From the videos I have watched online, I have been generally unimpressed with the mixing abilities and techniques of dubstep DJs. I’m talking Datsik, Rusko, etc. From what I’ve seen it seems like they crossfade songs with no beatmatching or timing whatsover, and their favorite technique is to turn the volume down and up so the fans can “hum” the melody. What is this? I know a lot of the fans are either high as balls or are on MDMA so they don’t care, but come on!
I’m sure it’s just laziness - I have no doubt all those guys can mix well when they feel like it. But if you’re 18 yrs old and you have thousands of fans showing up to listen to you play repetitive music you probably get cocky, and when you realize most of them could give a shit about the mixing, you probably get lazy. It’s not like dubstep is that difficult to mix; most of it is the exact same tempo and the structure of most tracks is extremely predictable. (IMHO that may make it more difficult to mix in a way that is sonically engaging, but that’s a different issue). Plus a lot of tracks have long intros and breakdowns where there’s not much happening; it’s probably pretty tempting to just fade the next song in at those points.
I’m generally unimpressed with dubstep, these days. It definitely took a turn for the worse over the last few years. Whats worse than dubstep itself is the silly crowds of bandwagon flocks who are trying to look hard while showing their lack of dancing skills, watered down gang signs tosses, and suburban crunk face.
I saw Parsons a few years back, probably the last time I ever enjoyed dubstep in person.
Very true! I saw Zed’s Dead on thursday and most of the crowd was on something… I was a bit drunk
As far as the mixing goes yeah, I find that there’s a lot of just crossfading thought it’s not exactly quick crossfading, but there’s also some really good mixing… I mean most of the occasions when they would lover the volume would be for the crowd to shout a line of the chorus or w/e, or to yell over the mic and hype things up (which really did work)… I mean it’s a fair bit different from my usual style of mixing (long transitions, lots of blending, etc.), but I’m not DJing for a packed room in a club, so obviously they are doing something right.
One of my favorite MC’s, Ise Lyfe has a line in a song stating platinum records may only validate there are that many dumbasses. Granted dubstep is bringing in the crowds and cash, but that never really meant quality or good taste in my book. I mean shit, ICP has a huge festival every year too.
I’ve said enough and will make a conscious effort to chill on the negative nancy stuff for the rest of the day.
See? That’s where the high dumbass count comes from. Happened to a lot of other genres before dubstep. Will be over again someday. That’s when the true fans might come back and DJs might actually bother trying to mix properly again.
you kow this reminds me of some of the old jungle djs back in the day. specifaly R.A.W. from los angeles. I have like every mix tape the guy ever did, and iv seen him spin hip hop(he is one of the sickest hip hops djs, fucker has skills, not to mention his sick as shit Techno tape from the early 90s which he did on a 4 track, just sick shit), but on one mix tape i have called terminate its a 4 tape collection, he mostly either blends the soft spots(where ther is no beat) or drops his beats durning a talking sample. this reminds me of that mixxing style I always found it rather lazy as honestly jungle beats are fucking super easy to beatmatch(amens can be a pain but whatevetr u only drop like 2 of those in a set, a full set of amens would make want to break stuff) to, way easier then 4 on the floor, IMHO.
However dubstep has some weird beats, are there any djs that beatmatch dubstep here on DJTT? just curious.
I don’t like dubstep anymore. It got all bro’d out.
Drumstep, eh, that’s a little bit cooler I guess. But I miss the days when everybody was trippin out on dub delays and subsonic basslines. Wub wubs don’t satisfy me anymore, it’s all just a penis size competition on who can burn the most cpu cycles processing their basslines.
I only own about 4 dubstep tracks, but I drop them with breaks. I’ve only done dubstep on Traktor or Live, but it doesn’t sound any more complicated than nu skool- or psy-breaks, which I could do on SSL or CDs just fine back when I had them.
There’s nothing complicated about mixing dubstep I’ve found. It’s the same as every other dance music besides hip hop (which needs shorter transitions) and minimal (which needs layering).
But, honestly, I can’t imagine listening to a full set of dubstep, no matter how good the DJ is. It’s just not that interesting. Those bass lines are killer at the right point during a set, and I sorta-kinda like it in general. But, I get bored with wubwubs and reverb’d snares in every track: that groove is just not good enough for a full night IMHO.
If people aren’t mixing it the same way you would basically any other dance music, it’s because they either don’t know how or are just lazy…neither of which is excusable in the days of auto sync.
Saw Appleblim at the Big Chill festival, by mistake - we were going to see Roy Ayers but that stage was running late. Brilliant stuff, and I’m not really much of a fan.
Actually it usually doesn’t have weird beats. It’s all 4/4, it’s almost always exactly 140 BPM, and the intros/breakdowns and other changes are almost entirely predictable. In some ways it may be one of the easiest genres to mix just in terms of aligning and matching beats. (That actually makes it more challenging to mix in terms of actually sounding interesting, to be honest – as mostapha pointed out, it gets pretty damn boring otherwise).
I like to mix dubstep and I always beatmatch it. I like to do long blends when possible using the eqs mostly, and occasionally interesting transitions (taking the 1 and 3 from one song and the 2 and 4 from the other using quick crossfader cuts for example) to spice things up. It’s also fun to throw in segments of other styles, hip hop and r+b work well, which can sound great if you don’t make a mess of it.
