Noticed he -Dubfire is still utilizing Maschine and a 3 deck setup. Third deck I presume (cannot see the screen clearly enough)is now running the sample decks and a Kontrol F1.
My point is at when does all of this technology and options take away some of the soul of the music? e.g someone comes to hear a set and favorite record comes on, hand in the air moment. And it’s radically altered with the sample decks and Maschine?
Is the option of using these ‘tools’ a necessary gimmick?
I personally play house with four decks (Traktor and X1’s) and use many times percussive intros or sections of other records to to fill ‘dead space’, ‘breakdowns’, mixing records etc with elements at the time I feel necessary. or not.
To break it down is a setup like Dubfire’s overkill???
"My point is at when does all of this technology and options take away some of the soul of the music? e.g someone comes to hear a set and favorite record comes on, hand in the air moment. And it’s radically altered with the sample decks and Maschine? "
dj craze once mentioned that a big focus of his early djing was taking records that everyone knew and doing something different with them. imo thats a big part of what djing is about. granted the result is sometimes going to be messy (i know i’ve been there), but i think a really technical dj is a great thing. ofcourse song selection and other things are just as, if not more important, than being technical. but i think djing really becomes an art when the dj begins to alter (scratching, remixing, etc.) the records he/she plays live.
really noob question here…if he’s using machine to loop and launch samples how does it stay synced to the overall bpm? or is he just using the machine to trigger one shot samples and using the F1 for loops and what not?
I guess in a way i’m playing devils advocate here. I agree with all of the above. Not that I have used it but I think Maschine in a setup looks and seem’s a brilliant addition to a four deck setup. Heck even the old Acid house dj’s used to bring in a drum sample for another channel and play it along.
I’m just curious as to why a Kontrol F1 is necessary to an already large sampler, deck setup? Fighter jet’s interfaces are being simplified to get rid of ‘Information overload’ and to me this seem’s with an additional Kontrol F1 the same 'information overload and maybe unnecessary?
Using two X1’s an Akai LPD8 and one of the X1’s Midi on off options in a mix (to enable loop active on-off) I feel slightly overloaded.
Maybe Dubfire was using it to see how it operates in a live setting and ive opend a can of worm’s here
When guys like Dubfire, Hawtin and Chris Liebing play, they really aren’t playing “tracks” per se, they are just taking parts from tracks along with loops they make on the spot and samples and are building solid underground grooves to keep you moving and dancing. They really aren’t going to play the “hands in the air” type of music to begin with anyway, the tracks they play are straight up tools and in order to get the most out of them you really need to be able to work them live like that.
This is where DJing is going to be in the future me thinks. Instead of producers spending hours working and tweaking an arrangement, they are just going to create the loops and tools and leave it up the DJ to use them as they see fit.
I don’t think the production game will change that much any time soon. Sure there will be more sample packs made for people to use in this way but IMO it’s nowhere near being the future.
If the day arrives where EDM production is reduced to just sound design and a sample pack format just for someone else to play with it I’d gladly move on to another type of music.
Mind you, I enjoy show show of the likes of the producers mentioned earlier in here so don’t take me as a hater.
Hmm…probably a noob question too, but, can what one sees in that video actually be considered “good”? I guess a better and more noob question would be, what is good about it? Yes, I am being totally honest here. I didn’t see anything challenging in those 9+ minutes from my personal (amateur) DJ’ing perspective. What techniques are used that I missed and are special, cause I want to learn about those things. You know, those techniques, which are actually considered good amongst DJs and need mastery to do well and I seriously don’t know what “good” is, especially when I watch a video like that or from the likes of Hawtin and Liebling and think, “What is so special about that?” I don’t want to put down their hard work at all. I must simply be missing something. Again, I am really being serious. What techniques used in this video are truly “good” and top class? What could I learn from it? Can someone point out some of the techniques in that video that are hard to do or something that needs mastering through tons of practice?
Guys like Hawtin, Dubfire, Liebing are stupidly talented and experienced DJs who can pull shit like this off, have you heard others try it? Or heard it done badly?
I remember going to see Isolee earlier in the year and being bored shitless because all he was doing was triggering loops, it was souless and repetitive and I’m a huge huge techno fan so I love my repetition… It’s a great idea when its done well… but otherwise…
Mmmmm. Good point. I think it’s from a producers ear that allows them to as mentioned take snippet’s of tracks and layer them to create a new tempo, sound, experience.
From an amateur production perspective I can see what they are trying to achieve with the technology at their hands.
Taking a track and deconstructing it to allow them to use the individual components of a record to create something new on the fly, using the Maschine samples the Kontrol F1 and Traktor looping.
But at the same flip side as I said if you hear a track you recognize and then it’s being remixed or having it’s components eg the groove, breakdown added to, is their a sense of disappointment for an audience at not hearing it in it’s original format?
I’m getting too philosophical now.
I think you do need a lot of practice to allow you to communicate with your devices without having to think as to what button does what and why. This is the same for me suing photoshop, I now instinctively know keyboard commands without having to think about it and this allows me to not get bogged down and let the creativity flow.
So yes I think it need’s practice, and I guess it’s subjective as to whether it is ‘good’ or not.
Those guys are already doing it, and I have heard they are talking about releasing all the stems for their releases as well. And I’m not talking about them just writing loops and releasing them. Talking about them actually going through the process of writing a track and groove just minus the arrangement part.
All the stuff will be there for the track, there would just be no need for an arrangement as you would be doing it live.
I almost relate it to seeing a band play live vs listening to their Album. If they sound exactly the same as their album, I would be very disappointed. I want to see them jam out, play off of each other and just do something with a track live that didn’t happen to get recorded that day.
If you wanna go listen to that track in its entirety, then save yourself a boat load of money and stay open and listen to it. But if you want to go have a new experience and see some of the best DJ/performers in the world and hear tunes in new and unique ways then get out of the house and go rock it out
I should have gone further with this. I think I was aiming at when it’s done badly. Ive heard this many times with overkill with beatslicer etc in Traktor effects. I have a lot of respect for the aforementioned DJ’s in this thread and the way they play. But as Ive heard Chris Liebing actually admit on this site on a video interview, I think he said ‘producers will hate me’ or along those lines of him actually doing what he does.
At what point then are these guys going to have to be called something else as opposed to DJ’s (which I no longer believe as an appropriate name for what they are doing) and for want of a better description ‘live producer’s’
if what you say about slices and samples being released for live mixing?
I agree about live bands, I think it was 2007’s ‘Hot chips’ performance when they ‘jammed out’ on a couple of their songs, fantastic stuff also seeing ‘Battles’ a few years ago was an eye opener.
At a festival two months back, Richie headlined day one and Dubfire day too.
I feel like most of the people that would go see there shows, whether festival or not, would have to be fairly comfortable and impressed with there style. Its not like people being like “I’ve heard of Steve Angello or such and such”. Those attending definitely know their production capabilities and DJ skills
I appreciate and understand what these types of artists are doing, but for me, I love the feeling of hearing a song in the middle of the night that I know and love. Like the poster above, if I heard a grrove or some element that made me think the song was coming and then I just get a few layers of other sampples and/or loops piled on, it could be a bit of a letdown. I am all for people reworking tracks on the fly, but sometimes I just want to dance to songs I know.
I guess it really comes down to expectations. If I was paying for a show or going to a club/party/festival whatever I would like to know if I am seeing a dj set or some on the fly awesomeness. So perhaps the suggestion of another moniker for these types of performers or performances would be an appropriate solution.
