on his software is important, Sasha says he must also still focus on the club around him. “You have to be well aware of what's going on around you, because things can go wrong. At the end of the day it is still a very fragile system - I'm using a computer in a nightclub!”

As a long-time user of the software, Sasha has worked closely with the German-based Ableton development team to develop new features. “I'm always sending them ideas, and it's been great, they've incorporated some of the things I've asked for. They're very receptive,” he says. In fact, as Sasha sees it, the receptivity of the Ableton team to so many new ideas has presented a challenge for the developers in their quest to make the program as usable as possible. “The problem is that they get bombarded with so many different people's opinions,” he says. “But, that's one of the beauties of Ableton - that you can completely customise it and make it your own. Every single DJ that I've seen playing with it, each uses it in a different way. It's difficult for those Ableton guys, they just get bombarded, I'm sure there must be times where they can't see the wood for the trees with what they should be doing,” he laughs.

Moving our discussion from the booth into the studio, I ask Sasha about how the advent of affordable professional-quality software-based audio recording packages such as Ableton Live has changed the way he makes music. “It's very nice to have the cash, to have the option to go into a big room and to mix your tracks down through all that analogue gear,” he explains. “It gives you a beautiful edge that you just can't recreate with a computer.” In order to inject some of that analogue warmth back into his software-based compositions, Sasha has turned to using a combination of his laptop – an Apple Macintosh – and external analogue components. “I've been investing in a lot of outboard analogue gear myself for my own studio to try and get the warmth back,” he says.

As Sasha sees it, this hybrid approach has given him the best of both worlds – the sonic quality of analogue gear, with the convenience and portability of a software-based solution. “Gone are the days of me spending four or five days in a big studio doing a remix,” he explains. “Now I do all the work at home, and maybe if it's got a big budget we get to the last stage, and we go into a big studio and mix it down. I understand how with the advent of computers the big studios are really struggling to keep it together, you know? Back in the early 90s there was no other way to get that sound, but now it is so easy to make good-sounding records.”

I ask Sasha if there are any particular bits of outboard kit that software-based dance music producers looking for some analogue warmth should put at the top of their shopping list. Here Sasha is unequivocal. “Definitely,” he says. “There's these things called summing amplifiers, that if you've got a soundcard that has multiple outputs, a summing amplifier will typically have eight or sixteen inputs, and it basically just puts your soundcard’s output through an analogue circuit and gives you a stereo channel back. The difference is just phenomenal.” We continue the conversation, and Sasha suggests a particular model for budding producers to start with. “SPL makes one that sells for about $1500,” he says. “We A-B'd that one against one that was about $6000 and another that was closer to $5000, and the SPL one really came out on top.”

And how does Sasha suggest the best way to set up a summing amplifier is? Here too, he is happy to explain in detail. “Basically, you split your mix up into submixes, so if you've got eight different busses to split your mix up to, you put drums, bass, vocals, whatever, just split it up as best you can and group things together.” It may sound simple, but to Sasha’s ears the difference is well worth it. “Even just that process of splitting things up, putting it through an analogue circuit and bouncing it back, the results are phenomenal,” he says. “That's one thing you can do, I think, where you can really get a great sound. It will really improve your mixes.”