Your thoughts on this video… Re: Beginner DJ’s and midi controllers / software.
Hey, im a noobie to these forums, but have been lurking on the website for a while now and thought id ask the DJ TT community a question..
I just saw this video on youtube by John Beck and was wondering how much of it you personally believe is correct / incorrect..
Video - “getting started (i want to be a nightclub dj)”
The main statement this post refers to is at the 1:00 mark, however continues after that point aswell..
Note: Belch’s reply to the above video
Whilst im not 15, i have recently taken a massive interest in dj’ing, and would hopefully like to turn my new found passion into a job. Possibly just start out at parties, and then eventually into clubs..
Whilst i have almost no experience in DJ’ing, i thought id learn through the use of a VCI-100 and software.
I’ve so far enjoyed myself with mucking around juggling cue points in Traktor.
After watching this video, i thought “is what i was planning on learning with taking the wrong approach, should i be learning with CDJ’s?..”
So, back to my question.. What do you believe is the best medium to learn how to DJ? Is learning on a midi controller taking the wrong apprach?
more like teaching sound engineers how to work a tape machine even though they are rarely used now days:
the reason - so if the job calls upon the need for it, you’re prepared. if you get called off a whim to come play at the club that night, but oh snap they only have cdjs and want you to use them because A) they have absolutely no room for any other setup, or B) the sound engineer doesn’t want you touching his rigging, then well, if you learned on cdjs you’re fine.
I think that’s an excellent analogy. I would say the reason to learn beatmatching is to allow your understanding of DJing to spread throughout the other techniques that you learn, and give you a much better idea of what things like beatgridding and syncing actually do (rather than just ‘accepting’)
…Think Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder when Harry teaches him about the car, he’s a good driver before but becomes a great driver because he understands how the car really works as opposed to just how to drive it
p.s. I wouldn’t bother with CDJ’s if you’re thinking about going to controllers, I’d recommend getting some old belt-drive turntables and a mixer and a handful of records; if you can get to grips with that and still enjoy it you’re going to have an absolute blast when you move to controllers!
What i say in that vid is hugely garbled.. but as a young whippersnapper myself, i know all too well that for me it can be hugely expensive to buy CDJs to learn to mix..
What i’m trying to get at is that its more important to be able to learn how to mix music than it is to know how to use CDJs at this stage. And I can almost guarantee that by the time you manage to get club night gigs where you’d be in danger of being forced to use CDJs or pissing off sound engineers, pretty much everyone’ll be using a laptop.
Plus, VCI and a laptop is so much easier if you want to play parties, and practise while taking a break from your homework (like i’ve been doing for such a long time now!)
Is that what you got from the video? or a different impression?
ps i don’t mean this offensively to anyone - but Mr Beck’s a bit of a douche, and has some good ideas - but doesn’t quite understand the nightclub route thing… He seems to think there’s some sort of formula for getting into clubs, which is slightly misleading… Nice fella though!
(case in point - his recent vids talk about how he failed his nightclub stint, and has snuck back into the mobile DJ industry.. hehe)
again this discussion, but I like it, it’s our reallity…
I will probably never learn how to play on a CDJ or Turntable because I will not need it…
Right know we are on the mid adopters phase of midi-controllers. Try to read this theory at wikipedia and you will understand what is happening and why we have all type of opinions in this matter:
The first place I heard this theory was in my Job on an Annual Convention to talk about the Company Future. I work at a companny that works with Performance Tuning and Quality of Software, you can imagine that, we are paid for our High Innovative Solutions but sometimes we can’t be that much innovative.
Generaly the clients that hire us are from Innovators to Early Adopters, clients that want or need to work with the best efficiency possible. It’s very nice to work with these people, but only these people doesn’t make our company bigger, we need to get to the Early Majority to raise our profit.
One way to get to the Early Majority is to make our innovative solutions become popular, thats were we are now in DJ world, controllers are rising in popularity (see NAMM 2010) and soon (1-2 years maybe) the controllers and digital DJ will be at the peak of the curve.
Another fact, the Vinil turntable right now is at “Laggards”, it’s beautiful to see a DJ playing at turntables, I love them and their art, the problem is that there is a better way of achieving the same final result.
The CDJ has passed the early majority peak and it’s on late majority peak, and will be decrising every day to the same place that Vinil are now, the “Laggards”.
Try to study the theory and the graph, it will help you now and in the near future. This way you can choose the best place for you in the curve.
There is nothing wrong about been a “Laggard” if you want to do things in the old way, at DJ we have the “Art” aspect beside the “Tech” aspect, but be prepared to find people doing better mixes then you because these people loves to be innovative.
I don’t think i’m really digging the whole ‘theory’ jive too much in explaining the progression of DJ technology in the industy (although i’m sure it works, and is based on lots of very solid evidence)
The fact is, it doesn’t really matter to anyone in the crowd what we use to play music, as long as it sounds good, and to some extent looks good. Other than that, all of the debate comes from DJ snobbery; and I have no doubts that there’s a lot of guys who feel threatened by the ‘new’ DJ who’s never learnt on CDJs, and is (shock horror) better at mixing music!
It boils down to the fact that, although going along with convention might help secure an important first slot to get your foot in the door of the club scene, at the end of the day - it has to be about what you’re most comfortable with.
I spend 50% of my bigger gigs at the moment omitting songs which i’d normally slot in - in order that i don’t piss off the main act who mentioned to me not to play certain bangers. But that’s only so to ensure i don’t rub the people who have influence on my career up the wrong way.
I’m still proud to let people know that I’m a ‘controllerist’ and that I use my software creatively (‘yeah dude, I’ll show you how my setup works!’ i’d say…). A lot of the big guys who i’ve played with get quite excited when i whap out my keyboard and pedal, and to be honest, many of them use serato anyway - so the technical issue’s never been a big deal.
Do what you do best, how you do it best. That’s far more important than relearning on the conventional setup, just to fit in. After all, Seasick Steve is awesome, and his guitar has 3 strings.. (two of which are tuned to the same note!)
Anything really from manufacturers such as Gemini, Numark, Vestax… as a starter package I wouldn’t worry about the quality of anything, as long as the mixer has at least a 2-band eq and the turntables are either decent-ish belt-drives (hard to tell without playing them) or direct drive (I started out on very crap Gemini direct drives, but they did the job)
I guess I’d say buy anything in a package deal from somewhere like eBay; if you’re just going to be test-driving the whole DJing thing no point buying new until you’re sure what you want to get
Before anyone wonders why I always say to get the most basic kit, it’s to save people spending money on gear they won’t use and sell on because they had a bad experience and want their money back. The way I’d figure how to decide what you want after trying out turntables:
If you like the feel of vinyl and enjoy collecting them, stick with it!
If you like the feel of vinyl, but wish it were easier to obtain and manage your tunes, go with DVS
If you like the control over beatmatching, and would prefer choons that are easier to carry around, go with CDJs
If you’re not bothered by beatmatching but enjoying EQing and playing with FX, then go with controllers
That’s a very rough list, but should sort of explain why I recommend dipping your toe in the water first (rather than diving in at the deep end)
Just remember that it doesn’t matter what you mix on, as long as you enjoy yourself
Id say get a VCI-100 like many of the new people around here and learn to rock that out, if you like mixing enough want to learn turntables or cdjs down the track then you can buy them down the track.
aye @bento i agree dude. i’m gna have to say @lantau man, i’m not rollin with you on that.
when i started i thought it would be a good idea to start on turntables, and now they just sit around looking pretty. it didn’t take me long to realise that and move on either.
for someone just starting out, i think the best advice is to pick a route and pursue it. as bento says, you can always buy TTs if you want to scratch or use them, but at the moment, the more important thing is a) the music and b) the performance. knowing how to beatmatch is all well and good, but you can achieve that on Traktor too, and for the time being, your priority IMO is to experiment with mixing music, rather than the techniques of turntablism…
Havent really read any of the responses to this post so sorry if I’m saying something that anyone disagrees with and I didnt watch the entire video. But personally I think that video is bullshit. How ever you want to make a sound, do it. What ever you have to make sound with, no matter how basic, you’re going to use what ever your environment is to the best you can. Say you only have a pair of old cassette decks and thats all you have, you adapt, you find a way of making it work the best you can. It’s the same with anything, what ever you can physically use, use it to the best you can. Its your choice.
If you want to put on a show in a club you can use what ever you want, its your show. If you’re rocking the place with what ever equipment you use what does it matter what the format is? Its your thing, and you need to decide what you want to use, no one else can decide that for you.
If you want to use a midi set up do it. If you want to use vinyl do it. If you want to hit tin cans with a wooden stick do it.
There’s no rules. The only issue is making sure the crowd is happy. If your thing is to hit tin cans with a wooden stick and you have a big following and a big fan base, and people want to come and see you play and are happy to pay to see you play, its highly unlikely a club owner is going to say “sorry, no tin cans, you have to use CDJ’s”.
I’ve seen some mad personal set-ups in clubs, from reel to reel tape machines, tape delays, circuit bent kids toys, all kinds of percussion, full midi set-ups, iphones hooked up via bluetooth, the list goes on.
One argument is you said you want to be a “DJ”, technically a DJ uses some form of disc, hence the name Disc Jockey. But we’ve evolved from that, nowadays anything goes, DJ’s can be controllerists now. You basically need to decide what you want to do/use, and learn to use it as best you can and rock the shit out of it.
On the flip side, if you just want to be a straight up club DJ using CDJ’s or the alike, you need to start writing your own tracks or be prepared to not really earn very much money. Basically you need to offer something no on else can in order to make a decent living out of it.
So yeah, DJ, controllerist, what ever, just practice til you’re ready to put on a live gig. I’d be happy to go to a club where any of this shit was going on;
