1st gig question

[dj matt blaze]

Honestly, you should not be doing a gig until you basics are solid. Yes that includes being manually beatmatching the entire set. If this was my club where I have my residency, the first time you press the sync button and I see it. I would definitely recommend you not asked to be booked again. Seriously!!

This is the exact condecscending, snobby, attitude that a lot of so called OG DJs have that I can't stand. Its 2012, long gone are the days of "2 turntables and a microphone", technology changes, get over it. If all you can do, in this day and age, is look down your nose because a DJ is hitting sync then you are being left in the dust with what is capable when you are DJing today in 2012.

Honestly, I would lose all respect for that DJ.

I started on Vinyl. Basics ingrained in me. In my point of view, unless you learn the basics and be able to do it. I couldn't careless what you do to the crowd. You are skipping a step in your journey. You are short cutting. Step 1) learn the basics, 2) crowd control/reading the crowd. Without the basics you are not a DJ, you are an entertainer. Period. You should be ashamed to call yourself a DJ. The problem with EDM DJ these days is they are stuck in a very narrow BPM range. You really do not have to know the basics and still be able to mix. Pathetic really. You also have DJs nowadays that is too good to take request, one cause they probably can't work it in even if they did, cause their practice is all about "their set" rather than learning the individual songs. With the basics, you can mix anything at any BPM range, with any medium IE Viny, CD, or Digital.

Well I started on vinyl in 1989. Now I have a controller and I hit sync all day or I just twist a knob or move the fader to match the BPM of the track thats playing. Back in the day I used an electronic metronome to time out the BPM of every record and my records were all in BPM order. I would have killed to be able to have the BPM of every record on a screen in front of me. I would have killed to have keylock and been able to mix outside of + or - 3 BPM. As I have said before, too many DJs worry about the tools being used and how and not about the final outcome. You really think that an owner who sees a DJ rocking a crowd is going to say, well he used sync, can't have that here...yea right, more like the owner would say, I don't care what the guy uses and how as long as he packs the house. You said you don't care about the crowd? Are you kidding me? Its not about you and your ego that you manually beatmatch because "I am a REAL DJ", seriously no one cares, the crowd doesn't care, the owner doesn't care. Its about keeping the crowd at the venue, spending their money, its not about you. The DJ is there to play for the crowd.

Just because there is an autopilot on the plane, doesn't mean they just let anyone with some knowledge of flying fly the plane. All pilots have to log in their time with the fundamentals of flying before they are even let on a simulator, let alone fly the plane.

The other problem with newbie controller DJs is their willingnesss to take on gigs for far less. Thereby diluting DJ pay all over. I have said this before and I will say it again. DJs is one of the few profession where the pay have gone done in time rather than go up.

Are you serious? You are comparing flying a plane to a DJ hitting sync? Laughable. You sound like an old bitter DJ that can't take the fact that technology has advanced to a point that makes what you spent hours perfecting a lot easier to do. Thats life, change with the times and get over it or get left behind. You fail to realize how much more you can do with effects and loops, the ability to change tracks in seconds and have it synced without wasting times having to cue it up because its already beatmatched. DJing is a performance now, not just playing a song, beatmatching, mixing it in, and repeat. BORING. Again change with the times or get left behind moaning and groaning.

[manchild]

. If this was my club where I have my residency, the first time you press the sync button and I see it. I would definitely recommend you not asked to be booked again. Seriously!!

Agree w/ evrything you've said, especially this one. A lot of promoters and managers will do the same. Not gnna lie, I would too. If people aren't gonna listen to you, at least you gave them fair warning on what to expect when they get to a proffesional level.

[dayvue]

We all do realize that CDJ's have a BPM counter on them, right? So you can just look at that and then do the last +/-1% of the matching manually and BAM problem solved.

[manchild]

We all do realize that CDJ's have a BPM counter on them, right? So you can just look at that and then do the last +/-1% of the matching manually and BAM problem solved.

Yea try doing that all night w/ out beat matching and see what happens

[MyMotto]

Honestly, you should not be doing a gig until you basics are solid. Yes that includes being manually beatmatching the entire set. If this was my club where I have my residency, the first time you press the sync button and I see it. I would definitely recommend you not asked to be booked again. Seriously!!

How am i ( a student) supposed to afford playing on CDJS and Mixers?
How I am supposed to learn on vinyl (Its not the 1980s my friend; maybe your going the way of the Paul Oakenfold. To assume that I should just wait and start learning on cdjs and mixer is absurd actually. How am I supposed to get any show when someone has that kind of attitude?

[shr3dder]

Listen chap. Sorry to say but new times is coming. Do Ean Golden have time to manually beatmatch in his routines? As far as my brain can reach i dont think so.

Are you going to be as talented as Ean Golden on your first gig? No. Are you going to pull of the shit he does? No. Silly comparision.

I agree with ATX. No way you should be taking gigs if you can't manually beatmatch. Shit, I use a controller, and I'll ocassionly use sync when I'm at home. I NEVER take my controller to gigs tho, especially in a club. I don't know what it's like whereever you're from but in Melbourne you'd probably get laughed at if you tried to use your S4 over 2000s at any of the bigger clubs

God these arguments are stupid, i'm not against sync, but I sure as hell am against people taking gigs before they can even beatmatch, then trying to hide behind the Effects, loops, programming etc If you can't beat match I doubt you'd have the best handle on effects, anyways they should be used sparingly, leaving plenty of time to mix if you need, the high end mixer effects usually sound better then Traktors anyways.

[deckard26354]

Gosh this is doing around in circle's yet again!!!!!!!!!!!

Did anyone even care to watch the Video I posted?

For me personally from working in the graphic design/Website design industry for years. I can use a direct analogy. When Dreamweaver came about there was a massive outcry of people in forum's saying it'll never take off as to need to know the background code to allow to really design website's to the fullest potential.

For myself I already knew how to program efficiently as I taken a course 2 years before dreamweaver hit the market (dreamweaver hit the market in the 90's). Now to get to my point I knew how to program, but did I joint the sheep and poo poo this new technological advancement??? Hell NO. I embraced it used it to it's fullest capabilities as a shortcut to allow better workflow (see where i'm going with this)
And here we are well over 10 years later Dreamweaver is a behemoth of a program being used to this day as an industry standard for web design. Yes it need's knowledge of HTML to use it fully but the reason I use it is enables me to take care of development at at pace light year's ahead of what I would taking 5 years ago for example.

Yes you can have all of the experience of years of beat-matching with vinyl (I cut my teeth on vinyl way back in 1997) but complaining about the sync button sound's like an old maid moaning in the 60's over the new miniskirt. Personally playing 4 traktor decks at the same time, checking EQ's, filter's and not to mention the next record to choose would be an exercise in self mutilation.

Technology will advance in the next 2 years way beyond what is on the market today to the point of not even remembering this argument.
I mean the CD mechanism in a CDJ2000 is redundant for top flight dj's you can use USB sticks for your whole collection, as said recently in a BBC Pete Tong interview with James Zabiela.

[shr3dder]

The thing is though, people aren't James Zabiela, Ean Golden etc etc.

I'd guarantee those guys could all manually beat match with their eyes closed. Controllers aren't club standard and won't be for a while and to be realistic any serious club won't let a noob play with the setup.

I'm not anti sync at all. It's a tool use it, let your creativity run wild and do whatever you want people probably don't care, but know the basics, know how to play on any piece of equipment and on any setup, what happens the day your laptop/controller dies mid set? The nights over? You're going to look like a fool if you can't keep shit going.... Web Design and DJing are not the best analogy.... It's not a skill set where you need to think on your feet and may get thrown a curveball (ie. Laptop dies while your DJing to 200+ people having a ball and all of a sudden there is no music then tell me people don't care what equipment your using)

It's like driving a car.... Not much of a driver if you can only drive an auto then end up clueless and lost when told to drive a manual.

[manchild]

It's one thing to sync, it's another thing to not even know how to beatmatch, and it's even another thing to be so dependant on these all-in-one solution controllers that you land a proffesional gig and you cant even DJ on the club standard equipment and are so reliant on an unrealistic all-in-one controller, that you're thinking of laying it on top of the cdj's and unplugging the mixer. These all-in-one controllers like the Ns7,s4,mc6000 etc., are cool if you want to play in bars and other small gigs, but when you get into a proffesional club atmoshpere leave them at home. People look at them like toys, and no one will take you seriously.

It's kinda like this, if you hire a proffesional photographer and he shows up w/ a disposable camera, I'm sure you're not gnna think that highly of him. I'm not talking about having an additional Midi-fighter or x1 etc or bashing on controllerists BTW. I kinda went a little OT w/ the controller talk, but it kinda all ties in.

Edit: and when you make it big-time, and you can sell-out a club by yourself, you can obviously play on whatever you want

[shr3dder]

^^^^^ Exactly my point.