Quite simply these guys have fingers in every sonic pie and are consequently making huge waves in the music world, with big name fans like Zane Lowe, Laurent Garnier (who described one of their mixes as a ‘phat monster motherfucker!’) and Pendulum.

The Qemists have remixed acts including Coldcut, Roots Manuva and Cooper Temple Clause and acted as live sound engineers for Basement Jaxx amongst many others. If you think these musical roles are diverse, just try labeling their sound. It mixes a hard rock edge with monster dance highs and lows, drum n bass tempos and furious beats. It’s probably not the kind of thing your mum would like…

So we have a band with diverse roles and a diverse sound so it won’t surprise you to hear that on stage it’s all a bit different too. Where Rock bands might use the usual guitars, vocal and drum combination, The Qemists split two decks and two laptops between the three of them. We all know the pitfalls of using laptops or any computers live so The Qemists make sure they have the right support gear and this is where M-Audio gear comes in to help out…

“When you are using laptops in live situations you need reliability,” says The Qemists’ Leon Harris. “You don’t want your DJ set plunging into silence in front of 1,000 people, trust me!”

With this in mind he and the band decided they needed some top spec’d gear to help keep their laptop set-up as rock solid as possible…

“We bought 2 M-Audio FireWire Audiophile cards,” says Leon and then details just why these turned out to be such a good choice. “Since then we have never had a problem with our DJ show’s tech set-up. We even use them in the studio sometimes because they are easy to set up and the converters sound every bit as good as our more expensive i/o. M-Audio’s driver software is definitely some of the most compatible and easy to install.”

The Qemists are currently pushing their live set-up to the max with a tour around the UK and parts of Europe – details below.

Upcoming Qemists shows

29/11/08 Birmingham (venue TBC)
30/11/08 Dublin (venue TBC)
13/12/08 Serious Sound 01, Valencia
13/12/08 Urban Artforms, Austria
19/12/08 Prague (venue TBC)
20/12/08 Brussels, The Ancienne Belgique
31/12/08 Exeter, Somewhere In Exeter

Updated venues and more info from http://www.myspace.com/qemists