Forum: General Discussion

I have played to all American audiences for over 6 months, 6 nights a week and it was all hip hop, try looping and adding effects to that!

:(

That shuffle thing really pissed me off! knowone has even heard of it over here.

You can loop it though as I used to do :) to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left...

obviously you're a mobile dj and thats where you want to be! why do you think the best djs are where they are, its because they put creativity to it not just playing a song after another that shit is boring i LOVE playing live and see how people gets exited with new sounds, and when you explode a song and the people explodes its an undescribable feeling! I'm sorry for you booooooo! just don't dj please

So, let me ask you this. You like to see how people get excited with new sounds. What new sounds? The music your playing is recorded. You mean to tell me the buildups and breakdowns that most dance music contains is not enough for you and you program your own buildups? I haven't seen the crowd tell the difference between my reverb-filtered buildup on top of the song's buildup, vs. the original song buildup. The crowd goes nuts even if I don't touch the song. You really think your adding more to the song like this? Is it your perception vs. the crowd knowing the difference?

I'm all for creativity, but here is another look at it:

- Most dance songs contain all the elements: amazing buildups, nasty beats, great vocals
- DJs can mix seamlessly between two songs, simple enough.
- What's next? You beatgrid a song to death, filter it up until it "sounds" like your creating your own buildup, and drop the next song? Do you really think that makes the crowd get even more excited? Are you sure it is not you (you=in general, not pointing fingers) who is in the moment, excited, feeling like the crowd thinks YOU are building the song from scratch? If so, I just think it is funny...

Maybe I've become too skeptical and seen too many DJs add their own flare to songs in which, having DJ'd them myself, I expect this awesome song and it gets replaced by some corny acapella mashup or mismatched basslines between a transition song.

Creativity is great, don't get me wrong. But, I don't think a DJ is poised to be a creator in this sense. I think a producer/DJ is where it needs to be done. And, most of us are not that.

I just don't get it.

1. We now have to move sliders, constantly touch knobs and buttons, keep adding reverb/echo/effects on top of songs that already have tons of these effects. Why?

The crowd could care less from the event's I've hosted. They just want to dance to music that is familiar and NOT altered with tons of loops, flanges and filters. Why screw with a song that sounds great from the source? I've seen DJs throw in all kinds of effects and filters, and all that does is throw the dancers off their step. I've been in the crowd where they are singing to the lyrics, when the DJ hits the loop button in the wrong spot (although it sounds cool) and these girls just give each other a strange look as if the DJ screwed up the song. Not cool.

I understand transitions could use some help with effects, but once a song is transitioned, why keep fiddling with it? What is wrong with a DJ letting it play through to the next song? Does that label us as a DJ as "boring"?

I never once saw someone from the crowd complain that "the DJ is boring because he is just standing there and didn't mix in the next song right after the hook we done", I've only seen DJs complaining about other DJs.

2. Why do we try to make our jobs harder, when the crowd doesn't even care?

Our job (95% of us) is to keep the music flowing, the crowd pleased. Why make this so much harder by not using features like SYNC and KEY-matching, etc? Why do we have to beatmatch without looking at the wave pattern? What are we proving? That we can outsmart technology?

Sure, we can just press PLAY and have a premixed set going, but that does take away from our ability to cue up the next song based on crowd reaction. That to me is the #1 purpose of the DJ. Aside from that, all the twiddling around on stage just doesn't make sense. We are playing recorded music, we aren't live performers (as a real musician would be labeled).

If you are an Ableton user (as am I) who sometimes produces live, the above can be ignored, but for 95% of us, I think we are just trying to impress our fellow DJ friends more than anything.

Had to rant...

I just don't get it.

1. We now have to move sliders, constantly touch knobs and buttons, keep adding reverb/echo/effects on top of songs that already have tons of these effects. Why?

The crowd could care less from the event's I've hosted. They just want to dance to music that is familiar and NOT altered with tons of loops, flanges and filters. Why screw with a song that sounds great from the source? I've seen DJs throw in all kinds of effects and filters, and all that does is throw the dancers off their step. I've been in the crowd where they are singing to the lyrics, when the DJ hits the loop button in the wrong spot (although it sounds cool) and these girls just give each other a strange look as if the DJ screwed up the song. Not cool.

I understand transitions could use some help with effects, but once a song is transitioned, why keep fiddling with it? What is wrong with a DJ letting it play through to the next song? Does that label us as a DJ as "boring"?

I never once saw someone from the crowd complain that "the DJ is boring because he is just standing there and didn't mix in the next song right after the hook we done", I've only seen DJs complaining about other DJs.

2. Why do we try to make our jobs harder, when the crowd doesn't even care?

Our job (95% of us) is to keep the music flowing, the crowd pleased. Why make this so much harder by not using features like SYNC and KEY-matching, etc? Why do we have to beatmatch without looking at the wave pattern? What are we proving? That we can outsmart technology?

Sure, we can just press PLAY and have a premixed set going, but that does take away from our ability to cue up the next song based on crowd reaction. That to me is the #1 purpose of the DJ. Aside from that, all the twiddling around on stage just doesn't make sense. We are playing recorded music, we aren't live performers (as a real musician would be labeled).

If you are an Ableton user (as am I) who sometimes produces live, the above can be ignored, but for 95% of us, I think we are just trying to impress our fellow DJ friends more than anything.

Had to rant...

I know at some level we read the crowd to see how their reacting, but I rarely find that helpful - I'm so focused on the mix I'm currently doing that to stop and observe for too long would just throw me off, not to mention that if your entertained yourself with all the mixing, the crowd reads you (not the other way around) and swiftly fallow your energy.