Had my first taste of controllerism prejudice yesterday
I’m fairly new to this whole thing, but I’ve been spinning seriously for about a year and am pretty confident in my skills. Over the past few months I’ve been contacting local club promoters in Boston, just trying to get my foot in the door and what not.
Then last night, I saw a status posted by one of the bigger Top-40/college-party-night DJs/promoter that read “Attn: DJ’s who only play on Midi Controller’s. Just buy ‘DJ Hero’ for XBOX , its much cheaper! Either way, i’m NOT booking you !”
Needless to say, it sparked about a 60 comment battle between the traditionalists and “us”.
I always read on the boards about the difficulties controllerists face, but I had never experienced it myself until now. It sparked a sense of rage and pride that made me realize how much I have come to love this craft. Quite sad that talented DJs are being denied playing time because of what they choose to play with.
here was my response for anyone interested..
“I think thats pretty close minded. There is so much more creativity available to a DJ who doesn’t spend time beat matching. That’s not to say the skill isn’t important, or something that all DJ’s should learn, but its an archaic skill that really takes no musical talent, but merely practice.
On another note, how about a controllerism vs tradtional DJing battle at Throwed? Let us “new kids” who supposedly can’t DJ show you that we can rock a party on the same level, if not better than turntablists and pioneer fanboys could ever dream of!”
Yeah ignore him. If he only wants a dj to play two songs together and do nothing else, add no style or creativity, then let him. His club is gonna be missing out.
I actually saw that too, it made me feel like buying a DJ Hero controller and modding it to use with Traktor. Just for the spite.
I added somethings along the lines of “What about those who switched from using CDJs to using traktor and a midi-controller because of better functionality?”
But I feel like with him, if you send him in a solid mix and act professional about it, then you’ll have a shot. I’ve met him before and he’s not a dick. He was probably just frustrated with all the newbs who don’t know the game asking if they can DJ at THROWED.
Yeah I feel the same way about cdjs and turntables when it comes to beat matching, so easy to do that even a brainless monkey can do it. My first time on cdjs and I got it down well but it does take time out from selecting the next track and having fun and watching/interacting with the crowd.
How does one think DJ Hero = Controllerism?
makes me wanna do that DJ hero controller for traktor just to troll them with. LOL
I never understood the stigmatism over using the sync function. When I switched from CDJs to a VCI all I could think was “sweet now I can spend more time on the music and less time on the tempo.” I guess purists will be purists…
