this one goes out to all the serious Dj out there... How do

[Guest Bronco WeeDaMan]

You all probably have heard about all the DJ's who are so enthusiastic about mixing with the a notebook and this new traktor dj studio program.

What do you think about this technique?? Do you agree that the results are comparable to the traditional way of mixing?

I'm dieing to see a heated discussion...

[Guest Elysium Project]

As much as it is very fun to use such programs I think it's a big time cheat (toward all the people that actually pay money to listen to him/her) if a Dj start to use such programs when they playin a party. To me a "real" Dj is a person that use his/her talent "manually" and are pasionated about both the music and about evolving his / her own skills.

[ouroboros]

elysium,

 

"To me a "real" Dj is a person that use his/her talent "manually" and are pasionated about both the music and about evolving his / her own skills."

 

 

the same could be said about the entirety of electronic music. how much psy/trance do you think would be out there if it werent for electronic devices of all sorts doing things for people?

 

exactly none.

 

i have heard you yourself admit to using samples. why? why dont you just play everything yourself?

 

i mean no offence and im in no way making light of your music. in fact thats my point. your music is your music, your creativity is yours alone. so why would someone else using a tool not get that kind of respect?

 

 

by the way. i dont dj at all. just making a point.

[Guest noname]

I think using a comp to mix tracks is not a good idea, because mp3's are not as good quality as the actual CDs...

 

I think a party should not be about the DJs... it should be about the music alone... when u really dance yourself into trance.. u dont care who's playing as long as the music is good.. if you pay attention to DJ's ... u loose your focus from the whole dancing meditation thing...

I dont think there should be any DJ's at a party... in the future there's gonna be a magical computer which provides all the music.. and people just go to parties to get in a different dimension. and even forget that there is an actual sound system at the place... music just comes from nowhere in the other dimension...

 

i think DJ's should be hidden at parties... and people should close their eyes when they dance.. and get into really deep meditation.. not caring where they are or who's playing...

 

at a party everyone's facing the stage... and looking at what the dj's doing... or the live performer.. but u cant really see anything.... its not like a visual entertainment... its all about the sound...

 

the music producers make the songs in their home studios anyways... yeah we gotta give them big credit for their awesome work...

 

but for me.. a party is not about watching people on stage mixing songs... or doing live pa... there arent even any people there when u are in the different dimensions... with your eyes closed... its a whole new experience...

there is nothing around u.. just empty space... unlimited empty space

 

 

(this has been a spiritual point of view)

[Guest Mike D]

I think that dj softwar eis great for releasing mixed compilations, or doing home mixes of yur favourite tracks, but not for parties. To the above post, we can do this now, just ask labels to make loads of premixed dats or cd's and just play them over the sound system, you don't need a compuater, a 6 cd played will do the trick, but how borign I think, the whole idea of going out is to have some entertainment, and what ould be more entertaining than having different people play different music in tehir own style of mixing and telling such stories?

[Guest coriolis]

why not embrace change? why does there have to be anything "authentic" or "real" associated with vinyl mixing instead of software mixing? if we pursue software mixing, there will definately be things that DJs will be able to do that they can't do on the tables (and vice versa, of course). its just another instrument, another style, another progression. it doesn't make it invalid nor does it invalidate the old school. every era, every scene has its so-called "authenticities" and they always change. think about jungle fans who gawk at the "falsity" of groups who try to use live drummers to recreate the intricate beats normally created with drum machines. thats a reversal of standards if i ever saw one, and i wouldn't disagree with it. as far as i'm concerned, "realness" and "authenticity" simply don't exist, and there is no such thing as "cheating" when it comes to musical creativity - its all a matter of perspective. five or ten years down the road we'll be talking about mp3 mixing software as the old school...

 

peace!

[Guest bugbread]

Agreed with Coriolis and a good part of noname.

 

If sound quality is your issue, then, true, based on whether or not you find MP3s noticably degraded, using a computer may be a bad thing (please, no discussionas about whether MP3's are low quality or not...that's best discussed in another thread).

 

But as for the rest of it: when I go to a party, I want: good music at good volume, dance space, air conditioning, water or drinks available, relatively short bathroom lines, etc. Seeing a DJ stand in front of two pieces of mechanical equipment touching buttons I can't see is not important to me. Whether he wants to touch the pitch shifter on a turntable, the pitch shifter on a CDJ, or the pitch shifter on a computer is a non-issue. If he wants to grab a piece of plastic and slide it right and left to mix one track to another, or if he wants to grab a mouse and slide it right and left to mix one track to another, is not an issue. If software (or CDJs) allow him to make new loops on the fly, drop in sound effects, put weird effects on the music, etc. then I am COMPLETELY in favor of it.

 

I don't personally understand why people at parties all face the DJ, and I don't understand why people make artificial divisions between "real" and "unreal" based on equipment.

[Guest Elysium Project]

Well my point was and I will try to make it more clear that I see a Dj as a job that take a long time to learn (technical wise). If a software program has to do the job for the DJ well then everybody can become a DJ tomorrow! Where's the fun and challenge in that? I think it's fair that a DJ actually work for the money he/she earn!

use a software program? well why not just hire a 10 year old kid that can program a whole parties mp3 files and pay him with peanuts? :-)---Then press the button and hallelujah ....we got a clean unpersonal party :-).....who need's a DJ anyway.

 

For doing mixed tapes I dont care if it's a software progranm or a "manual" DJ!

[Guest coriolis]

elysium project:

 

i hear your point, and i beleive there is always something to be said in the realm of music for someone who has worked hard to develop a skill and i fully endorse your right to appreciate that and prefer DJs with turntables to DJs with computers.

 

on the other hand, what would you say to someone who thought psy-trance was a lesser form of music than jazz because it involves no live physical engagement with acoustic instruments, no improvisation, no live interpersonal interchange between performing musicians? these are things which jazz musicians work their entire lives to master.

[Guest bugbread]

I see DJs currently as people who've had to work long and hard to be able to do what they do, and I respect their skill and effort, but technology makes old jobs less relevant. Watches used to be handcrafted, and becoming a watchmaker was a skill that took years of effort and a good degree of skill. Then mechanization made that job irrelevant. I feel sorry for anyone who loses their job due to technological progress, but in 20 years people end out being better off (I can buy a watch for about $10 now, whereas in the olden days many people couldn't even afford watches). If new technology makes DJing unnecessary, so be it.

 

I don't care how and why the music gets onto the speaker system: I want good music, mixed well. If it's a good mix, I can enjoy it just as much if it's by a vinyl DJ as if it's by a 10 year old kid.

 

For me, it's all about the music. ALL about the music. Not the way the music is made, the way the music is played, or anything else. It seems silly to me to have these fixations on whether an artist uses software or hardware, samples or no samples, vinyl or CDs. Play me a great set, and I'll love you for it, regardless if you're a 27 year old guy wearing fluoro standing in front of two Tecnics or a 14 year old kid dressed as a hiphopper tapping on a keyboard to mix mad goa tunes.

[Guest Norb-E]

i agree with bugbread 100%

 

who knows thousands of years from now... maybe some guy's just literally connected to a machine... and it plays all the music he thinks of on the spot...

 

the more the technology is improving the more possibilities we'll have to create better and better music...

 

there was no psytrance 300 years ago... and classical music was great back then... now one guy can create full orchestrations, AND MORE all by himself

 

thanks to the machines

[Guest parhelion]

the thing about software mixing programs is that you are limited to 1 "hand".

 

want to adjust the treble and bass at the same time? forget it unless you have a midi controller with knobs...

 

software mixing still has limitations...not to mention you have to know the exact BPM in order to calculate the pitch adjustment you need to make.

 

software mixing has a future, I believe...but we're not there yet

 

by they way I'm talking about DJing live...without a tracklist premade.

 

for making mix CDs, I guess you can do anything with software and patience..

[Guest bugbread]

That's what I thought as well, but apparently Traktor (and I'm sure other mixing software) accepts MIDI, so you can hook it up to whatever midi device and control it via that. If it weren't for that, I'd really dislike it, but since some companies even make MIDI mixing panels (they look like a mixer (crossfade, eqs, etc.)), it seems like that restriction is gone.

 

As for me, fiddling with Traktor, I have no midi equipment, but I use keyboard shortcuts in addition to the mouse, so I can modify two things at once, much like a real mixer. But it was a pain in the butt when I was trying to do everything with only the mouse

[Guest coriolis]

get a midi controller with assignable knobs. you will not regret this purchase! knob tweakage means finding interesting possibilities you wouldn't find with a mouse, in addition to being able to control various parameters simultaneously. midiman oxygen 8 is what i use, for $140 its well worth it in my opinion.

[Guest richie]

in essence, the thing that traktor brings to the masses is automatic beat matching. For ages there have been tempo meters/beat counters, which did half the job, so if they are accepted, then why not traktor?

[Guest pratik]

great topic, 100 years or b4 that time people used to play music on instruments which was called classical music. after that diffrent genre started to be created. and electronic music is one of them. read the word again "electronic." then comes goatrance/psytrance the music that is not possible withought samples produced digitally. now lets talk about dj's work in to the scene. before using computers for the dj ing, djs used hard wares like turntables, LPs, cables, synths, keyboards, mixers. and now revolution bruoght Softwares to do all this job from single unit. so let me get this strait, you are saying that its okay to use hardware but not software, the only diffrence is between both is that they do the same work? and maybe the space computers save. plus its great for traveling djs. and yea with software u have to be maintaining every thing that u had in hardware. so its same hassle. the only easy part is that u have a terminal to work with except to be going crazy and back forth. Trust me, mp3 quality doesnt matter to people who are dancing. and u would be super human if u could tell diffrence between qulity of music from CDs and 196+kbps mp3. well, again either if its a music being created by some human brain connected to machine or even if its juss a woodan drum, or anything in between. its all good as long as the music makes all the avtars of natraj dance in free spirit.

[Guest NYPD jim]

i saw gms and deedrah a few days ago, they made a phat set, and there was a little apple mac laptop on the stage, and the 'apple' logo was glowing out with all the uv. it wasnt the only thing being used, but just a part of the whole setup- there was a whole lot of other stuff there too. it was a bloody good experience. awesome sounds going out.