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-- DVD DJs - is there really any point?

DVD DJs - is there really any point?

I mentioned my view on this in another thread an no one argued with me, when I kinda hoped they had just so I could get some other opinions on it.

What is the point in DVD DJs (notice I'm not calling them VJs... more on that in a bit)? Yes I understand the technical idea - manipulate both the video and the audio with a pair of turntable-esque devices etc... but every time anyone mentions it everyone points out videos by Roonie G and 2nd Nature, which are all entirely without exception absolutely shite. It just looks crap (in my opinion, of course), particularly scratching videos.

Now I can see the use for Top 40-style DJs who don't really mix, who can throw the videos on the screens while they play the tunes so people can watch them while they mince around the club, that's fair enough, but in any more of a creative context, as I say scratching, adding a video to a track that doesn't normally have one and so on just doesn't work.

If you're going to play around with visuals, you might as well be a PROPER VJ and use one of the professional bits of VJ software (or write your own - I think I read somewhere that Hexstatic did that) along with some midi controllers etc to do it properly. By properly I mean meaningless club graphics simply designed to look cool, with logos and shapes flying about the place, sorta like tailored by much more interesting visualisations including the party's logo, DJs names etc - some of the stuff these people come up with can be incredible.

Your thoughts please

Well, I don't know too much about this subject but I've seen 'DJ Yoda at the Movies' and although I think that Yoda is a genius behind the decks, I was bored with his VJing after about 10 minutes.

There was some moments of pure genius such as the 'Duelling Banjos' scene from Deliverence where Yoda scratches against the banjos (you can see this scene on YouTube), but most of it was quite boring and his scratching/mixing was nowhere near as good as his normal DJ efforts.

So yeah, I don't see the point in this either

People using DJVs are as much VJs as idiots who cant even beat match are DJs.
So in other words...
YES they are controlling video but NO they are not artists.

quote:

Originally posted by T-Soma People using DJVs are as much VJs as idiots who cant even beat match are DJs. So in other words... YES they are controlling video but NO they are not artists.

Not strictly true as I said above, DJ Yoda is now using DVJ's all the time and I think that he may of proven in the past that he can indeed mix/scratch better than most DJ's out there

quote:

Originally posted by agentdansmith Well, I don't know too much about this subject but I've seen 'DJ Yoda at the Movies' and although I think that Yoda is a genius behind the decks, I was bored with his VJing after about 10 minutes. There was some moments of pure genius such as the 'Duelling Banjos' scene from Deliverence where Yoda scratches against the banjos (you can see this scene on YouTube), but most of it was quite boring and his scratching/mixing was nowhere near as good as his normal DJ efforts. So yeah, I don't see the point in this either

I'd forgotten Yoda's doing his DVD thing now, I haven't seen it but I know someone who saw him do a set at Fabric and said it was really good... not sure if that's to be trusted though!

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I'd forgotten Yoda's doing his DVD thing now, I haven't seen it but I know someone who saw him do a set at Fabric and said it was really good... not sure if that's to be trusted though!

It may well of been very good - I have to admit that I watched 'Yoda at the Movies' on a small monitor with dodgy sound so to see him actually do it might be a completely different story.

Also, if you're into your hiphop and breaks (which I'm not really), then it will appeal to you a lot more.

I often wondered this. For me VJ's seem waste of time, I can't see how you can tell if the images are being mixed live or are simply pre recorded. I watched a documentary on VJ's on TV fairly recently, these guys were supposed to be cutting edge VJ's but both sets looked exactly the same to my untrained eye - a montage of random images which had nothing to do with the music being played.

honestly i haven't really seen any dvd sets that just blew me away simply because i don't think there are that many out there to begin with, but i love the idea of doing both. i think it could be something really wonderful in the right hands...but just hasn't happened yet.


sidenote: phil k did a pretty good one, but it was pretty much just a demonstration...and he was just playing around...so its not wonderfully artistic

quote:

Originally posted by agentdansmith It may well of been very good - I have to admit that I watched 'Yoda at the Movies' on a small monitor with dodgy sound so to see him actually do it might be a completely different story. Also, if you're into your hiphop and breaks (which I'm not really), then it will appeal to you a lot more.

Oh I'm a huge Yoda fan, seen him live a couple of times and he's been awesome both times... if anyone can pull off a decent DVJ set then I think he could, but I'm still yet to see it!

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox Oh I'm a huge Yoda fan, seen him live a couple of times and he's been awesome both times... if anyone can pull off a decent DVJ set then I think he could, but I'm still yet to see it!

http://www.mininova.org/tor/248085

check out sanders myspace, there is a snippit of maybe 20 minutes of his vj sets.. i think he works them in quiet well....

it just adds a little something more to the party. but nothing extreme. the videos are simplistic yet meaningful to everysong (sometimes he adds the lyrics)

Yeah in Sanders case I think he just pre-cans his own video and burns DVD's of tracks with them.

The problem is that takes a LOT of work. And a LOT of money for DVJ's.

And for our genres, there aren't any commercial music videos for them, so you might as well just have a real VJ there to create stuff on the fly.

quote:

Originally posted by nchs09 check out sanders myspace, there is a snippit of maybe 20 minutes of his vj sets.. i think he works them in quiet well.... it just adds a little something more to the party. but nothing extreme. the videos are simplistic yet meaningful to everysong (sometimes he adds the lyrics)

quote:

Originally posted by nchs09 check out sanders myspace, there is a snippit of maybe 20 minutes of his vj sets.. i think he works them in quiet well.... it just adds a little something more to the party. but nothing extreme. the videos are simplistic yet meaningful to everysong (sometimes he adds the lyrics)

Yeah that works well... is that actually done with DVJs though or a 'proper' VJ rig (i.e. one of the software packages, MIDI controllers and a video mixers sorta thing)?



I've just watched a bit of the Yoda one and I've gotta say I was pretty disappointed, not a patch on his normal DJ sets, it was just really boring and the video (particularly scratching it!) looked rubbish.

Apart from the bit where he was scratching a bit of video of a playing a record and cutting the crossfader across, cos he was making it look like the guy in the video was doing the scratching which worked pretty well.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox Yeah that works well... is that actually done with DVJs though or a 'proper' VJ rig (i.e. one of the software packages, MIDI controllers and a video mixers sorta thing)? I've just watched a bit of the Yoda one and I've gotta say I was pretty disappointed, not a patch on his normal DJ sets, it was just really boring and the video (particularly scratching it!) looked rubbish. Apart from the bit where he was scratching a bit of video of a playing a record and cutting the crossfader across, cos he was making it look like the guy in the video was doing the scratching which worked pretty well.

I know what you mean.

it's a very new learning curve to "dj's" 25 years ago we'd probs ask something similar... in 10 yrs time sander will be shocking crowds everywhere , not only with his djing, but vjing also. ... it wont just be music and lazers.... but video images too... at least, that's my guess

IMO the marriage between VJs and DJs should be one of two different people combining their craft. There are amazing and very talented VJs out there who would probably do alot more damage if they worked with a DJ specifically rather than some DJ making amateurish video effects for a few of his tracks to mix in on DVJ.

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis There are amazing and very talented VJs out there who would probably do alot more damage if they worked with a DJ specifically rather than some DJ making amateurish video effects for a few of his tracks to mix in on DVJ.

I still dont get it - however nice the video show might be, how can you tell whether the images are being manipulated live rather than just streamed from a pre made DVD??? It's not like a DJ playing a pre mixed CD as the video won't affect the party like a good DJ can so why does it make it any worse if the video is pre mixed beforehand (or better if it's all done live)?

No matter how good the videos are I still say all a VJ does is muck about with random images that bear no relation to the music being played

I don't think you'll ever convert me on this one!!

the dvd djs are insane. Playing dvd audio at 192 kHz is the optimum quality when it comes to digital audio, pretty close to analogue vinyl in my opinion

High resolution digital audio surpasses anything vinyl can offer...

Unfortunately finding source material in our genre at that bitrate means you either:

1. Have to be the producer of the track
2. Know the producer personally

quote:

Originally posted by Paullino the dvd djs are insane. Playing dvd audio at 192 kHz is the optimum quality when it comes to digital audio, pretty close to analogue vinyl in my opinion

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan0751 High resolution digital audio surpasses anything vinyl can offer... Unfortunately finding source material in our genre at that bitrate means you either: 1. Have to be the producer of the track 2. Know the producer personally

hell yeah and only logic exports the tracks at high quality imo

I think other DAW's can do that as well, pretty sure ableton can.

But then you have to look at all your loops, vsts, etc. and make sure they are all outputting that kind of bitrate as well.

But really it all comes down to mastering...

quote:

Originally posted by Paullino hell yeah and only logic exports the tracks at high quality imo

quote:

Originally posted by Ryan0751 I think other DAW's can do that as well, pretty sure ableton can. But then you have to look at all your loops, vsts, etc. and make sure they are all outputting that kind of bitrate as well. But really it all comes down to mastering...

interesting

quote:

Originally posted by Paullino the dvd djs are insane. Playing dvd audio at 192 kHz is the optimum quality when it comes to digital audio, pretty close to analogue vinyl in my opinion

I used to agree with the idea that higher quality digital audio could only be a good thing, that with time our ears would adjust we'd learn to appreciate the improvement over and above CD quality (or at least some years down the line after just listening to higher quality audio we'd start to think CD quality sounds shite), but after doing a module which looks at the operation of A-D and D-A converters in a lot of depth, I can see there's absolutely no point.

Sampling at 44.1 Khz, you can just about PERFECTLY reconstruct 22 KHz sine wave, which tend to be out of our range of hearing anyway. Yes, the sampled data won't be a perfect representation but it doesn't actually lack data, it has additional frequencies added in and the filter technology around at the moment is good enough to get rid of this.

So you're just left with quantisation noise due to the resolution (i.e. the "steps" that are introduced because of the discrete levels the data is stored in). Sigma-Delta converters (as are used in audio) tend to over sample by at least 256 times, i.e. they'll sample at 11 MHz rather than 44.1 KHz and use that data to derive sample data at 44.1 KHz, eliminating about all of the quantisation noise that could possibly occur. 16-bit audio has a dynamic range of 96 dB, which is absolutely huge - you'd find it VERY difficult making an amplifier with that range, so making use of any higher resolutions just isn't going to happen, particularly with the amount of compression put on things these days.


So... if you want it to sound better:
a) Make it better in the first place - better mastering, better EQing, better recording
b) Use expensive equipment with high-quality A-D/D-A converters and high quality analogue filters
c) Keep it digital wherever possible - while the data stays digital at the same resolution and sample rate, it can't lose quality
d) Use a decent amp and decent speakers and watch for noise in any analogue interconnects

Nyquist/Shannon sampling theorem FTW

thing is, most of dvdjs already have the skills in scratching, beatmatching, juggling, cutting, phrase matching etc.

They hit a plateau and decide to move on with visuals. its a sort of evolution for them.

and yes there is a point IMO.
As a service provider; your product (dj performance) benefits an added value. Which therefor commands a higher salary.

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