relik wrote:Vinyl and acetates only aside from dubs I didn't get cut yet, then it's serato or cd for those few tunes. Most people I've seen use abelton don't play it like a live pa. It's all prebuilt playlists with the tracks "warped" and auto beatmatched perfectly (no headphones needed) then just a controller to trigger parts of the playlist with knobs mapped to effects like filters and whatnot. Minimal skill needed for that. Don't get me wrong though, you can do some original shit and push the limits if you want, but most use it as a lazy-no-skill-required-dj tool. I've seen a couple people on cdjs do every single mix-out with effects (primarily delay loops), have the next tune cued up on a drop, and when the delay starts "glitching" they just cut it out, hit play and drop the next tune - another lazy way to avoid beatmatching. 99% of the people I see use serato are visual mixing instead of actually listening or knowing their tunes. A guy I know sold his serato because it was turning him into a visual dj.
I'm going off on a tangent here, but what it comes down to is whether you want to be a purist or not. With the technology today, anyone can be a dj without having any skill at all. Everything can be perfectly beatmatched, cued and looped for you. Do you want to be just another mp3/visual dj or do you want to keep the real tradition with vinyl alive? I think it's good to know how to use everything just so you can if you wanted or had to, but stay away from the "cheater tools" unless you are doing some mind blowing shit with them.
I put my time (over 14 years) being a purist, then i realized that shit changes and i prefer to do real live pa(s) now.
I find a lot of the people that speak out against people using cdjs or ableton to DJ often can't dj for shit themselves. I don't particular like people DJing in ableton and wouldn't do it myself but if it sounds good, I could careless, any DJ should be able to beatmatch so...
You need to get out and see some better live pa(s) homey. 100% of the time when i play out I have no idea where I am going with it, and thats because I haven't limited myself to a singular medium.relik wrote:No, but I heard he isn't very good...talks too much and just stops the music a lot. I could care less about what other people use as long as they are rocking it. I just can't get into a groove when a set is primarily pre-planned and nothing is going on except some occasional filter sweeps and other effects. I don't think people who play vinyl only are all gung-ho, elitist or "showing off" how wonderfully they can beat match either. It doesn't really require a lot of effort or time...only ears. It's just part of playing vinyl and beat matching is like riding a bike. 99% of the time I play out I have no idea what records I am playing, let alone have even listened to them prior. Being able to read a crowd and build your set on the fly is what it's all about. I'd like to see more people push the limits and do 100% live percussion chopping with live triggered loops, etc. but a lot of people using a setup that would allow them to do that and get creative take the easy way out. Props to those being creative with what they have instead of being lazy.Beatfreak919 wrote:have you seen bassnectar play live?
sometimes, its full live pa, some times, its decks, efx and a drum machine, who knows, maybe a combo of all of them. get over the fact that people are starting to DJ in ableton, it won't kill the vinyl culture, they won't take your gigs unless they are better than you. Just keep doing what you do and stop caring about the posers. They will sort themselves out as one trick ponies.
