Hey everyone. I've only lurked a little bit and posted less, but I thought I'd share something that I've been mulling over in my head a while.
Ean's latest blog posting made me jump on getting this out there.
Is anyone else concerned what the new DJ rhythm games (Scratch/DJ Hero) are going to do to the world of digital DJing?
Hear me out on this one... Look at Guitar Hero. Endless arguments about how "really playing the guitar" was nothing like the game. Crazy amounts of people picking up real guitars and learning to play because of the game. Certain bands and music associated with guitar and popularized as a result (i.e. "Cliffs of Dover" being a guitar aficionado song) And let's not forget, if you started playing guitar after Guitar Hero came out, you were labeled a sheep.
Do I think something similar will happen? Maybe. The success of the games is really what that depends on. But I'm mentioning this because as digital DJs we're really at the entry point for a lot of the run-off from this crowd of gamers that want to take it to "the next level." They'll most likely see the lower end Numark, Vestax, and Hercules controllers (as well as a familiar concept, interfacing with a computer instead of working off of vinyl or CDJs) as a segue into DJ fame and fortune...
I know that a lot of "Learn to DJ" books (well, the good ones anyway) start off with a warning: "don't DJ for fame or to be cool. Do it because you love the music" or something of that matter. I'm thinking that the sheer force of making the DJ's technical world seem accessible to the mainstream will be enough to overcome this caveat and stream lots of new people in that don't share this passion.
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an explosion of new digital DJs by Christmas of this year because of the games, and them wanting to get started with some actual DJ kit.
Hold on, I think I hear several thousand people playing Benny Benassi in Traktor LE...
I know I'm very new (only been doing this about 3 months now) and hardly have any place to feel grizzled, annoyed, or condescending with any other newcomers. But, I thought I'd ask the community here your thoughts, fears, predictions, whatever, when it comes to this.
DJ games: good for the community, bad for the community?
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