A disconnect I'm noticing in the culture

[fullenglishpint]

Returning to the initial topic of newbies being too vocal, asking too many questions and thinking they're awesome, this is my view.

There are always going to be newbies who should have read the manual more thoroughly before posting. There are also always going to be guys who think they know everything after playing with their friend's S2 for an hour. As more senior forum members with more experience, we could be dickish and just reply to everything with an RTFM, and as a mod I could simply delete all the stupid newbie questions. But that is totally against the ethos of this forum. If people had answered my questions like that when I joined I doubt I would have stayed, and even though the membership of DJTT has more than quadrupled since I joined (I'm member #20000) I like the fact that people are still mostly friendly, unlike a lot of other forums out there.

You don't have to answer simple questions, no one's forcing you to. Fortunately there are other people on the forum who are more helpful. Personally if we're going to lose members somewhere, I'd prefer we alienated unhelpful and unfriendly people rather than discouraging new guys with put downs and disparaging remarks.

And whiskeyflip, you say one of the problems is anonymity, but you go on to state that you "have written thousands of posts over many accounts". Would you care to mention what your former usernames were? You seem to be throwing quite a lot of stones from a rather fragile looking glass house.

[Shishdisma]

I agree.

It's like, what is the OP expecting to happen? Why do we have a collective responsibility to promote CDJs?

That's what's in clubs now but it used to be 1210s and everyone said "let's fight to keep vinyl alive, don't use CDJs".

If you came from vinyl you've seen this all before. The future will be what it will be, regardless if we say to every newbie "use CDJs".

The future will shape itself and it's obvious controllers are part of that future which is why Pioneer are making controllers too, for every level (Ergo, Aero, DDJSX)

The truth is CDJs ARE controllers anyway. They control digital files

Technically, what we hope will happen is controllers stop being atrociously made, and CDJs stop being the only durably viable solution for a standalone setup. It's not really "CDJ vs controller" as much as it is "Cheap shit vs quality gear," it just so happens that CDJs are a quality landmark over 99% of the controller offerings on the market. The paradigm is pretty much irrelevant, it's the quality of the products in question that's the issue.

Saying "controllers are part of the future" is rather pointless, because the laptop involved will always be a serious break point in a setup. Seeing a gravitation towards high quality standalone gear, or even reasonable solid controllers, and carving out a professional standard would be a great thing. Meanwhile, "Just get an S4!" the cycle continues, equipment with a shelf life continues being profitably popular, and hence this thread.

It's also very depressing to note that 3 massive landmarks in DJ technology: Tank beginner controller, viable standalone system, and theoretically bullet-proof controller, have all been made by... Pioneer... Ugh.

[photojojo]

I'm old enough and level headed enough to not care what people think about how or why I do something. I also have the seemingly rare ability to ignore the things I don't like rather than stress over them.

[deevey]

Seeing a gravitation towards high quality standalone gear, or even reasonable solid controllers, and carving out a professional standard would be a great thing.

At this point in time I really can't see any reason why there is completely standalone "cdm style" controllers with all the bells and whistles of traktor/vdj/serato etc already being built ... the CPU power is out there to do it considering you'd only need one effect engine per deck , the effects engines exist, the sceens are there, the hardware is there and CDJ's still have bloody CD drives.

No Doubt pioneer have built this device already and its in the works to be released in around 2020 after the failure of the CDJ4000 nexus with optical cue tracking that never worked properly when operated by DJ's who have lazy eye from too much JD

[0Notice]

Returning to the initial topic of newbies being too vocal, asking too many questions and thinking they're awesome, this is my view.

There are always going to be newbies who should have read the manual more thoroughly before posting. There are also always going to be guys who think they know everything after playing with their friend's S2 for an hour. As more senior forum members with more experience, we could be dickish and just reply to everything with an RTFM, and as a mod I could simply delete all the stupid newbie questions. But that is totally against the ethos of this forum. If people had answered my questions like that when I joined I doubt I would have stayed, and even though the membership of DJTT has more than quadrupled since I joined (I'm member #20000) I like the fact that people are still mostly friendly, unlike a lot of other forums out there.

You don't have to answer simple questions, no one's forcing you to. Fortunately there are other people on the forum who are more helpful. Personally if we're going to lose members somewhere, I'd prefer we alienated unhelpful and unfriendly people rather than discouraging new guys with put downs and disparaging remarks.

And whiskeyflip, you say one of the problems is anonymity, but you go on to state that you "have written thousands of posts over many accounts". Would you care to mention what your former usernames were? You seem to be throwing quite a lot of stones from a rather fragile looking glass house.

Thank you. This is a place for information and happiness for newbies. I'm glad I can turn to this community for help or I can help others with the knowledge I have.

[smiTTTen]

I'm old enough and level headed enough to not care what people think about how or why I do something. I also have the seemingly rare ability to ignore the things I don't like rather than stress over them.

and that's why we'll never work as a couple

[whiskeyflip]

You guys are putting words in my mouth about CDJs..Read what I said. I don't think I even used the word CDJ once... I'm not saying professionals use CDJs or anything like that at all. I'm saying that people should be building better, more informed setups. Some people would benefit from vinyl, from CDJs etc, some peopel wouldn't. Build the specifics however you like. I don't own CDJs myself and don't plan to. The point is that the shitty all-in-one platform is not the most conducive system for nearly as many people as own them, they just buy them because they're new and uninformed. It's not a necessary step at all. If they asked what to buy, and people who actually know what they're talking about answered more numerously than other newbies telling them to buy S2/S4's, they'd be able to get a set up they'd be happier with, probably for the same price. If you want to, you can build yourself a setup that is MUCH better tailored to what you want, for WAY cheaper than buying a shitty all-in-one controller and a midi fighter to spam trigger effects on...

When you buy a shitty setup like that, because people told you they're great, you naturally adapt to the limits of the controller, instead of finding fault in it... Which you should never have to do. I can attest to this, I bought an S4 when they first came out and thought I loved it, and then eventually realized I was adapting the way I wanted to play based around it's limitations.


Fullenglishpint etc:

My two or three last posts explain why it is important for the culture to be educated... Because it influences the meta-scene. For example, it's just like why we should be talking about progressive things like alternative fuels etc. to make them more mainstream concepts.

There isn't a problem with newbies ASKING questions, the problem is newbies ANSWERING questions, and speaking as if they knew what they were talking about. I just explained the tangible repercussions of this, with the S2/S4/F1's locked-down system that doesn't serve the customer as well as it would if the community was more vocal about not letting them get away with it.

[dripstep]

Whisky, are you new to the internet? EVERY forum I have ever been on, whether surf, skate, dj, guitar, and on and on and on, there has always been one thing: new people with more stoke about something that they have just found than an entire board of people that found it years ago. This new stoke means that some of these people are going to regurgitate any information they have read/ heard. As a forum, a community, it is our job as older members (not you, welcome to the forum by the way), or educated members (you?) to help out these newbs who are making mistakes.

If you don't want to help, don't join a forum, or at the very least, ignore their posts.

On the topic of gear: one of the main reasons that the S2, S4, launchpad etc etc gets recommended so much, is there are a lot of people here with that gear, and with that comes support for someone new who is having issues.

Mellow out bro, you were new and ignorant about something at some point in your life and had to learn somehow.

[Bassline Brine]

I've been on this forum for years now. And it's something that I love. I don't always post all the time, nor is it always useful.

But I started out as a guy who was listening to music and wanted to take things to the next level. Through various means, found myself here.

Now I actually am getting some (paid) gigs. Which I'm so proud about and love.

But without DJTT? I wouldn't have gotten here.

I research the shit out of things. While I ended up going with a Serato, 1200's, Rane TTM-56 setup... the information here and the help has been golden. Everyone NEEDS to make the final decisions for themselves.

But as far as helping people learn? Why not? Why not encourage the fuck out of innovation and new ideas? If they suck, let them know it. If it doesn't? AWESOME.

No need to worry about new people learning other than helping them get to the point of being awesome. I'd love to be blown away by every DJ I see. If this doesn't happen, then it gives me (and I hope others) more motivation to succeed.

If people are willing to come here and ask for help? Well fuck, awesome.

I'm no guru. I've grown up here just like a lot of other people. But what I want? Awesome music and people dedicated to bringing that to people at shows. If people are willing to ask for help, then damn, I'll do what I can. And I'll also ask questions myself, this is a hobby/profession than never stops evolving.

[Zer0beet]

Well yes.
The way i see it, there is a loose.
The more money a person is spending on gear the more established and skilled we expect the DJ to be.
Key word there is EXPECT