Club Controller “DJ”… The Disappointment of a Fellow Controller DJ
As I attended a new bar in my town I was eager to see a live DJ. When I finally arrived to the bar I noticed a DJ booth. I was quite excited to hear a live set by a fellow DJ. Upon looking into the booth I noticed a Numark Mixtrack Pro. I have never held and will never hold animosity towards controllers (I personally use a VCI-100 1.4FW). However, I withheld judgement until he began.
To say the least I was disappointed beyond belief. Unfortunately this DJ fit every stereotype controller DJ could ever hope to contain… Dependent on a sync button, overuse of effects, clipping beats, ect. ect. I felt sick to my stomach listening to the 2x BPM rap songs and echo effects. I looked more carefully noticing he was running a VDJ LE. Shame on him… Nothing bothers me more than to see a controller user prove peoples stereotypes correct.
One day I hope to see a DJ with a controller in the booth kill it. Nothing would make me happier than to see a controller DJ rock the club. To be a paid DJ using VDJ LE is an embarrassment to ever controller user ever. I would like to know if anyone else has experienced the same situation as I have.
It amazes me all the time how some people miss a self-consciousness or self-awareness that maybe what they are doing is actually total crap. You see it all the time in the talent shows on TV. People audition, sing or dance like crazy, but are just seriously bad. And they aren’t even embarrassed about it. Some even think the jury are wrong and deny the fact they do suck.
Actually, sometimes I wish I had some of that kind of ignorance.
The sync thing I don’t find a big deal, though the rest is pretty noobie mhm. If I were at a gig I’d sync no doubt in my mind though, just to make sure there are no errors. Then again I know how to beatmatch so I don’t feel bad about it.
“What’s he using? A controller? Like for nintendo? Naw man that music was pumpin last night we got so wasted and had a blast.” -any random club goer that night.
I went to a bar by my house on a Monday to hear the DJ. He was using a Denon DNMC6000 with VDJ. I didn’t look close enough to see if it was VDJ LE or not but in the US, VDJ is bundled with the DNMC6000. Needless to say all this guy did was fade in and out of songs. When I got there, he was playing rock, then moved into hip-hop. It was a Monday, the place wasn’t packed but there was a good amount of people there, college crowd, so I’m assuming with the genre switch it was open format but still, at least give me an echo out, oh wait, can’t do that in VDJ. This guy was playing the entire song and then just fading up the next. I wasn’t impressed at all. Maybe the guy could mix and beatmatch and that night just wasn’t the night for it, who knows. To his credit, he was playing hip hop and playing requests and the grou of girls sitting at the bar were enjoying it. From a DJ perspective it wasn’t anything, but to the patrons in the bar he was playing what they wanted and they were having a good time.
You just made your first fatal error in judging someone by what they use to make music.
Judge him on his choice of music, judge him on his performance of the music and judge him on his misuse of FX and software but… do not judge him on what medium he is using.
If he was just as shit but using top of the range gear you wouldnt have that angle on which to judge him.
If you couldnt see into the booth the same applies.
Ive seen DJ’s rock a crowd with shit gear and i mean REALLY shit.
Now… what would you have thought if that DJ played on that same setup but did a blinding set that knocked the crowd side-ways…???
You might say “wow i saw this guy playing on crap gear and he killed it”
btw-its not shit gear it’s ‘entry level’ which might explain his bad use of software and DJ skills.
More fool the promoter for giving a beginner the gig.
Dont get me wrong, i have also seen these DJ’s. But they get worse than the one you saw. I see DJs with genuinely terrible laptops, using OtsDJ who try and beatmatch and fuck up every single transition and play terrible music and they get gigs all the time. Some clubs just dont know any better.
On the contrary there is 4 effects that can give an echo out in vdj pro. the first is “echodoppler” what this will do is record a 1/2 or 1 beat echo from either the buffer or the live sound, the plugin has sliders for feedback time, echo size which if you move warps the echo, and it’s own filter.
the next effect is the “gate echo” this effect has a user selectable echo size of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1, 2, 4. but the genious of this effect is the frequency gate that cuts all sound below a user set threshold echoing the remaining sound.
Another that will do an echo out is the “ramp delay”, this effect is made to emulate the pioneer efx1000 pitch echo, it has sizes 1/8 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1, 2, 4. selectable. this effect will work like a postfader echo, but if you change the sizes the echo’s will be shrunk or stretched to the new size altering the pitch.
the last option requires the use of a vst effect “moot”, you can simply use any echo and chain it with moot, when you want a freeze just hit the mute button and you have an ech freeze. there is probably a lot of other vst’s that could do the job.
If you are saying crap like this you are perpetuating a stereotype that you know nothing about as there is much more beneith vdj’s hood than under traktors
ive seen opening djs like this tour with big acts, and play they same way every night.ive seen djs like this in a residence job. i used to find myself appalled at this until i realized i was the only one that noticed/gave a shit. i also had the personal reflection at some point that im sure there are people that feel like this about me , because i had an off night , or maybe wasnt playing a certain set of tastes on a particular night.
grab a beer, and ask him to play a song you like. youll have fun.
Really??? when I want to echo out and what I mean by that so we are clear is, an echo freeze that stops the music, but you still hear th echo fading while my next track is playing. In Traktor I do 1 of 2 things. Hit the echo effect, and stop my deck or hit the echo effect with freeze. Thats it, right out of the box. oh and if I want more than 1 effect at the same time, I don’t have to write some complicated script. If you really believe VDJ has more than Traktor under the hood, and Im not talking about video, then you are in the minority. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
For any of those effects the most you have to do is turn the effect on then move one slider (with a mouse, keyboard or controller button or slider) to capture the echo in the case of “echodoppler” you also need to press a button to set the echo at the right size, and yes i am fully aware of what the echo freeze does in traktor, these imo are better as there is more options available for more interesting effects.
almost forgot there is two more effects that do it at the touch of a button “loop out” and flanged loop out"
You are entitled to an opinion if it is your actual opinion from your experience not borrowed from someone else.
I would like to clear up the fact that I was the only one noticing this same phenomena. The songs were changed so drastically that everyone in the club knew they were faster/slower.
His song choice was a variety of popular rap/hip hop. I enjoy both genres very much and to play a slow dance song (VIC- Wobble) double the bpm so you cannot even dance bothers me deeply.
This is about the only good thing I have to say. I could care less the medium of which he played.
Firstly, I would like to say the Tracktor 2 Bible is really great. I really appreciate your work. Nextly I never said I judged him from his Mixtrack, I know better than that.
