Who learned to mix on controllers?

[Xonetacular]

porter robinson, probably. Didn't he only pick up DJing after his production blew up?

Zedd too

[tads]

I am in the middle of doing this right now. After 3+ years of Traktor, I felt I needed to learn how to beat match with CDJ's in order to take myself seriously. My brother has a set and I am home for Christmas until Jan. 2nd, so I am in his basement every day like I'm punching a clock. I've made about 9 hour long mixes and the last couple are quite listenable (the others are repulsive).

I might write a whole separate post about how I've gone about it and why it is a worthwhile endeavor, but a few things I've learned is that when I have Traktor I make Insanely long transitions because I can. With CDJ's there is constant fear of your two tracks coming out of sync, so you have to be surgical with the transitions. I notice myself picking the perfect spot in the track to bring in the other one, where as with traktor I just put the new song in when I get bored and let the fx cover it up if it sounds bad. I can keep going about this, but I may have fallen outside of the bounds of this thread, and am probably boring people.

Take the time and learn to do it, you'll grow as a dj in the process.

[DJ Cosmo]

Well for portability I kind of met all around I guess cause it is ez to take a controller to frat gigs college parties etc. But that argument about a couple of usb sticks is nice.

[geminimech]

Well for portability I kind of met all around I guess cause it is ez to take a controller to frat gigs college parties etc. But that argument about a couple of usb sticks is nice.

And actually if you know the place has 900/2000's linked all you need is one usb stick.

[DJ Cosmo]

And actually if you know the place has 900/2000's linked all you need is one usb stick.

And a set of cans

I still believe controllers r gonna end up being the future. Beat matching will always have its place cause nothings worse than your laptop taking a crap

[rgtb]

Below, I am not just replying to DJ Cosmo's thoughts but let me take his comment as my starting point...

I still believe controllers r gonna end up being the future. Beat matching will always have its place cause nothings worse than your laptop taking a crap

my guess is that the next generation of pios will feature sync. (maybe the latest cdj generation already has it? idk, i don't use them.)

i think beatmatching is a relic of the past. being able to match phase and phrase is still critical for two reasons: (i) being able to phase-match comes in handy when the automatic analysis did a less-than-perfect job; (ii) common DJ software (EDIT: does not) sync the phrases for you ldo. but why would djs have to be able to tempo-match? a computer can do this much faster and with higher accuracy than a human being.

and let's be honest, software can do amazing things that are either impossible or at least extremely difficult for an old-school dj who beatmatches manually by ear. remember ean's tutorial where he demonstrated how to warp mix-in and mix-out sections of tracks with unstable tempo in live? that way, you can properly mix tracks with live drummers and so on, something that is extremely difficult for someone who beatmatches by ear.

i am a little stunned that so many DJTTers consider manual beatmatching an important skill. tbh, i think it has to do more with credibility in the DJ booth than with technical necessity.

[lucasmanning]

my guess is that the next generation of pios will feature sync. (maybe the latest cdj generation already has it? idk, i don't use them.)

i think beatmatching is a relic of the past.

wow you are wrong in just about every way.

[rgtb]

wow you are wrong in just about every way.

i'm totally cool with you disagreeing. but you might wanna explain why i'm wrong.

so far, this thread has demonstrated that it is pretty hard to find examples of well-known DJs which haven't dabbled around TTs or CDJs at some early point in their career. (i'm still curious to hear if there are more DJs which stuck to laptops & controllers throughout.) and it's not clear to me why that is...

[geminimech]

this thread has demonstrated that it is pretty hard to find examples of well-known DJs who started on controllers

Fixed

[padi_04]

i am a little stunned that so many DJTTers consider manual beatmatching an important skill.

Why? People need get their basics right before moving on to something more complex. It will not only help them in case something goes wrong but train their ears to know when something is starting to go wrong and fix it. How are they supposed to identify phasing if all they ever heard were perfectly matched beats? This goes for general use too, I see lot's of people who can't tell when an acapella or beatless sample isn't aligned properly (or in key). Melodyne/Autotune are great technological advancements too, still I prefer a singer you can hit the right notes over someone who knows his voice is going to be fixed by some studio nerd.