My name’s Daniel and I have been a bedroom dj for 2 yrs. I have been doing quite a few house parties and my first gig was a fashion show a week ago, which turned out very well. People were congratulating me and even the organizers and some designers want to hire me for other events and small clubs parties. Now I go to the main point of this post…I have had hearing loss 30db since I was 25 and I am 41 right now and some hyperacusis…so as much as I like djing I had to make some sad changes, I will never be able to invest on nice turntables due to my ear problems so I am sort of stuck with my DenonDJ MC4000 and Traktor Pro.
In order for me to take care of my ears and hearing I have to use Traktor’s beat counter and visual aids frequently, I still use headphones to mix,cue etc…but the beat counter feature makes my ears be less expose to loud sounds. I try to beatmatch by ear as much as I can but once the hyperacusis kicks in I have to cut back on doing a few things by ear.
I also use custom molded earplugs 25db.
So after this whole mega speech. Would you consider that I am cheating?? If any of you has similar issues will you share them with us please?
Thanks. Sorry for my English but it is not my first language.
The art of Deejaying comes from reading the crowd, track selection, and intelligent mixing/eqing. All are things that have nothing to do with beat counting or beatmatching bruv. Keep rocking and dont stress the small things. Life is too short.
If it was cheating, it wouldn’t be a feature on flagship controllers. Take a look at the S5 or S8 for example, do they really look like they even thought about manual beatmatching by ear? Infinite knobs for tempo control tell me no. If it sounds good, people feel it, and you’re getting gigs, don’t get yourself down about it! A bad DJ is a bad DJ, and they’d be useless even with the visual controls, use your tools! Couldn’t use remix decks without sync, thay’re there for a reason.
Any DJ who says that you’re not a real DJ because you don’t beatmatch by ear, or use vinyl, or have a hamster running around to spin your turntables for example is A. living in the past, and B. perhaps intimidated by what mixing technology can do now, it’s no longer a big deal to beatmatch! (in my opinion)
However, Beatmatching by ear is something we should all try to learn, and vinyl is incredible in many many was. I could never put it down, I have a turntable just for playing and sampling records, no pitch fader, belt driven… I use it more than any digital player to be honest, if you don’t count my Traktor Kontrol