I remember a time when all I needed was a bag of vinyl to rock a crowd. I'm not particularly comfortable with the fact I rely heavily on my laptop right now. If my laptop dies I'm fucked. I'm gonna burn off some newer CD's so in case the worst happens I'm prepared (I don't have vinyl with me and everywhere has CDJ's these days anyway so that's pretty much the most basic form of equipment to be expected). I'm just nervous about laptop reliability as I personally think they weren't really made to be lugged all over the world getting banged about in your record bag etc.
It just makes me question other DJ's. I'll use what ever is available, shit if there's powercut I'll play the fucking bongos if I have to. But I'm living with another DJ who soley uses his laptop. He has CD's just in case but he doesn't beat match at all (although he is now wanting to learn & get more technical), he's like a top 40 DJ so can get away with just playing tunes and talking inbetween them and shit. That's cool if that's your thing. But I've read a lot of other people on here who have all their shit sync'd and say they haven't learned to beat match and don't really need to. Their argument is that DJ's have evolved from having to prove their talent by mostly showing their mixing abilities. Where a typical DJ is beat matching, a laptop DJ can be mixing 4 decks, using FX, searching for new tracks etc due to saving time on the beat matching front. I whole heartedly agree with this. Programs like Traktor, Ableton etc open up a lot of doors. But... and this is a big but... you might be shit hot when you're busting out your 4 deck routine with all your shit sync'd. But what happens when your laptop dies/someone poors drink over it/you leave your power supply at home/your software crashes/a bit of gear breaks/your hard drive fails? If you're part of the new breed of DJ's that rely heavily on your laptop how are you going to prove your worth if you can't really DJ traditionally in a bad situation?
I'm only saying all this because I have been relying on sync'ing my shit due to poor/faulty/unusable equipment in some of the Spanish bars I have been playing in (as you can imagine), and I feel I have become lazy. DJ techniques are something you have to keep practicing otherwise you can become sloppy. If you haven't even got these techniques under your belt to begin with & rely on something that could potentially fuck up at any minute... what are you gonna do?
I like to know I'm ready for anything.
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