The answer to "What is a DJ?"

[Daniboy]

I disagree. THE most important part of a DJ's job, is not how well they can mix, beatmatch, or ability to scratch, it's not if they play from a Pioneer/Technics/American Audio/Gemini setup.

Selection.

If you can scratch brilliantly, beatmatch flawlessly it won't matter a stuff if your selection is wrong.

Beatmatch, scratching and all the other attributes are all an added bonus to a good selection.

Run a bad selection for your audience, and it won't matter how technically good you are, your floor will die, and your set with it.

The DJ's job is to entertain. Play recorded music, that is essentially the backbone...

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perfect, selection is the real basics.

beatmatching is as easy as riding a bike, or whistle, it shouldn't be part of any discussion, its not a skill, it's something any person can learn with little time, and, taking into account that we are in 2016, you don't need to learn it at all to be a DJ anymore, it's just the unvarnished reality.

Now about selection, I see people with decades of DJing with selections that makes my ears bleed a little.

When you order food in a restaurant you want good food, it doesn't matter if it took a lot of effort to make that dish. If the food is good, costumer is happy.

Effort should not create merit. Results create merit. And this is a life lesson much more important than DJing discussions.

[3heads]

The thing is, beatmatching forces you to listen more closely to the music you play. That's a good thing. And if you play vinyl (where you don't have all the visual cues that you have in the digital realm, be it with a computer or modern CDJs) you have to either know all your records by heart (which to me doesn't seem realistic if you have a record collection of a certain size) or you are forced to wing it, which - again - is a positive thing. Digital sets where everything is in perfect sync and every transition hits at the perfect moment get boring after a while, true story.

And last but not least: it's just much more fun!

[Nicky H]

I didn't mention selection - of course it's important.
I said scratching & beat-matching are two of the fundamentals of DJ'ing - which they are.

[Patch]

The size of your record collection has no bearing on how well you can learn all of your tunes.

You would not believe how much musical information your brain can hold.

[3heads]

The size of your record collection has no bearing on how well you can learn all of your tunes.

You would not believe how much musical information your brain can hold.

I'm sure about that, but that's not what I meant. Let me elaborate: For me at least, the musical memory seems to mostly function on a subconscious level. For most of my records I don't remember specifically what the tunes sound like (I only rarely hear the melody in my head when I look at a certain record, to phrase it in a more flowery way) yet I am more often than not able to pick a fitting record out of my bag while DJing. But I doubt anybody knows all his records to such an extent that the memorized information delivers as much content as a detailed waveform (as you have in Traktor/Serato or CDJs from 900 up) does. So for example you can't match up the bass kicking in in the new track to the end of a breakdown in the old one as consistently as you can when playing digitally. (You might be able to if you only play the same 50 records for months on end, but that would bore me to death).

[Daniboy]

I doubt anybody knows all his records to such an extent that the memorized information delivers as much content as a detailed waveform (as you have in Traktor/Serato or CDJs from 900 up) does.

Exacly, technology is here to help. if someone plans to fight technology, he will lose humiliatingly.

Instead of using your brain to memorize track structures and details, use it to create an efficient waveform marker logic, that way, no matter how much tracks you have, you will know how they are (where are the vocals, drops, tension, breaks) just by looking at it.

Also, because of this, I think DJ softwares should evolve how markers are, making them more complex and diverse.

[ImNoDJ]

perfect, selection is the real basics.

beatmatching is as easy as riding a bike, or whistle, it shouldn't be part of any discussion, its not a skill, it's something any person can learn with little time, and, taking into account that we are in 2016, you don't need to learn it at all to be a DJ anymore, it's just the unvarnished reality.

.

This is untrue. Its absolutely a skill, and its more akin to learning a simple musical instrument. I hear this all the time from people who simply cant actually beatmatch to save their life. They think 'beatmatching' is matching tempo numbers and then hitting a cue button.

There is literally no downside to being able to beatmatch precisely. It teaches timing. It teaches phrasing. Its actually a skill that requires practice and dedication to do flawlessly and that teaches discipline.

Can you beatmatch on vinyl Daniboy? Within 30 seconds of putting a record on a platter? Unless I can know if you can actually do it, then its hard to know how seriously to take your comments on the importance of it.

I dont think everyone should always manually beatmatch, but I absolutely think anyone calling themselves a DJ should be able to do it on cue.

[keithace]

software never breaks /s

[Patch]

You said this:

I'm sure about that, but that's not what I meant. Let me elaborate: For me at least, the musical memory seems to mostly function on a subconscious level.

Which I agree with - but then you said this:

But I doubt anybody knows all his records to such an extent that the memorized information delivers as much content as a detailed waveform (as you have in Traktor/Serato or CDJs from 900 up) does. So for example you can't match up the bass kicking in in the new track to the end of a breakdown in the old one as consistently as you can when playing digitally.

Which I completely disagree with. Just because you haven't listened to a song in 10 years, doesn't mean you lose that "subconscious" (again - I agree with that) knowledge of when the different elements start. The same way as you don't forget the words to a song.

This is all inherent to being a DJ. It's part of the "unconscious-competence" that you can only get with experience.

Imagine asking this question to ?uestlove, or Jazzy Jeff. Do you think they know all of their records? (They do).

It's part of being that thing that we all should be, above DJ's - MUSIC LOVERS.

[sheikyerbouti]

The answer is easy: