So me and 3 friends are looking to expand from doing 4 of us at one gig just djing in turns to something a bit more special.
I have just pre-ordered my S4 and have been Djing with traktor pro since was released, and the other 3 guys are all experienced DJs.
I was wondering if you know of any “live” DJ groups that consist of 3/4/5 people and what they incorporate. For instance, would it be best to have one of the guys learning to use abelton and maybe another on some effects like a kaoss pad? If this were to happen, would some external midi clock be required as well to keep everything in sync?
I suppose my main question is,
If you were part of a 4 DJ group, what would you have?
I’d have someone on a Maschine or beatbox, coming up with live loops and percussion, and someone doing A/V. More would be overkill unless you take breaks.
Have one guy laying down the beats or breaks , one guy laying down bass tracks, one guy adding vocals or melody, and one guy adding effects and scratching . It definitely takes practice and a little innovation but why not!
laying down parts of tracks separately it not DJing anymore, it’s technically a live performance… pulling off a long set like this with 4 people is much easier than doing it alone, but there’s also a potential disadvantage to it - because the preparation is much, much harder.
when you work alone, you coordinate everything yourself. you always know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. in a team, you need to really focus on communication, otherwise you’ll fail miserably. not only do you need to make sure that everyone really knows their shit, they also need to know what everyone else is doing because no one can read minds. after a LOT of practice, you’ll be able to go beyond a scripted performance and actually improvise, but focus on getting a solid groundwork first. stuff needs to happen automatically, as if the four of you were a hive-mind.
it’s really cool when one guy mashes up the drums, another one controls the general arrangement and the mix, a third guy does fx and the fourth guy adds some turntablism to it. but like I said, it’s really much harder to pull it off in a team than alone. a lot more preparation is involved and you have to do all your stuff together like a band so that everyone is always up to date. can’t have anyone racing ahead or lagging behind. you need a schedule, and all of you need to stick to it. not easy when everyone has other stuff to do (studies, work, maybe a g/f to spend time with etc.), but manageable if you don’t do it half-hearted. question is: can you make the time?
Ctrl D really said it. The only thing I would add to that is that all members should be able to do the same thing. So if 1 member is not there.. the show can still go on. The language of what each element is should be transparent and how a song is divided into parts as well. At this point universal things can be agreed on. Ive seen some crazy stuff in Munich with 6 turntables but all with rubberband locks so they could control real vinyl looping. This was hands down the sickest thing Ive seen way before people could just rely on the computer to do all the work for them.
