ULTRA 2015: The Pre-mix. The shot heard around the world.

[Jester]

Comedians who do the same shitty set every night are called hacks.

[dsquareddan]

I've seen David Guetta, Steve Angello, Chuckie, R3hab, etc. playing a few feet away from me, and I already had many years of experience as a DJ when I saw them. I've witnessed many not-even-famous-DJs playing pre-mixed stuff.

Steve Angello is a great example, he plays without headphones. I invite you to search for videos of him playing at festivals for hours. You will realise the mixing is simple but flawless, which, for a DJ with enough experience and a pair of headphones is far from being a big deal, but, at the same time, is impossible to be done with the precision it is done and for the duration it has.
What he could do is getting some tracks to be clearly drifted from each other from time to time (maybe detectable only by DJs), but this is not what happens. The mix is freaking perfect.

Pre-mixed stuff is good for everybody in the end. Its good for the festival owner, for the DJ's manager, for the DJ and for the audience. Real DJs are less then 1% of the audience, so who cares?
Its like TV, its all fake, and when you think its not fake, its fake.
Festivals bring thousands of people together and raise millions of dollars, just think about it. Things can't and will not go wrong.

You want me to be wrong, but you know I'm not. Because money rules this world, not hard work or commitment.

lol. it is possible. Music is math. with CDJ's, you use Rekordbox and adjust the beat grid to be exact to the tempo. now the Pitch fader on CDJ's is exact to the bpm. load up your next track which is in key to the one you are playing. match the bpm to be exactly the same. hit play at the start of a 16th bar phrase. Your adjustment will only need to be *milliseconds* off and once you align the beats, they will NEVER go out of time. We are not talking about turntables here. CDJ's don't have a drift. So long as you get the beat grid done exactly in Rekordbox, similar to how you warp a track in Ableton or Traktor, it then just becomes a game of math. These guys have HOURS of their day to edit all their music to be perfect. They don't have jobs like you or I. They sit in a hotel or a plane for 70% of their lives.

There is definitely some "cheating" done in the sense that yes, some DJ's play the same set in row multiple times or practice it out so they know it's going to be perfect and take little effort. You can call that what you want it. I do imagine there have been a couple DJ's who have taken a gamble on making a pre-recorded set all synced to visuals & lighting. But I don't know all of them would be. If it was as obvious as you think then they would lose a lot of popularity.

It's like UFO footage. there's tons of camera angles and blurry shots of suspicious activity, but no real hard evidence of it being legit.

Some DJ's enjoy mixing just intro to outro, and there's nothing wrong with that. but you have nothing to do in between but play with the fx a bunch, or touch the cdj's & mixer to make tiny adjustments. or grab knobs of the mixer that aren't doing anything and sort of pretend to "play" it like some noise in the song they are hearing. not everyone is going to spend 5 minutes "searching" for the next song. When you find it, you cue it up, match the tempo, decide which part of the current song you're mixing out of and wait until that comes. This process doesn't take long. It CAN, but majority of the time if you know your music library and are feeling a certain flow, maybe something you practiced at home earlier & you decide to use that mix again at the club this time.

For MOST DJ's I see they just sort of touch things in between transitions. Beat matching doesn't take long to do if you play with math. That's not even using Sync, tho it might as well be. But that's the truth, most of these big named guys you've mentioned are on CDJ2000nexus with DJM900 & Rekordbox. That's how easy it can be with the top of the line setup.

Do I agree that their mixing style can be very "boring" and "automated", Yes. But it all boils down to where you draw the line of what a "pre-mix" is. Is it a recording, is it something you've mixed before, is it something you prepared to play consciously in your set, is it when you decided to add it to your usb stick library with the intention to play it. The mixing style that these guys do is not super technical. It all comes down to pre-gig preparation.

[Daniboy]

These guys have HOURS of their day to edit all their music to be perfect.

They rather spend half an hour pre-mixing.

What part of "money" you didn't understand?

[kooper1980]

They rather spend half an hour pre-mixing.

What part of "money" you didn't understand?

Oh I think he understood. Its just that his opinion differs from yours so you decided to ignore it.

[Daniboy]

Oh I think he understood. Its just that his opinion differs from yours so you decided to ignore it.

My opinion is that big DJs pre-mix for mainstream festivals, and I have this opinion because I've saw it with my eyes. His opinion is the oposite. What is your opinion?

[Jimslaton]

Yes, you are right. It doesn't matter. It only matters the end results. And all the biggest DJs making the most money are pre-mixing and organizing their sets really well. They are the best received. They are the most popular. They are voted the best DJs. Who gives a shit if you know how to scratch, beat juggle, use a fancy laptop and/or that fancy controller. No one cares. Killing Time hit it on the head. Its the entertainment industry and people come to see a show.

Most people are more interested in hearing good music, including familiar tracks they expect to hear, then whether the DJ could be using a few pre-mixed tracks.

[daviedavedave]

Interesting debate.

I once saw Mark Ronson obviously playing off one channel at a festival.. he would brazenly just disappear during transitions and come back 'sniffing'.

It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen and for that reason alone I'm delighted it happened.

[Nicky H]

Yes, you are right. It doesn't matter. It only matters the end results. And all the biggest DJs making the most money are pre-mixing and organizing their sets really well. They are the best received. They are the most popular. They are voted the best DJs. Who gives a shit if you know how to scratch, beat juggle, use a fancy laptop and/or that fancy controller. No one cares. Killing Time hit it on the head. Its the entertainment industry and people come to see a show.

Most people are more interested in hearing good music, including familiar tracks they expect to hear, then whether the DJ could be using a few pre-mixed tracks.

Glad I don't go to the places you do

[Stazbumpa]

My only gripe is that not only are the DJ's fake but the show is too. You aren't paying money to see DJ's DJ, you going to see a producer stand there and wave his hands while his tracks are played one after another. Let's cut the bullshit and stop calling it DJ'ing when it isn't.