traktor practice W/O waveforms.
recently i started mixing by trying to not look at waveforms for more than a couple seconds. does anyone else do this? or are people glued to the waveforms
People used to use their ears in the olden days!!
If you have to stick to waveforms you will never progress as a DJ. As mentioned people used their ears in the olden days.
IMO, if you have to rely on waveforms you obviously don’t know your music very well..
Its good advice.
I covered the laptop when i first started using Traktor Scratch so i could get used to using DVS after being a vinyl DJ for many years.
I fear that after many years i may have become reliant on the screen.
Yeah, man… Don’t rely on those waveforms! Get to know your tunes and musical structure! You won’t get anywhere if you’re staring at your screen waiting to mix the next track in… To control the music, you gotta KNOW! 
On vinyl you still watched the ‘waveform’ on the record to see when the breaks/drops were coming.
Not 100% true. I did sometimes but quite a lot of the time i couldn’t see in the club so i knew the breaks/drops by memory.
I’ve never mixed by looking at the groove on a record to see when breaks/drops are coming. You can’t look at the “waveforms” on 2 records to line up the beats cos you can’t beatmatch either. 
Yeah thats not really the same thing.
Theres no Phase meter on vinyl or time elasped/remaining etc.
Whats this Vinyl thing you guys speak of?
They are like CDs, but they go on top of the player, not inside.
When I started out with VDJ I covered everything except for the browser window, or turn the whole screen off and randomly pick tracks to mix <-that never worked so well.
Though mp3s off beatport are not nearly as expensive as vinyl was back in the day…so combine that with the post concussion syndrome… having the waveform helps me quite a bit 
I try to stay focused on my CDJ’s and only glance at the laptop screen (which is kept well away from the decks and mixer) to see the time remaining on the outgoing track.
I found when I used to have the laptop next to me I was watching the screen too much and my mixing got very clinical and I stopped actually listening properly like I used to with vinyl and CD’s.
I tried couple of time to cover the screen with post-its, back in the Traktor Studio v2 days, but it never worked out as expected.
The way I see it, you ara gonna look at it as much as you have to. More in the beginning, and as you progress you will either start looking away or add more elements to your screen. The bloody waveforms are right there, why not look at them! So beautiful and sexy in these new versions of Traktor. So the only thing you have to keep in mind is:
“Check your drugs & booze then check the music/screen and rest of the time left check the girls in the front rows.”
I do this all the time. I’ll do this with newly download tracks before beatgridding them or load a set of 20+ tracks and then set the monitor to timeout after a minute or so. This, alongside with proper phrasing and counting has helped me out a lot!
Something really surprising to me is that people are talking about the help the waveforms gives you as a bad thing… especially if they are using sync. It’s technology that helps. That being said, I do try to avoid using it as well to keep my basic skills sharp. More than that though… and part of why I’m surprised at the responses and lack of what I feel is a more important reason… I try to look at the computer as little as possible because technology has definitely cut into the connection a DJ has with the crowd IMO. Before laptops, I definitely feel like guys made a little more contact with the immediate crowd. Might just be my opinion…
I look at mine and wouldn’t even consider covering them up, plus it’s not like I’m staring at them the whole time. When I was playing records in the club they were always behind me or at my feet so any “connection” I might have had was lost when I turned around to look for the next one.
A calculator is technology that helps, but if you had to pull one out to do basic calculations I’d tell you to go and learn your times tables.
I agree with you about the lack of connection thing, but it’s not just a lack of connection with the crowd, in terms of staring at a screen instead of looking out at them. It’s a lack of connection with what you’re actually doing too. When I’ve tried using auto-sync, it feels like something is missing. It takes some of the fun out of mixing. I know other people that have said the exact same thing. Even if a person learns to beatmatch manually and doesn’t have that experience and goes back to using sync, at least they’ll have that skill should they ever need it. CDJs and turntables don’t have auto-sync and neither do some DVS, and one day you may have to play a set using equipment like that.
agreed. I tend to focus more on the crowd connection though. To me, that and reading your audience is a harder skill to become proficient at next to beatmatching. My scratching skills could definitely benefit from more practice though. heh.
I look at the screen at times, but I hate having the computer in front of me. I like always having it off to the side of one of my technics when spinning. The other night, I knew my set well so I didn’t have to look at my laptop much. I do use the phasemeter sometimes, but I am too lazy to work through and actually perfectly grid my tracks, so I’ll phasematch/beatmatch by ear and use the phasemeter as a sanity check.