What scenes do DJTT DJs play in? And how do you spin?
Results 1 to 9 of 9
  1. #1

    Default What scenes do DJTT DJs play in? And how do you spin?

    So when i look at pictures in the set-up forum, i cannot help but wonder... How do you use all of that, and where do you play? What kind of gigs give the opportunity to use that amount of gear or do anything interesting with it at all? I play in the rave scene in New England. Around here, the scene is almost 100% dominated by CDJs, or Serato Control vinyl. I am one of a handful of DJs who use controllers, and out of the hundreds of DJs I've seen, I've almost never seen anyone do much besides beatmatch and trransition. Is this local to me, or is the rave scene everywhere just about using a traditional set up and transitioning between tracks?

    Where else do you guys play that lets you do performance DJing? Most events around here involve booths where you can't see what the DJ is doing in the first place, and the thought of someone doing more than transitioning between two tracks has never really occurred to anyone in the crowd. Everyone around here thinks DJing is all about beatmatching two tracks, then transitioning. During most DJs sets, there's one track playing most of the time. There is no concept here of performing or doing anything creative live, most DJs don't even mix anything longer than a a few measures, and I don't think I've ever seen anyone spin more than two decks at a time in my life. I'm not really frustrated by it, but I do wish more people were aware of the concept of performance DJing, and I wish more people did it, and got booked for it. I only know two or three DJs around here that do anything similar to what we talk about doing on these forums.


    TL;DR: The scene I play in is 100% dominated by traditional DJs who transition, and nobody understands performance DJing/controllerism. I'm wondering what it's like where you are.

    So,
    where are you based?
    What scene do you play in?
    What gear do you use?
    What styles of music do you play?
    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.)
    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing?



    Personally,
    I spin in the New England rave scene.

    I use a Kontrol S4 and a midifighter with Traktor 2, sometimes one control vinyl (largely for backspinning)

    I spin freeform, so I use electrohouse, glitchhop, DnB, and I'll use dubstep or hardstyle for epic drops once or twice a set.

    I use four track decks in traktor 2. I usually have have a previous track looping, and two current tracks EQ'd together and playing, all rotating through the four decks as a deck clears up. I use sync on all decks when I'm not cue point juggling, or doing something else that requires it off. I do a lot of cue point juggling, and live sampling using cue points. I use a lot of effect combinations mapped to my jog wheels, as well as the insta-grat mapping on the MF. I abuse the hell out of Armyofome's whoosh knob/echo out button for transitions and build ups. I make sure I'm literally doing something that changes the sound of the music 100% of the time.

    What about you guys?

  2. #2
    Tech Mentor
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Kansas City, MO
    Posts
    485

    Default

    My events are primarily private fraternity/sorority events and weddings.

    The college events I can really get creative at. I'll bring just the controllers, and sometimes a single turntable and do a lot of performance-based mixing.

    As for the weddings, I just sandwich my S4 in between a pair of 1210MK5's entirely because it looks good. I do very little in the way of "performing" at weddings.

  3. #3
    Tech Guru Bassline Brine's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Massachusetts
    Posts
    1,827

    Default

    Interesting. I tool around on here for fun, and I basically /live/ in the New England rave scene.

    Have you seen Mike Skillz? He spins using the Maschine and Traktor. Pretty badass as well at it (IMO), also has a weekly radio show. http://www.facebook.com/deejaymikeskillz don't know if he's a member of this site or not though. He's the one who literally made me say hey, this controller thing is legit a few years back.

    I've seen some DJ's rocking the V7's when Therapy (in Providence) was still open, and even an NS7 down at Empire for Tight Crew's Nightmare before Christmas. Saw someone using a Twitch just a couple weekends ago down in Providence as well, though it was a loft party.

    Every week up at Symmetry in Nashua NH there seems to be more controllers than anything else. I don't I've even seen them have turntables setup. They usually will have CDJ's though as well. Seen a few S4's up that way.

    I will say that from what I've seen in Boston, it's mainly dominated by vinyl/dvs/cdj still. Haven't seen too many controllers in beantown. Well, there have been a few guys rocking out with Ableton controllers, but I consider that a different style completely usually. Most guys either use straight vinyl, DVS w/ vinyl, or straight up CDJ's. I mainly go down to the Phoenix Landing/Middle East/House of Blues in Boston, so that's what I've seen there.

    There's also the standard anti-controllerism thing going on with a lot of the old hats in the area. I help promote, and a lot of the DJ's and promoters don't want to cater to making room in booths for anything special. It's just how it is really. And some of them really just don't care for controllers at all, for the standard variety of reasons.

    I say all this as someone who generally goes out to shows 2-5 nights a week in the area. Following True Crew, Tight Crew, Elements, The Drop, Symmetry, Control, Beatdown Productions, and LTD shows, Rise/Wonderland, and various Middle East / HoB shows. I don't play out yet, but working on my technical skills so hopefully sometime in the future. Content with enjoying the scene blowing up again at the moment though

    Drop Goblin (Play Me Records) lives in NH. I know he generally uses a two iPad DJ set as well. He's been playing out a lot locally as well.

    As it stands controllers are making their way into the scene up here, but aren't standard by any measure.
    BREAKBEATS AND OTHER MUSICAL ADVENTURES
    Facebook - Soundcloud - Mixcloud - Mixlr - Twitter

  4. #4
    Tech Wizard
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    25

    Default

    still bedroom right now, gonna be trying to get some gigs this year with some of the local promoters

  5. #5
    Über Tech Guru Ed Paris's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    l.e. city / germany
    Posts
    4,012

    Default

    where are you based?
    in germany

    What scene do you play in?
    techno scene, dubstep/dnb scene, top40 clubs

    What gear do you use?
    vci 100 se, midifighter, audio8, mixer
    or timecode and cdj´s plus midifighter

    What styles of music do you play?
    already mentioned above techno/tech hosue/mnml/dubstep/dnb/top40

    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.)
    no scratching. a lot of gater, beatmasher, filter use. i use sync almost everytime. no sampling. decks depending on how comfortable i feel at a gig (2-4).

    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing?
    well they dance and have fun most of the time i´m spinning, so i guess that´s a sign i´m doing the right job
    I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

  6. #6
    Tech Guru Sherlock Ohms's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    Bristol, UK
    Posts
    1,601

    Default

    So,
    where are you based? - Bristol, UK
    What scene do you play in? - Funk/Breaks/Hip-Hop
    What gear do you use? - Depends. Ideally 2x1210s, and A8 & TSP2, and my VCI100SE FW1.4 as a 'midi mixer', but I've used everything from Serato with or without Dicers, to an S4, occasionally using a mates Kontrol X1 with decks if I have to,
    What styles of music do you play? erm, Funk/Breaks/Hip-Hop, occasionally downtempo beats, reggae, soul ...
    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.) 2 decks, loops, scratching, not really many FX if any beyond filters and EQ mixing, no sync, as I rarely grid my tunes.
    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing? I play other peoples tunes to make party sets, it's not rocket science. I received a fair amount of hate back in the day from the vinyl heads, but they almost all now use Serato/Traktor and some sort of midi interface, so I win I don't use a lot of cue point jumping/FX as the styles I play are fairly busy, so there's not the 'space' in the sound to do that ...
    Traktor Scratch Pro 2/Serato SL1/Ecler NUO 3.0/VCI 100 SE/2 x Technics 1210 Mk2/Sennheiser HD25 II/Novation Dicers

  7. #7
    Tech Mentor JayRuss's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Weston-super-Mare, UK
    Posts
    191

    Default

    where are you based? UK
    What scene do you play in?
    top40 clubs, resident at this shitty little seaside club and get told to play top40 and r&b by the managers, absaloutley hate it but it saves me wasting my money on nights out i guess.

    What gear do you use?

    mixtrack pro ( hopefully getting s4 soon)

    What styles of music do you play?

    top 40, but at home itss all dubstep, electro house and drum and bass

    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.

    ) 2/3 decks , no sync even though the sync buttons there i never use it , trying to improve timing and improve beatmatching by looking away from screen so i cant see the tempo, so hopefully if i get a set of TT's it will be easier to get to grips with them. i ty incorparate cue jugglng when i can, but normally its simple loops when its top 40.

    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing?

    people just see me as a jukebox when im playing in the club, get ridiculous song requests like oasis and queen, when ive been told strictly top40 and r&b by the managers, average age is in 30+, and me being 18 i dont even know half the stuff some people request sometimes. but i try and seem happy when im spinning, like im always dancing about even to top 40 stuff to try and intice people to get up on the floor.

  8. #8
    Tech Guru guiltyblade's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    San Francisco
    Posts
    1,280

    Default

    where are you based? US, Chicago
    What scene do you play in?
    top40 clubs, progressive house, electro, rock,

    What gear do you use?

    whatever they have, usually CDJs and my cds. If I want to bring my gear or they don't have gear, my S2 and X1.

    What styles of music do you play?

    Progressive house, big room house, electro, trance, nu-disco.

    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.

    Long mixes for sure. 2 decks, no sync as im using cdjs. If I'm playing a progressive house place, or trance, people don't want their tracks all mashed up or glitchy, they want smooth transitions, and long mixes. If im playing electro, and nu-disco, or funky stuff I tend to mash it up more and go more wild on the effects and sampling, cue juggling etc.

    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing?

    At progressive places people appreciate the way I mix smoothly, song selection and use of effects. People are very receptive at these places cause they usually understand my style. At electro disco spots, they don't really care much about how much I mash up or go on effects. The saying goes for everyone on this forum about controller that no one notices as long as the music is good and flows well. Well it goes the same for mashing up, effects, cue juggling etc. You are in a booth usually no body notices are gives a crap how technical you set is usually as long as it flow together. Its sad but true, I've done some glitchy complicated sets and people just don't notice. So for the most part I stick to CDJs, eqing, beatmatching, and well timed effects.

  9. #9
    Tech Guru
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Northern Ireland
    Posts
    1,143

    Default

    where are you based? Belfast, Northern Ireland
    What scene do you play in? The music scene???lol
    What gear do you use? See my sig
    What styles of music do you play? All forms of house, and in one residency some top 40/rnb n shit
    And how do you spin? (how many decks? sync vs no sync? loops? sampling? finger drumming? scratching? effects? long mixes? live remix? live mashup? etc.) varies, 2-4 decks, long mixes, scratching, hot cues etc...
    How is your style received, and do people understand/appreciate that you're performing and doing stuff live, and not just beatmatching and EQing? pretty well
    Traktor Scratch Pro 2.7, MBP 13", iPad 2 & TouchOSC, Reloop NEON, Pioneer DJM750mk2, Mackie d.2, Pioneer CDJ800 x2, Technics SL1210MK2 x2, NI Audio 6 DJ, Dicers,

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •