first of all sorry for my Grammar but i have to get this out of my chest !
Well i have been Djing for almost 12 years now , I have been using Vinyls in the 90s and then CDDJS around the year 2000. I can Dj in any Dj mixer out there and i can beatmatch blindfolded in any Table . I moved to the MIDI controllers 3 years ago and started to use ableton to Dj ,but i Noticed that there is many purist who hates MIDI controllers because they say is like cheating . I was upset when i open a Dj set from a Famous Dj that i dont want to write his name . he pretty much dissed or made a gay comments about me playing with MIDI controllers . I was very upset because this stupid guy think he is the **** and he dont even noticed that i rocked the Floor the same even better than him . he was arrogant and purist about Djing( in real instrumments according to him ). he obviusly didnt have any Idea about my Dj experience . but who cares . i was there to play good music and not comercial **** .now I think that Djing with MIDI is not cheating especially when anyone can learn to beat match . i think that some of the Djs that are in the top ,are there because of Political reason rather than being skillfull and they acting arrogant dont help to their Image .
I think you dont need to have expensive equipment to be a DJ anymore. there is so many new kids that=Dj with MIDI controllers and i = still repect them as long that they rock the Dance Floor . some Djs forget that being a Dj is all about sharing good Music and Vibes .
i use to slate cdj dj’s, but these days that’s all i have with me as i dont have room to store my records
and it is nice being able to get the nightbus home from a gig with so many songs that would have taken a car load to transport before
a lot of the midi djing i see out is novelty, not due to the technology but because a lot of people not knowing the art of djing
my main objection against it is that it takes the spontaneous aspect away from djing, as a lot of people think they are deadmau5 when at a lot of places people just want to dance to songs they know, i always have a mixed bag of tunes which i can mix / scratch / do whatever with, which i dont think you can really do with digital dj’ing
but saying that i have seen some people do some mad stuff, especially on the mash up / controllerism side of things so i guess the jury is still out, regardless of the medium it is easy to spot someone who has been djing a long time compared to someone who hasnt purely from how they play with the crowd
I totally agree with you man !! you can tell who is a real Dj by the way he handles and share his Music with the Crowd . doest matter if it is a controller or an I POD . as long as he rocks you
Im interested to see Roben’s take on this. He is a pretty good DJ (from what I hear). But my take is that, who the F cares what other people think. I have a friend that is a purist as well. My thing is this. Rock out a laptop and a midi controller. NO PROBLEM. However, dont be lazy about it. Yeah, it beat matches for you. Throw in some loops. Remix on the fly. Get crazy with it. I know of a couple bigger djs that will literally make one off remixes of tracks they like by mixing different parts of different tracks together and playing them out live. Thats something you can not do with vinyl. I think that the advances of technology give performers the chance to be more creative then ever before. Screw that guy. Do your thing. Rock the dance floor. Because the crowd doesnt care what youre using, as long as they are shaking their asses!
it’s not always about the machine doing everything for you. i got a vsi and traktor as a space saver.
i like beat matching and i like being a hands on dj, when i use traktor 90% of the time i have the Sync Function switched off.
But lets be fair its technology, im sure the guys that first started beat matching (with out pitch faders) think that the guys with adjustable speed turntables were cheats. the djs that used to phase records probably thought it was cheating when the phaser effect started to be added mixers. i watched dj q-bert loop vinyl so i’m guessing the people should really use the loop function on the cdj (bloody cheats).
we could start another rumor, all the modern producers are cheats! how can they call themselves producers when the mix using automation?
any way none of use have any skill, we are all fakes and cheats that just play other peoples music, we have no skills of our own so we have to ride on the backs of those that do “qoute” my music teacher at high school
I too came from a Vinyl background but everything changes with the times right? If it didn’t we’d all still be trying to produce on the first ever issue of Cubase? (perhaps lol).
With new developments mean new ways of creativity, new ways of expression. New ways of doing things as a whole.
Sure with technology it can do the beatmatching for you, but in that respect you’re given the time to do other things, like LIVE performance aspects for example.
There is though the aspect that computers can make things sound too robotic. Human mixing does sound more organic than digital mixing, just take a listen to ‘digital mixed’ albums that you can buy in your local HMV over a mix that you might hear that was ‘live recorded’ from your favourite DJ. There is that ‘real’ feeling when a human is doing all the manual changes.
When i’ve used Ableton to mix, i’ve never felt content, i like the hands on approach and i can mix in just as quick a time as it would take me to line up my track in ableton anyways, so i’ve never needed the service. But for those who haven’t gathered the skill, i can see how that can help them. It’s all horses for courses isn’t it, there are various plug in’s in production that do certain things for people that once was had to be done manually.
Is it cheating? Well… i have my views but i wont really express them, but it’s like this: In the vinyl days, it took me 2 years of practice before i was hitting solid mixes 95% of the time.
With CDJ, i picked it up instantly, no practice needed, i also found it much easier to mix with. Also funnily enough, DJ friends of mine who hadn’t used Vinyls before and learnt on CDJ couldnt mix for sh*t when trying vinyl decks.
With computer… my friend who uses one of those DJ software programs like Traktor (i forget which one) can’t mix on CDJ or Vinyl. He also can’t mix without looking at the BPM counter on the program which gets the timing down to even the 0.01 timing. I proved a point by doing a whole mix on his program without using headphones.
Well i could get someone who’s never mixed in their life mixing perfectly 100% of the time after 20 minutes with Ableton.
So ok sure in time things have got much easier. But in this day and age it’s not about mixing one tune into another anymore (BOOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG), it’s about being unique, being creative and remixing on the fly, it’s also about sampling, bootlegs, accapellas, loops, cuts, it’s about everything.
Rather than a typical mix being 12 tunes long, it may be 20 tunes long (look at a Psycatron mix - all done with Ableton but they utalise it’s options and ability).
This is why I like to use 4 CDJs and a 4 channel mixer, also want to get an EFX 1000 and start doing more James Zabelia type effects tricks (there is only sooo much you can do with the DJM inbuilt effects… which i may add i fully utalise).
In the end of the day though, it’s what comes out the speakers that counts. But please, to any ‘DJs’ out there who use computer software to simply ‘mix one tune into another’… BORE OFF and get some skills.
Well I am not a turntablist but i can beatmatch well enought to make smooth mixes. So can you see difference between this 2 dj mixes?can you tell wich one was mixed with Midi or turntable ?
to my ears they almost sound the same in the way I mixed my track.I do agree that turntables are more hands on And you can beat jugle or scratch. Wich u can do as well in ableton but I do spin more techno and tech house. Something that I miss from tt is the feeling?but nothing can beat ableton live .I usually use fx loops and vocals on my live mixes . Its a different way of mixing but the results are the same ,
i think techno / tech house is ideal for these sorts of applications as you can create new music by mixing two + tracks together, there is a lost more space in the music to do so and generally be creative
but with something say drum n bass, if you had 4 tracks going at the same time i think it would sound pretty horrible
im a traktor user(coming from vinyl and using it as the control) and when mixing drum and bass it doesnt really get used to its limits, you can bust in some loops in the break to double drop but thats about it. when im on the house etc you can really get creative. but thats the thing its all about selecting a set up thats suitible for your needs, if i was still exclusivly on dnb i probs would have just gone for cdj.
