are we in the middle of an "attitudes to midi djing backlash"

[aGhost]

I think we all can see that the article is poorly written, and lacks of sources to support many statements. The truth is that MIDI is not dying anytime soon, and that isn't news either. What we can see is that companies keep investing to cater to a very solid market of DJs and Producers that is rapidly growing. For many DJs who only use TTs or CDJs, seen a kid putting a better set with a mixtrack pro can result rather frustrating mostly because of the amount of money invested on equipment. Bleh.

[djspacecamp]

Show me da money!

I don't see any sales figures. I don't see any coherent arguments with factual backing.
I do see intentionally controversial blogspam. Why is reading this on your blog any better than reading it here?
Why are you loving the Behringer CMD kit when it's not out yet?

Just a bit confused here.

[Rukks]

. For many DJs who only use TTs or CDJs, seen a kid putting a better set with a mixtrack pro can result rather frustrating mostly because of the amount of money invested on equipment. Bleh.

The problem is that the kid with the mixtrack rarely does put on a better show...and if he did he would probably buy better and more reliable equipment from the money that he makes at gigs...but since he does not get more than 1 gig per club he does not have money to buy better equipment.

See where I'm going with this? Usually the kid with the mixtrack is the only kid that thinks he is killing a set.

I've seen ALOT of ppl with midi controllers (especially cheap ones) put on really poor sets, I haven't seen too many dj's on DVS or cdjs without a computer put on a bad set.

So this backlash from the author may just be that he is sick of hearing shitty sets when he wants to go out....kinda like me most of the time.

Edit: I'm interested to hear responses.

[JasonBay]

Can't really argue with Rukks to be honest, pretty spot on for the most part

[DarioJ]

Edit: I'm interested to hear responses.

So blame the kid who wants to get the experience out of the bedroom and get paid while doing it? In almost all the threads I see about "its my first gig", it always has the response of "do it for the experience". This is also enforced by the responses to some other popular threads/questions of "learning the crowd is an important aspect". You have to play for the crowd right? Maybe its the venue that is the problem? I am just playing devils advocate, but isn't it the responsibility of promoter/proprietor to know who/what they are paying for?

[Audeo]

Oh boy. Here we go again.

The financial and technical entry point for DJ'ing has dropped and because of that it attracts more "get the girls"-type-of-DJ's. The lame ones quit, the creative/good/whateveryoumaycallit keep on going. Natural selection.

And please don't go on about MIDI controllers feeling cheap. I work with 4 CDJ2000's weekly and for €1700 a pop, they feel awful.
I mean, really, it took about 2 months for the jog adjustment to break on one of 'em and we rarely use that. The Rekordbox hotcue loading is shit (takes at least 1 second to load a pre set hotcue? wtf), HID support is shit, Rekordbox ProDJ link is dodgy and slow, etc.
For the €750 or so you spend on a S4, it's pretty OK made.
And charging €1800 for a DJM900 is crazy. It's "just a 4 channel mixer with a sound card and some FX.. Should be more like DJM€900 amirite?!"

Equipment doesn't make a DJ better in ANY CASE. I've seen people rock two CDJ400s and play a killer set and people spinning 4x CDJ2000 and a DJM900 with Traktor and a X1 and still suck.
People with creativity last long. Equipment really doesn't matter.
This was the case 20 years ago, was the case 10 years ago and guess what. It still is the case today.

Oh, and brand name gear is more expensive, but since when is that news..?

[Gapout]

Yeah i think the overall article is pretty much a waste of time.
Equipment isnt really the issue these days. More than anything DJs are imo classified into 2 catagories your either good or your bad.
There is varying degrees of bad...to varying degrees of good. There is no "grey" area of djing.

Now There is still a huge stigma where i live regarding controllers/traktor/sync, but i always shut everyone up when after my set.
But at the same time I understand where the majority are coming from. Having some tool bag slamming 135 Hardhouse at 10pm on an electro night, using sync but songs not in phase, and trainwrecking because he is using sync and his beatgrids arnt setup really really damages the community of people that do use controllers well.

I have also on the flipside side seen DJs using 900s and train wreck multiple times...with songs that were in the same tempo...I mean really..GTFO.

The Equipment doesnt make the DJ.

[Tango 179]

I want the 2 min of my life it took to read that article back...

As midi controllers evolve I am sure we will see some amazing talent develop along with them. Just like all other aspects of life people don't like change. I for one am choosing the midi controller route and I have no regrets. Besides all great things are contraversial at first!

[Rukks]

I agree with creativity coming with midi controllers but the game is not set up that way right now.Midi controllers are coming because of artists chopping up their own songs and using them as they should be used...basically with ableton.

Very very very few club dj's are able to do this on a weekly basis because it is just so much time and effort to make a new complex set every week when you have a residency.

I feel like alot of beginning dj's that aspire to be in clubs and stuff think that making these complex sets is the way to go about it until they actually try to do it every week. There is a reason these artist that use complex midi setups travel and have a new audience, because they don't have to do much to tweak their sets.

And I have nothing against ppl gaining experience and what not, I can tell ppl who have good mixing skills and are trained but just don't know the crowd that night compared to some kid playing an obvious directors cut youtube rip...i mean come on. Some ppl just need to step back and think about weather or not 300 ppl would want to listen to them playing music and getting paid for it.

Regardless of the gear they use.

[nem0nic]

The truth of the matter is that the DJ products category is growing. What's even more interesting is that the category overall is growing when sales in all but 2 of the sub-categories are shrinking rapidly. It used to be that the "bread and butter" categories (like turntables, CD players, and mixers) all took roughly 20% of the overall market. Now controllers have close to 50% of the market and everything else splits a much smaller piece of the pie. But controllers are growing rapidly at a pace that outshines all of the other product categories by a huge margin.

The OP doesn't have access to any sales information, and that's why he didn't post any. There is only 1 company that tracks overall sales, and that's MI Sales Track. The data costs companies tens of thousands of dollars to obtain access to, and no one shares figures with anyone else because it would violate their agreement with MIST. Steve has neither the access or the money to obtain this data.

The OP positions himself as some kind of industry insider, visionary, and/or equipment designer. He is none of the above. He's a former beta tester for Stanton. He once had an inside track to a career, but he's alienated himself by making outrageous claims. And now he seems to believe that everyone owes him something (including all of you).

I'm only responding to this because this is the second time Steve Brown (spektakx. buckner, imfromthafuture, filespnr, etc) has called me out by name. I can promise you that you didn't enter into my head one single time when I was designing the CMD controllers for Behringer. The simple truth is that the platters on the Studio 4a are 6" because the layout would support that size. I knew that the Studio 4a needed to be 12" tall, because it needed to fit together with the other CMD modules. So I laid out all the transport and cue buttons and roughed in the mixer section and FX sections. From there I was able to determine how much room I would have for the platters.