Hardwell DJ set at Ultra! or was he actually DJ’ing.
Hardwell, the most recent winner of the IDMA for best european DJ and best remixer, posted a pic by rukes today on his instagram, facebook, and twitter accounts. The first thing I noticed was that 3 out of 4 decks are completely visible and show absolutely no tracks loaded in them. The time of the picture looks about 3/4s of the way through his set because of the low sunlight and if you watched the video of his set it was sunny for the first 40 minutes or so. Any CDJ owner knows that the decks only look the way they do in the pic when you power on the player or eject the source of your music whether it be CD, USB, SD, or Link. And there is no reason to do any of the in the middle of a set at Ultra Music Festival. Basically, I think he premixed his set which is disappointing considering the awards he has just won. However, I still respect him as a Producer/DJ and dont want to take away from his reputation but I just wish he would have put more effort into a set like Ultra because I know everyone on this forum would kill for a spot on that stage and we would do it the right way mixing live on the spot.
I’m not sure what you seeing but the LCDs screens on both deck 1 and deck 4 show absolutely no waveforms showing which means a track is not/has not been loaded to the deck since they were powered on or the previous dj ejected their media source. Another way to tell if a deck is loaded with a track is that the led ring in the middle of the jogwheel is much thicker. Look at the cdjs hooked up to the set up on the far left of the picture, thats what a CDJ looks like with a track cued up.
Yes that is true but Deck A(Channel 2) is not loaded with a track because if it was the LED ring in middle of the jogwheel would be thicker. And if he did have a track cued up he would have had to eject his media source for it to show up as it does in the pic which absolutely no DJ does when using 2 or more decks.
thats what i was thinking because I remember as I watched the livestream I made a comment to my brother about how he was mixing really fast. It was an awesome set for sure though but if he did it live it would of been even more awesome. Hardwell is still 100times better a DJ and Producer than someone like Steve Aoki lol
Oh wait you’re a promotor with millions invested in this festival. Let’s take the risk a DJ (deliberately or not) messes up his set. That’s what everyone’s waiting for indeed.
If you’re playing for such a large crowd there is no room for error. It’s not like you’re in a normal club where people don’t care for an error or two (and every DJ makes errors now and then). If that means that he has to make a prerecorded one hour set then so be it. Don’t forget, lots of artists playback as well. Most people don’t care, they are just happy as long as the artist is there. Nothing different from this.
in case some of you didnt know
this is a common practice lately with some festival appearing djs when
its a question of being able to actually attend due to bookings
its a question of everything going to pot because of possible weather conditions
if the festival is going to be streamed live which means there songs the producer (can / cant) play.
Im not saying i know everything. Im just saying, i have spoken to a few “big names” at the Electric Zoo festival in NYC over the past couple years and this basically sums of the responses.
I was talking about this with our Friday night resident tonight, and I was telling him that I can’t understand why more DJs aren’t REALLY pissed off about this.
What Hardwell (and any other “DJ” who does this cough Guetta cough) is doing is essentially taking jobs away from those of us that actually BOTHER to mix. Yes, I know we’re not famous, but people should be booked based on their ability not on their name alone. If these guys want to be producers as well as DJs, that’s fine, but don’t start thinking you can just pretend to DJ while putting on a megamix.
It’s like that scandal a decade ago where Top Of The Pops got in trouble for letting their acts mime/pretend to play pre-recorded stuff. They implemented a policy where at least the lead singer/band member HAD to sing/play live. I don’t see why festivals should do anything differently. If Hardwell - or any other acts - aren’t capable of doing their pre-arranged stuff like, then they don’t get to play, simples.
Maybe then we’d actually see decent DJs turning up to festivals with Kontrol F1s, Maschines, MidiFighters or Ableton Pushes then. I mean Christ, even Little Boots sets her Tenori-On up on stage every time she performs.
absolutely zero respect to anyone that pulls this shit, i don’t care how famous they are. not that i’d be caught dead at a show like this but if i was there and saw someone doing this, i’d be taking my ticket price out of their ass backstage after the show.
The thing is, the big bookings come off the back of producing, most of the time anyway. If people like their tracks they want to see them, if a track gets big then promoters take notice and know people pay to do so.
So yeah, you might get residencies and the like from ability but big bookings, maybe not. It makes sense from the promoter’s view when you think about it.
