DJ Deep

Early years and rise

Peine's history of recorded megamixing goes as far back as 1987. DJ Deep already had a lot of experience into DJing with his club residency at the now closed "Glaspalast" ("Glas Palace") discotheque. His first megamixes were created as a hobby, in a party cellar/garage where he would use a double-deck set to mix his productions, and then record them into cassettes for small-scale distribution. By unknown means (most likely through the hands of enthusiastic fans), the mixtapes reached CD manufacturing facilities where they could be mass-reproduced, contributing to the spreading of his early work via CD medium. Some of his other early works would also be reproduced on 12" records under the name Blackpoint, albeit in very small quantities.

When the CD market developed in the beginning of the nineties, DJ Deep started to release mixes on a regular basis, usually about 5 or 6 every year, in return for a professional fee as a payment. He would send the master tape to be mastered, then mass-reproduced, while an enthusiastic acquaintance of his took on the part of marketing the series. During that time, his mixes were known as Deep Dance, Deep Magic Dance, The Magic Sound of Deep, or simply Deep mixes. Spin-off series would eventually appear, and borrow the "Deep" element to better identify the product (such as the Deep Fox series, for example).

Content

During the peak of his years, Peine would release a new opus of the Deep Dance series in average every two months. Each compilation would store anywhere between 60 to 100 individual songs, popular at the time of release, each cut and modified to fit into the mix, sometimes accompanied by very heavy sampling from movies and TV shows, along with other sound effects. The series was oriented towards the House, Techno, Happy Hardcore, Eurodance and Popular genres of music. Some of the releases would be accompanied by either comical or more conventional introductory segments, sometimes in German, sometimes in English. Some of the compilations contain guest mixes created by other DJs, it is unknown however if those guest appearances were permitted or not by the original DJs.

In addition to the main series, DJ Deep produced a handful of spin-offs and special editions of his Deep Dance brand, including the Deep Magic Dance 50 - The Best Of 10 Years compilation, which contain nearly 580 songs spanned on two CDs, bundled in a metal tin box shaped like a 50 Pfennig coin. Another very successful work of his is the Studio 33 - 23rd Story, Single Top 100 1998 he made in collaboration with his friend and fellow DJ, DJ Studio 33. Some of these items are considered valuable collectibles by Dance music aficionados.

DJ Deep produced the Deep Dance series up until the issue #66. This also includes the dozen of in-betweeners that were released later in the series' run and renamed to fit chronologically with the rest (such as the Deep Dance ½ released in 1995, which contains material that was done in 1987 and 1988, before anything else in the series). He also produced the complete Deep Fox series as well as the Dance Control regular mix-sets.

Equipment

Deep produced the first volumes of this series with a double-deck set, and later Octo-Deck Revox audio tape machine. Those were eventually replaced by digital equipment, allowing for constant improvement in sound quality and mix engineering of his productions over the years.

Distribution and price

The series' were released on CD throughout the 1990s, and were mostly sold on flea markets and in record shops "below the counter" for roughly 30–50 Deutsche Mark, a regular price for pirated bootleg CD copies. Direct sales to DJs in clubs was also a common thing. The Düsseldorf Customs Authority estimates that the real price of these mixes—which were most likely produced somewhere in Eastern Europe—was between 3 and 5 Deutsche Mark.

Legal issues and end of original series

As it is primarily a bootleg series, the selling and distributing of any Deep Dance CD constitutes copyright infrigment by law, since no material found on each release has been legally cleared, either by means of giving royalties to the original artists or clearing rights to the Society For Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (the GEMA) in Germany. DJ Deep and his series are on record with the GEMA since 1993, but no action was taken against him from anyone before 2000, year the federal/state prosecution authorities' attention was brought to him. They first suspected tax evasion from him rather than copyright violation.

In regard to these accusations, Peine was arrested on June 5, 2000, shortly after releasing the 66th opus of his Deep Dance series. His colleague Studio 33 and about 50 other individuals involved into the production or distribution of their material were also arrested. The Landgericht (state court) of Essen convicted all participants of tax avoidance and commercial production of illegal records, and sentenced them to delicate paroles. Some of the distributors received prison sentences. Peine and Jagusch both received a financial fine (amercement). It is estimated that the GEMA assumed a yearly loss of 150,000 Deutsche Mark during the span of the Deep Dance series, until Peine's arrest.

Continuity of the bootleg series

After Peine was arrested, the Deep Dance series was taken over by a decentralized and unorganized group of enthusiastic DJs and megamixers. Several individuals were given the task of mixing each next opus, leading to an incongruous and ever-fluctuating variation in mixing style and quality with each release. This could be felt as early as with the Deep Dance 67 (first mix of the series not produced by DJ Deep). The unorganized and chaotic nature of the Deep Dance series from this point on also meant that some of the releases' numbers would be repeated more than twice (for example, there are four Deep Dance 72 releases, each very different and done by a different DJ). All Deep Dance bootleg releases done after Peine's arrest are referred as "Fakes" by the fanbase.

Despite this, the series is still going on, as of February 2012, although with much less popularity. Hard copies still find their ways into flea markets and music stores, and are usually sold for high prices due to their rarity, but most of the (unauthorized) distribution now occurs via digital downloading on the Internet.

Legal Deep Dance series

On December 20, 2002, Andreas patented the "Deep Dance" name to the German Patent Office. He then proceeded to release a few months later his first legal compilation, "Deep Dance vol. 1", thus claiming back his Deep Dance brand of mixes. Every edition so far has been a 2-CD compilation containing around 60 songs, mixed in his usual style albeit with less sampling (due to the implied legal issues of sampling from various sources). His releases occasionally make it to the Media Control Charts in Germany. The series is still ongoing. The next Deep Dance (Volume 22) will be released on 6 June 2013.

Aside from his legal compilations, DJ Deep produces on a yearly basis a megamix entitled The Yearmix Show, a CD-length sampler that features chart songs of a given year. It is however a bootleg aimed for radio stations, not aimed for distribution on CD. The Yearmix or Hitmix has been a tradition of his since the very beginning of his megamixer career in 1987 (with notable exceptions in 1997 and 1998 where he didn't produce one).