clubs & digital
A friend of mine who happens to be a pretty good digital DJ and occasionally works in clubs told me that they’re not too fond of Digital DJs, that they don’t consider them to be real DJs, as opposed to people who mix CDJs.
Have you ever been rejected for working digitally? How should a digital DJ present himself in order not to come off as a fake?
I haven’t been rejected, but lord knows I’ve had to “justify” it to the people there. They wanted me to “prove” I could DJ, and, well, it either ended with me walking away politely or having a gig, usually where they give it up cause, well, in my humble opinion, I don’t suck.
hey
Hey guys I am going digital, and the old dj who have been practising on cdj for a while dont like me, because i can do stuff that they cant ;]
auto sync, scratch same way, cue point juggling and having my entire library on computer, etc. Because i have more controll on stuff with smallest controller ever that fits my dj bag and i dont need that much of a space in the club either.
So its their own business, if you good enough it doesnt matter what u use mang
chears!!!
Vinyl/CDJ DJ’s hate on digital dj’s, why? Well 1st, the vinyl dj’s hate the fact that we dont have to carry 4 to 5 crates of vinyl to do a set compared to our laptop & external HD and controller. 2nd CDJ Dj’s dont like that they are limited to echo/flanger/phase or what ever FX the cd player/mixer. 3rd if your a really good digital dj, they hate the fact that they dont have a clue what your doing and they evny that you can do something they cannot.
I’ve been a digital dj since 2002 and only spin on vinyl as a luxury and cds are used as a backup. I use traktor, and I even get hated on cuz I dont use serato. So no matter what you use, chances are someone is going to hate…thats something that I had to deal with since I started dj-ing back in 1992
I would be pissed too if I spent so much money on CDJs and a mixer when there are these midi tools such as the VCI that are waaay more efficient with waaaay more functionality. lol
and way cheaper tooo!
I have to say (hopefully one of few) that I have actually been rejected from a gig because I use traktor and a controller. The guy (promoter + DJ) said it was cheating… I laugh in his face and told him he was playing over people’s music. Then he changed his tone and said its just too much work to hook my stuff up when they have there own system set up already. It was some cheap ass numark dual cd player. Kind of looked like this:
I guess it was a blessing though. Cause I heard he like to rip DJs off. Turd.
Yeah u guys totaly right about cdjs not knowing what r we digitals doing and that most of the time we can trigger whatever anything and we create more of a show wise.
I am gonna tell you one experience i had in local club here in DC.
At that time i was running serato where i set all the cue points that i could trigger 4 cues on each deck, so i started cue juggling and people looked at me like man is that him doing it. they came up to dj booth and start staring at me, than bartender called every other bartender and security to check it out+ i added some scratching they where shocked guys.
like they never seen that before.
It was awesome feeling that everyone was staring at you and once they gathered all together i pushed the knob with really powerfull fog to blind everyone ;]]]]]]]]]]
Hahaha that’s pretty funny F0tif0
This is all kinds of awesome!!!
Yeah, I have a few ‘‘old school DJ’’ friends telling me, at first, they wouldn’t know what to do with all those buttons (VCI-100) and than, they would tell me it isn’t real DJing… BUT at the end of a night, one of them said: quote ‘‘you where killing it man’’ (in a good way)
Whatever… I don’t see all digital mixing to be DJing cause, in our category, it is and should be called ‘‘live performance’’.
Yeah or if I spent money on vinyl turntables and a mixer :eek:
I imagine this kind of things happens frequently though. People who don’t know much about digital djing, or even djing in general, probably have no idea what your doing. And since it doesn’t really look like traditional djing, people probably are skeptical about it.
I spent money on the turntables and a mixer and final scratch (back in the day) and I don’t regret it at all. It just evolved into the controller thing.
The flip side are the assholes who think that cause they did invest that money it makes them better than my investment
douchebags 
Yeah I wasn’t trying to suggest buying vinyl equipment was a waste of money, all I was saying is that I don’t kind of have that money, especially because djing is just a “hobby” of mine (if you could call it that).
Also the process of looking for, and buying, vinyl has to be a relatively unpleasant one. I can’t imagine there are too many vinyl shops around, and even fewer that have exactly what you want. It’s a lot easier (and cheaper) for me to find the music I want on the internet.
Oh I never bought the vinyl, cause I came about it too late for what I spin. I used the digital vinyl, which was wonderfulness
I just meant that now with new technology its time to move on and the only reason I can see for someone paying all that for vinyl now is the feel of it.
this comes up a lot on the forum… just like any other artform- it doesn’t matter what tool you use, it only matters how you use it.
traktor is widely recognized by movers and shakes in the business, it’s not our faults that some promoters and djs are stuck in a time warp that forces them to try and relive the late 90s every single weekend.
True. I’d have to say there are some terrible vinyl djs who have the attitude of “since it looks like I know what I’m doing people will think it sounds like I do too.” I don’t know, it’s just frustrating that people are so slow to accept new things. I don’t know this for sure, but I’d wager than we CDJ’s were first around people sneered at those, too.
I’d love to be able to afford a vinyl set up. But since I’m not this guy:
I’ll have to wait.
warning: mass generalizations.
i know many djs who only use cds… none of them are haters of digital stuff. they recognize it as a different tool and we move on… let your work prove your ability.
This is the eternal debate.
Vinyl look down on cdjs, and in turn, they look down on the digital dj.
What they fail to realise that is when each of these devices was created, they were the cutting edge of technology in their time, and a dj, like any other performer, has to grow, adapt and change to improve themselves.
Think of it this way. Why do athletes continue to break world records, year on year ? Is it because we are growing stronger and faster as a species ? No.. Its the methods used to train them, its the improved kit they use.
Embracing new technology does not mean you have to lose anything.
I learnt beat matching the old fashioned way, with my ears, but I am glad that I don’t have to now. It frees me to be creative in other ways, to mashup tunes on the fly, throw in seamless loops and effects.
