North-West England, UK DJ Derek Kaye married his schoolboy passions of music and electronics in 1973 when he constructed his first disco sound system, aged just 13.
Prior to this, with DJ equipment something of a rarity in those days, he created a custom setup that bypassed the need for a mixer by rewiring his turntables in such a way that he could flip the sound from one deck to another, and installed a switch that would dip the music so a microphone from a portable cassette player could be used to announce the song on rotation.
His work soon grew in sophistication and a new console was built, with his schoolmate, Greg Wilson, buying Derek’s old rig, thus beginning his own well-documented DJ career.

Over the past 40 years, Derek has continued to DJ in and around the North West, both in residencies and guest spots, and his passion for music and electronics are still just as strong. His enviable studio has gone through the transitions of working with notator (the forerunner to logic) on the studio essential Atari 1040 ste with a collection of keyboards and Akai samplers, to just about “working out of the box” as is the case with a lot of studios now.