DJing styles

[Bunford]

Just wondering what style of DJing is used by people here?

Do you beatmatch live (no sync), do you use sync, do you do it on the fly, do you prep the minute details etc?

Only asking as I recently watched a Knife Party set. They DJ'd the entire set without using headphones once, but were using Pioneer CDJs. I'm assuming this was done by prepping even the littlest of details and having all their cue points etc set up and known off the top of their head, meaning they could drop cues and know exactly what went where. This appealed to me as the prep work ensures a good set and I suppose it would feel more like playing a real instrument in a way, knowing what sequence to play what cues etc and rehearsing it over and over.

However, just wondering how other approach it and whether this method is generally accepted when playing live.

[4eoN]

I like to jam.
When i want to record a mix i have an idea which route i gonna take, but i nearly never say "okay lets start with this track and then that one, that one etc."

[William Gibson]

Its funny you bring that up about knife party. I saw Nit Grit live a few months ago and he didn't use headphones either. He uses Live and usually an akai controller. I have only been DJing for less then a year. I'm getting decent at mixing but one thing I noticed early was I never needed headphones for anything. Specificly with live, if you know your music, when would you need them? At first I was like "OMG I must be doing something wrong!?!?" Then after I saw Nit I realized if you don't need em, you don't need em...

Just thoughts that have went through my head which correlate to your KP experience...

[DJSigma]

Knife Party were probably miming to a pre-recorded mix, like many EDM "DJs" do these days. lol.

I don't use sync and while I do sometimes pre-plan things, I mix on the fly for the most part. Pre-planning is OK and is useful if you want to rehearse a more complex part of a set, but you have to be prepared to abandon any pre-planned stuff if people aren't feeling it and go back to mixing on the fly.

[makar1]

More like they had done the same set several times beforehand. It's not that hard to mix on 2000s without headphones as you have BPMs to 1 decimal place, as well as auto-cue and 10 cuepoints per track.

[Sambo]

I use headphones to preview the tack coming up but I prep all of my songs beforehand, I tap sync, play, tap sync again to save me having to beatmatch but also turning off the grid sync, this way I can manually sync the beats with the jog wheel. I basically just use sync to save a few seconds moving the pitch fader up to match the numbers of the other side anyway.

[makar1]

You can map Sync(toggle) and Cue together to turn those 3 button presses into 1.

[DJSigma]

More like they had done the same set several times beforehand.

Not really much different to miming then if it's all pre-planned, pre-cued, pre-this, pre-that, auto-synced, auto-levelled etc. They might as well just send in cardboard cut outs to stick behind the decks so they can stay at home. But yeah, I know, this technology is "progress". It's just a shame that this "progress" coincides with the average quality of DJ mixes taking a nosedive.

[Sambo]

You can map Sync(toggle) and Cue together to turn those 3 button presses into 1.

Now that's just lazy :P

[Rip van Winkle]

for me it all depends on the equipment taken and the venue. if i'm playing a party i usually watch the crowd response and play on the fly. if i play a fashion show or something similar i will probably already have some sort of a set in mind that i tend to stick to.
Playing my own TTs or controller I tend to go out on a limb more often, when confronted with gear I try to stick to some sort of plan

that being said, i view using ableton live on stage not as actual deejaying. It is more like a live performance than actual deejaying to me, and i understand the need for headphones is a lot less with live. That doesn't mean i disaprove of it, i just think it is a different kind of artform