Hype men or DJ's?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Hype men or DJ’s?

Hey guys, I was just wondering what other thoughts were on this. i was watching some 12th planet video, love the dude and his style, but in most videos of him(and countless other big djs for that matter) they dont seem to be very hands on with their gear. It seems as though to go on tour and be a big name dj you just need to be a good hype man and have good P.R and that crap is taking importance over actual mixing skills.

Shouldn’t live djs be shredding it on their equipment and have less time to dance around and pose for camera’s? If that’s your life and all you do is practice i would expect to utilize a better setup than 2 cdjs and a mixer for more unique performances.

For example, i watched a 14 minute set of his and saw him touch his mixer like 3 times, is this DJing?

Its something that is getting under my skin more and more and i feel like were falling into a "press play’ and jump around type dj scene. Am i crazy or do you guys catch this alot too?

2

DJ’s job is to rock the dancefloor, as simple as that. Fake button twisting, Jebus Pose, & other things that make the guy looks busy is a plus.

but yeah, we may have more & more around… is this as this bad? up to you to decide… music’s good, people dance & enjoy?

3

Very true one of the greatest djs in the uk ever is David Rodigan and he rips up crowds with hype and Toonage

still kills it at 60 years old lol :wink:

4

Haha sick ^^

5

It deppends on your audience I think…
General top40 audience doesn’t know shite about DJ, so they don’t care.
But to some audiences, most of the people are wannabe DJs who are seeking for inspiration to jump on the DJ Wagon.

If you fake, they will know, and they will talk shite about you at the web, like you did right now.

Be sure of the audience that you want to have. If you go all way to top and popular, you can end up like Guetta… Not sure if you find it good or not, I don’t like it :stuck_out_tongue:

6

People who’s bashing other DJ performance is usually another DJ, so irrelevant if the crowd had fun. Yet another true story :wink:

7

Saw David Rodigan at a local club in June and I had such a good night. He absolutely tore it apart.

Worth noting he got an MBE a few days ago.

8

pretty much THIS

its all about the audience you’re aiming for and how you break through to this people. i for myself am more aiming for the are-more-into-this-psy-thing-people and do enjoy it a lot more to do some sort of “underground”-partys which are really small but the people really know what they want and how they get it.

and for this people, i really love it to give all i can because they appreciate it.

if i could play a party which was 5 or 10 times bigger but full of psy-tourists which don’t know anything about this whole thing, i would decide for the small party ;o)

i know their is an audience which don’t know anything, would not reckognize it if i do nothing and i know exactly what i would have to do to satisfy this much bigger group of people which are just dumb herd-animals, but i DO NOT WANT TO ;o)

their are existing enough egomanic pseudo dj’s to saturate this need of dj’s and partys, this is nothing i need to do ;o)

9

But that setup is all it needs to deliver a killer performance.

I have nothing against controllerism, but just like turntablism it’s more of a show thing, nothing for a standard club gig. I personally don’t like it when people mess around with effects/cue-points/tricks too much. Mostly because only very few are acutally good enough to do so without completely messing up the track (musically). I mean I go to a club to dance and have fun and not to become a witness to the DJ’s egotrip.

Be unique through your selection and your programming, not by pulling off a bag of tricks.

David Mancuso completely abstained from mixing at all in the Loft, NYC, and still the place is consider one of the best clubs this world has ever seen.

10

i also think that the dancefloor appreciate it more if the next track is selected well and impacts killer because you used a clever cuepoint and mixed it well as the edge some dj has with his super-mega-efx or 10 band eq on his mixer but just selects a not so perfect fitting track as the next ;o)

the dancefloor don’t cares how you do it up there in the booth, they just listen to what comes out of the speaker and judge hard ignoring who you are.
(okay, this type of audience is not really common in the mainstream scene, but in my scene you have 180seconds before the floor is empty if you trainwreck your dumb selection ^^)

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Still big in the game! original bad man

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DJing: playing other people’s records.

So yes, that would be DJing.

2 cdjs and a mixer is all that’s actually required. 1200’s if you prefer. Better setup? What’s a better setup?

14 minutes means probly 4 tunes, which means 3 mixes. So, yeah, touching the mixer 3 times sounds about right.

13

What? lol, it all depends on the style for sure, but usally in a top 40 or hip-hop mix you’d have like 10 or 11 songs in 14 mins.

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lol, and it’s annoying to hear. People want the whole track, like it or not.

15

Dude, really? That would suck to listen to. Don’t you actually like the tunes you play, and want to hear more than one verse, bridge, chorus section?

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The thread is an impossible conundrum. If you pick one or the other, it only shows a strong misunderstanding of what being in the entertainment industry means. Any aspect of the music business requires the realization that true balanced talent possesses equal parts stage presence AND technical skill/talent. All presence with no talent is success with no integrity. All talent with no presence is boring brilliance. Both is having the ability to know shit talkers are never going to have a leg to stand on.