TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- DJ Booth
-- what are they actually doing up there in the DJ booth???

what are they actually doing up there in the DJ booth???

Somebody may of asked a similar question before but mine is a little more specific. I've watched a number of the top DJs sets on u-tube and it looks like most of them are using cdj2000 at their gigs. I don't know a whole lot about this decks but I did have an old set of CD 500's 6 or 7 years ago. They were front loading CD decks with the usual cue, effects and jog wheel. Now when I use to mix, I would play 1 deck and line up track 2 in my headphones slowing and speeding with the jog wheel as I adjust the tempo slider. Once I was happy it was beat matching I would cue it up. Then when ready would cue in when the first track was finishing. It would very rarely start bang on beat matched so I would make a small adjust to the jog wheel to get it spot on before fading in the new track.

So my questions are: are these DJs just turning up to their sets with 2 USB sticks containing there set? Have they pre-cued all the tracks they are going to play including tempos? Does the cdj2000 allow all this? Are the cdj2000 capable of beat matching 2 tracks automatically?

Sometimes it looks to me that the DJs are just twisting knobs and are not using cross faders, not cueing up tracks, not using the job wheel to speed or slow, only turning knobs between tracks. Am I missing something here?

It's a good question and not a silly one. I, too, am not familiar with the latest cdjs first hand (still rockin my 800-mk2), but especially at these big festivals I don't think they're doing much. I think much is pre recorded or at least pre planned completely. Everything is synced with the lights, effects, etc. to a t. Lately, the club djs you see actually still doing more of the traditional stuff you mentioned.

You it would actually be quite interesting for a few people who either know or who have witnessed what's going on in the booth.

I have mixed impressions; I saw sharam a few years back (2010) at a big club here in LA and he was on CDJ1000's mk3's.

He was obviously mixing with CD's but he had some young guy feeding him (selecting) tracks to play. The guy would give it to him and sharam would just slot it in a cue up. He was actually doing the beatmathcing/mixing That went on for the entire set and it sadly the music got progressively harder and worse as the night went on.

I then saw him a year ago using a laptop and he barely touched the turntables for two hours.

Now someone like Carl cox works everything and mixes everything and maybe with exception to a few set pieces during his set (if he even does that?) the whole thing is basically on the fly as he goes.

With people like SHM/Angello/Hardwell and I imagine the vegas circuit guys (emery, zedd etc) everything is pre-programmed, from track selection to cue points to BPM's, so really all they're doing is pressing play a whole lot of fist pumping.

Joel (mau5) put out a statement a while go that turned in a massive flame war that all the big DJ's were just pressing play these days as the entire sets were programmed even down to the lighting, which then caused Armin to "show" how he does his set live yet still can have his lighting synced.

I think you'll find the more "product-like" the DJ (i.e. commercial, lowest common denominator pop-house), the more programmed the set.

I did see that video from Armin describing how he mixes live and cues up the lights with the lighting engineer on the fly. I have to say I did believe him. I've seen him a couple of times live and you'd know he was mixing live. I just find it hard to believe at the big performances such as ultra or big american concerts were there are many sponsors putting a lot of money in, that somone like ties to or avicci would risk putting out a naff mixing session or even worse, pressing stop on the wrong CD deck ( we've all been there). I did watch a hardwell session and I couldn't get over it. He was basically just playing tracks back to back and fading out. Not the least bit of mixing. Plenty of fist pumpin and fake American accent on the mic. Its probably one of those best kept secrets of the industry. To be honest I don't have a huge problem with it as most of these guys have proven themselves in the production studio and so are producers first DJs second. Some of them probably don't feel as comfortable with the djing aspect and see it more of a chance to showcase their material and get appreciated by their many fans.

quote:

Originally posted by Freak Watching how this thread develops with interest... I may or may not post some stuff, depending on how it goes

Judging by the rest of the Dj booth forum, I wouldn't wait too long mate

quote:

Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY Judging by the rest of the Dj booth forum, I wouldn't wait too long mate

Um Judging by the the djbooth as a whole, who cares?

quote:

Originally posted by Freak Watching how this thread develops with interest... I may or may not post some stuff, depending on how it goes

Spill it!

I will if you will

quote:

Originally posted by PaULiN0 Um Judging by the the djbooth as a whole, who cares?

For the 10th time, fuck off

quote:

Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY For the 10th time, fuck off

Holy shit, did I hit a nerve? if I did than stfu.

Im not sure if i'm answering you question but ill try...

in ableton, warp tracks to same bpm and then when mixing tracks on cdj, as long as the pitch is exactly the same on each cdj the songs will mix together perfectly and not drift. example - track A is playing with the pitch at +.9. if you load track B into the other CDJ, and set the pitch to .9 it will be at the same BPM as track A and once beatmatched, will not drift at all how to do this:

warp track CORRECTLY, PERFECTLY. Not always easy but usually is. in ableton, i insert warp marker #1 on beat 1 (not always a beat necessarily) and right click click warp from here straight. it is important to get beat 1 perfectly marked. then i go to end of the track and see the drift and correct it. im not sure about terminology, but it takes me about 10 sec to warp an "easy" track correctly. Hard tracks are done the same way, but in smaller increments (like every 32 beats) but when you get the drift corrected on beat 32, you right click and click warp from here straight. and do it over and over (not always 32 beats sometimes i just go from the first beat after a drop or build. songs with intro's can be done too but you just gotta play with it. the intro might not have snares or kicks at all. so where the waveform starts, insert warp marker 1. then warp from there (straight). then you find the first real beat/kick. adjust any drift and insert beat marker 2 and warp from there. easy tracks usually only have 1 or 2 beat/warp markers (they are yellow). hard tracks can have many. its hard to explain but any person who understands ableton can warp almost any track perfectly, even old rock tracks what were not made with computers, just a live drummer, just gonna have lots and lots of warp markers and take forever.

then after your track is warped, save the file at a bpm of your choice. for example someone who mixes a lot of 4 by 4 and the tracks range from 120-130 would save all of their tracks at 125 bpm. then when they load the tracks into their cdj's they will all be at 125 by with the pitch at 0 default.

of course you dont want to stay at the same bpm all night, and you dont want to play a 130bpm track at 120bpm. so you go through the same logical process you would go through when mixing the set, however you would not need to beatmatch for longer than a few seconds. once you get the tracks beatmatched, they stay. technically you could do it without headphones i guess.

i dont use cdjs or use this method. but i wondered how these djs were doing what your explaining so i figured it out by recreating it.

*** i must add, a lot of these big djs have their own remixes/edits/original tracks. So even though they are "cheathing" its considered ok for them because they put in the work of creating a one of a kind track (for the most part). some djs just do this so they have perfect mixes and can socialize in the booth.

of course EQing comes into play and if you cant EQ or phrase match you still sound like crap.

hope this answers your question, i tried my best. not up on all the proper terminology, but definitely can recreate what you are questioning.

and add the cues or loops or whatever via your cdj (not really sure how the new ones work)

LOL when did little disco learn how to warp? wooow!

I think the question was more about "if" they are doing anything in there.

I saw cassius a few years back in Pacha Ibiza, and while the music itself was abhorrent, I'll give the guy technically was incredible; he was mixing only vinyl, without headphones, 3 decks at once and there wasn't a second that he wasn't doing something and didn't lose pitch once. Shame the tracks and end result were so turd.

I once commented here on TA that I had seen a certain big name euro trance producer and DJ go from one track to another without even touching the decks or looking at the mixer.

Said DJ responded on here within 20 minutes (even though in 13+ years of being on here I've never seen him help or contribute anything of use to others) and boy, did he fight the assertion. I was able to name the tracks and describe the transition so unless he had edits that faded themselves in/out and had them cued up and playing a good 5 mins in advance, there's no way he mixed it.

He fucking fought with me for pages (I think he was a lawyer prior to DJ'ing - and no, it wasn't armin) but in the end I told him I didn't give a fuck, I know what I saw and heard, and that he should be ashamed that he was so quick to jump on TA with a long established user account to defend using premixed CD's, when in all that time he'd basically never contributed to a community of upcoming DJ's, Producers and enthusiasts who would love to hear from someone of his stature.

He fucked off at that point lol,

I think it says a lot when Prydz stresses his upcoming Epic 3.0 show at Madison Square Garden is fully live and not just button pushing.

If he has to come out and say it, you know most of these guys are just dickin around in the booth at those festivals.

Nice work if you can get it. I think there may be two issues going on with this. When tiesto recorded his tiesto in concert in 2003 set, it was a proper set that rose and fell at perfect timings and he was beat mixing the whole set, sometimes badly. But I recently watched a set of tiesto from the US and the set was basically like a pop concert. He was basically playing one vocal track after the next and a naff singer would come out on stage. Mixing was non existent. Tiesto is a big star now so I guess you could say he has sold out to the cash. I think big business don't appreciate DJ culture, they just don't get it. So I believe they request this format of live show from the DJs. I suppose for some DJs they couldn't give a fuck, as they are still getting paid the outrageous fees at the end of the night. These DJs have become brands now so the technical stuff is just an after thought. In fact somebody recently told me that avicci doesn't even write all his own material and actually has a large team of ghost writers probably based in Sweden. Not sure if its just a vicious rumour but it wouldn't surprise me. If you look at modern pop culture its all about the act with the look but behind them are ghost writers. A perfect example would be rhianna. Sia was her ghost writer and originally wrote chandelier for her but decided to bring it out for herself because she loved it so much. If it has moved to button pushing and fist pumping then I think this will kill the current emergence of trance and people will demand returning to a level of technical ability that we all know and love.

quote:

Originally posted by planeteuropa Nice work if you can get it. I think there may be two issues going on with this. When tiesto recorded his tiesto in concert in 2003 set, it was a proper set that rose and fell at perfect timings and he was beat mixing the whole set, sometimes badly. But I recently watched a set of tiesto from the US and the set was basically like a pop concert. He was basically playing one vocal track after the next and a naff singer would come out on stage. Mixing was non existent. Tiesto is a big star now so I guess you could say he has sold out to the cash. I think big business don't appreciate DJ culture, they just don't get it. So I believe they request this format of live show from the DJs. I suppose for some DJs they couldn't give a fuck, as they are still getting paid the outrageous fees at the end of the night. These DJs have become brands now so the technical stuff is just an after thought. In fact somebody recently told me that avicci doesn't even write all his own material and actually has a large team of ghost writers probably based in Sweden. Not sure if its just a vicious rumour but it wouldn't surprise me. If you look at modern pop culture its all about the act with the look but behind them are ghost writers. A perfect example would be rhianna. Sia was her ghost writer and originally wrote chandelier for her but decided to bring it out for herself because she loved it so much. If it has moved to button pushing and fist pumping then I think this will kill the current emergence of trance and people will demand returning to a level of technical ability that we all know and love.

It's kind of the opposite in a way; big business realises there's big money in DJ culture but like anything mainstream, it's primary concern is numbers so the nuances and integrity aren't important.

What is? A product, and the simpler it is to the great unwashed to understand, the more successful it will be. While not wanting to go in to a diatribe about civilization in general, most people are sheep. They will buy or consume what they are told to like. By "most", I mean 95% of the population.

Because of this, DJ's at the mainstream level, have to make their product simple and recognizable, not complex and interesting.

You also have to realise that big DJ's are not people; they are corporations. Nearly every big name DJ you can think of has at least 10 full time people working for them. They have corporate structures in terms of employees and hierarchy and often, it's a manager or director that actually makes all the decisions, not the DJ themselves.

Tiesto has had ghost writing for over a decade. I believe it was actually exposed right here on TA for the first time sometime around 2002/2003.

Ghost producing should come as no surprise in this industry - it just followed what pop has done for about 6 decades now; someone writes a catchy tune then a label or manager would find a vehicle to market it under.

it then got to the point that the vehicle was created first, then songs would be written to fir to that vehicle. The spice girls are one of the most sucessful examples of this. Someone came up with a marketing idea to have 5 girls all with a different niche appeal, hired stylists and coaches to make the look and behave a certain way, then they got songwriters to write tunes that specifically fitted the marketing brief.

Avicii is part of the Swedish factory - and the Swedes were masters at doing it for pop and what most people haven't figured out is that there's a small group of DJ's and songwriters who basically put out everything. The SHM guys, Avicii, Ishi Mughal, even Nehneh Cherry all of them are a little clique that went to school together or had fmaily connections (avicii is the younger brother of one of the guys who were in the original SHM crew when it was a loose collective of many DJ's).

These days, if you make one hit, big business will step in and make you a brand and milk it for all it's worth.

The good news is that the first pumping, jesus posing, press play model doesn't last long. Where you're catering to the ADD generation, the public gets bored quickly. The less substance you have, the faster you'll wane.

That's why guys like Carl Cox, Sven Vath, Jeff Mills, Masters at work, Sasha, Digweed, Marcus Wyatt, Danny Tenaglia, Laurent Garnier, etc are still around; because when you scrape away the thin viel fancy logos, and big light shows that all DJ's have nowadays, you still have talent, content and art, not just shiny design and a flash in the pan track.

I know certain very big name DJ's right now who despite making a ton of money over the last years, are absolutely freaking out and/or are in a state of dispair over the fact they know they were "of the moment" and that moment has passed. For some of these people, there's nothing worse than "oh, you used to be that famous DJ right?".

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.