Sync: is it a bad thing?
A friend of mine recently told me about how dj’s get heckled off stage if they’re caught using sync. I had never heard this before and just wanted to hear an opinion from other dj’s out there. I’ve recently been trying to avoid using the sync button while mixing on traktor, but without headphones to line up a track before dropping it, I find it very difficult. With that said, what is your opinion on the use of sync?
sync is the devil! i don´t know why ni ever came up with this function. i´m running 2 decks and 8 samples at one time and i play with all my effects and cue points. it´s so easy to manually beatsync it all while having a nice talk to my buddies…
just joking. do whatever you wan´t if it´s hitting the sync button do it, if it´s beatmatching do it. it all comes down to 3 things:
do you feel comfy?
does the crowd have a good time?
does your trackselection rock?
Why aren’t you using headphones?
learning how to beat match helps you dj in general. what annoys people is that they spend 2 months learning how to beat match and spend a lot of money on equipment , and some guy buys a mixtrak a pair of headphones and calls himself a dj. i get why people would hate on sync.
This is a very good question but more importantly don’t worry about it. More than anything it sounds like your friend is one of the haters out there as well and is just trying to “scare” you into not using the sync button.
Just do your thing mate and you’ll be golden
Everyone knows that true DJs should use traditional belt-driven turntables with normal stylus what we used in the sixties. If not the DJs will be heckled out from the booth.
…like ean golden 
IMO, I seriously doubt that most of your audience is going to even know what sync is, so the only thing you are really being heckled off by are the other djs.
Even if you do use sync, its not a 100% effective way to have two tracks matched perfectly, so definitely use headphones to make sure everything is absolutely lined up.
behind door number 3… HATER #1
I don’t know why I’m not using headphones. It’s something I’ve been meaning to buy for a while, but simply haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve only been djing for like 4 months and the kids that got me into it where pretty amateur and never recommended buying a pair. I guess I just never saw them as essential because of that.
People hate on sync like it makes people superstar djs … Why aren’t I rich yet then!? Oh that s right it’s because I don’t know my tracks inside out which makes my mix phrasing a bit shit, and I don,t work on what goes well with what!
There are far more thinks to worry about than beat matching to became a decent DJ!
Ten years ago a quote from a non-dj-dance music lover I was talking to after a gig
My jaw (almost) hit the floor. :eek:
This. Again. Nooooooooooooooooo…
…ooooooooooooooooo…
…ooooooooo!
He’s full of it and scared.
Pizzle, I’m not sure what’s worse in your reply: all that “sync” or the use of comic sans.
On a serious note, sync is not a bad thing. On the flip side of that, people have every right to hate on it, and their reasons are more than legit. Learn the basics of mixing to a point where you are good enough that you could mix with no technology assisting you. Then, use the technology to the fullest, but make sure you are using the time saved to do something interesting, but more importantly, make sure it compliments the music and sounds good.
As someone said earlier, people hate on it as they spent time learning a craft out of love of music. Tech like the sync button have made it so that any idiot with a couple hundred bucks can now do exactly (for the most part) the same thing, and for the most part, the heart isn’t there.
Back in the day, it was super expensive to start this stuff. Thousands on equipment, and even more on vinyl. This made it so only people with a ton of disposable cash would get into it… or the people who are still doing it from back then, the people with such a love of the music, they were willing to save all that money and invest such a large amount of money. It thinned out the heard at an incredible rate right off the bat.
Now, any idiot who wants the money, glory, and bitches, just goes online, downloads the beatport charts for free, DJ software for free, and MIGHT spend $100 on a controller. Things like sync let them have their mix sound just as tight as the one they just copped of BBC Essential Mix. To the average person, it is the same.
While all this is going on, all the actual DJ’s are bickering amongst themselves about old vs new, and while everyone is all butthurt because someone is saying their preffered format is cheating or that they are stuck in the past, their egos aren’t letting them REALLY hear each other, and no one ever acknowledges that BOTH sides are completely correct.
I agree. To add to this:
It’s not just DJ:ing, technology has made it easy to enter such domains as music production, video editing, photography and many other creative arts.
Good or bad? Well, more creative material is out there. Instead of being the only kid on the block knowing how a device works now there are many kids. One option is to be unique so you elevate above the gray ooze of producers/DJs et rest. It means that those who want to do this need to go beyond the sync button, even beyond plain beat matching.
The other parameter is time, the wannabes usually give up after a short time as they are bored or otherwise don’t have a creative direction. Or the audience/consumers just ignore them.
And if some still think that DJ-hacks didn’t exist before the sync button, sadly that has always happened (pre-taped DJ sets) and will always happen.
I remember reading a post years ago on the subject, some guy wrote
lulz. I liked that one.
We have this same discussion every single damn week. Every week we say the same stuff and the next week the issue is there again. It isn’t even a topic worthy of discussion, yet every week we give it yet more oxygen, and lo and behold; there it is again.
this thread is proof why we needed a newbies area way more than we needed an off topic forum.
Can we just have a sticky with links to a bunch of the common topic threads?