The man playing and mixing the music is in service of the public. He must ensure that the audience is experiencing a great set.
If this is achieved with a noseflute or an extreme pingpong bat or a turntable or a controller, who gives a rat’s ass?
You could have just reminded him he liked the set before you told him it was done on a controller. So he should not be that bipolar on that.
He should just focus on the set itself.
(This for me is also inline with what my man Steve said!)
yea i just would have been like do you were all over my nuts before you found out what i was on, whats the problem. and i mean doesn’t he know that a good percentage of edm djs are using software now.
“Nothing is good or bad, but knowing makes it so.” Shakespeare, HAMLET. The vinyl guy already proved your point: He didn’t come back to you and say, “Shit, it’s obvious you did this CD on a laptop; it sucks.” He liked it until he had knowledge that colored his opinion of it. So in truth he himself is proof that you absolutely can’t tell without foreknowledge, and that it’s the end result that matters. I’ve been claiming for years that the Turing test applies to DJing; here’s proof.
The other point I like to make to these clowns is that a lot of of the music they play is entirely digital and never existed outside of a computer, but somehow pressing it on vinyl adds magical fairy dust that makes it all okay for them.
Alright, I guess I’ll get in on this little rant. I have arguments all the time in my scene with DJs who use CDs. They don’t like me spinning their events cause I’m a laptop DJ. I’m not really DJing.
But these “bands” that they praise are so awesome, even though nothing they do exists outside of a computer. I’m not a DJ cause I didn’t waste time and money and space burning all the mp3s I downloaded off of servicing, or soulseek, or itunes, or emusic or whatever down to CDs, but the musicians are even though most of them have no clue how to play an instrument.
god, I had to get that off my chest.
I have to disagree with Bento on this, though. I don’t think the crowd gives a shit about the performance to a certain degree. They don’t care if the DJ is doing a performance art piece while scratching the shit out of the beat unless that’s what they went there to see. They care about how much energy the DJ puts out, which can be done in any number of ways. But the medium doesn’t matter. As long as the energy is right and the DJ can control them they will only care about dancing. If a noseflute does it, then bring me a noseflute.
He seems to forget the roots of DJ and Hip Hop. It was about playing records to your friends using whatever hardware you could get your hands on. Homemade cross faders, thrift shop decks.
I’ve seen DJ sets where people have mixed and layered music using home made tape loops and an analog echo box, swapping cassettes in and out and beat matching using the pause button.
It’s not the equipment you use, it’s the music that comes out of the speakers. Never forget that.
I think digital dj’ing will earn it’s place amongst snobby djs once everyone uses four deck mixing to its potential.
If a dj has got dual acapellas going over a loop, soloing each deck here and there so everyone knows it’s live and THEN starts mixing in a fourth track it becomes obvious that dj is doing something different and more advanced that a guy with cdjs (I was just practicing this last night)
Another point is that there are a lot of guys making money as djs that simply aren’t that good. They get by making the relatively simple act of dj’ing seem complicated to the general public. So anything that makes dj’ing seem easy scares them, as their charade may soon come to an abrupt end. It’s easier for them to call you out on your equipment rather than admit that it’s all about the music and how the set is programmed. They DEPEND on the complexity of the equipment. It’s all they have to impress people.
Give a truly good dj an iPod and a p.a. and I promise you they could create a killer vibe with just good song selection that would entertain you more than a mediocre dj with shitloads of vinyl, attitude, turntables and a mixer.
IMO you should get a vinyl/cdj control system and show him whats up . But if you can’t mix with vinyl or CD format well in all honesty you should learn . I have to admit when I hear someone say they use hercules stuff I cringe .
But keep your head up man after 10 years of doin this DJ/producing I finally got to a point where I make a living from it .
You only cringe because you’re associating Hercules gear with amatuerish ability.
I can’t mix properly on vinyl or CDJs yet because I am no where near being able to afford even a basic set up to practice on. Should I be ashamed that I use my vci-100? I don’t think so.
Yeah, thats the other thing- i just can’t afford the other stuff.. If I did, I’d have and practice on it all! (and still use the hercules and traktor probably)
Yeah I’m not trying to disrespect what you do at all . What I’m getting at is I hear Hercules and my knee jerk reaction is yuck but in all honesty I’m sure any skilled DJ could rokit wit a hercules if they had to . Like I said man keep your head up and stay focused on the prize at the end of the race . And just remember gettin caught up in the hater game never pays just move on to finding the next opportunity .
Eventually this will all go the way of the vinyl vs cd argument (which, ironically, no CD DJ can stand up to when they start arguing with me about spinning on a laptop).
Seriously, we just gotta push forward, educate the digital djs that need to get better, and keep doing great work. I think the only people that do care are the other DJs.
