I personally would love to see more kids wanting to be a live pa act personally.

I just posted this in Music Discussion, but figured I'd post it, here, too. Sorry if it's cross-posting, but I think it's relevant, all the same.

There's this chart, here, which shows artist profits from various download and streaming sources:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.n...ts-earn-online/

Therre Thaemlitz also discusses some of the trends surrounding the profitability of producing music and putting it on vinyl, here:

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/...ghts/transcript

quote:

Terre Thaemlitz: »It is kind of funny that a lot of the things that came out as 12”s on my label were things that other people actually asked me to produce. I think two of three of the EPs on my label were things that Joe Clausell asked me to produce, and then when he heard it he didn't like it, so I did it on my own label. This sort of situation is typical where I would produce something and then maybe try and shop it around a little bit, but if nobody was biting, then I would try and put it out on my own. I always had very complicated relationships with distributors, though, because I just do not trust distributors at all. Every time that I have given them product to try and sell the way that the distributor situation works is, a) they never sell anything, and b) the returns never come back, c) the payments don't come. It's like, distributors, in a way, especially in the ‘90s and things, they really relied on this continual supply of records from people who were just willing to get their stuff out there. Continually providing them with content in the same way that people provide content to MySpace and all these sorts of things for free. When on the Internet, of course, they're making royalties from advertising and all these sorts of things. In terms of the distributors and stuff it was always the people who had the most to lose financially, the people in the most tenuous situation, they would get the least back. For me, it just doesn't make sense to produce music in that way and it still doesn't, so if I can't get a distributor to pre-order and prepay for a release, then I would take that prepayment to manufacture it, then I won't release it. It is like, if I can't sell it myself, and I can't find a distributor who is willing to work under conditions that allow me to support myself, to sustain what I do, then it is really OK to walk away from it. I think that is something that people have to come to define in their own lives: at what point are you willing to walk away from things? I don't mean this in any sort of heroic way and I'm not saying this is going to help your career by getting more of your own identity and people know what to get from you. It is totally a death wish to do this sort of thing, but I think as a person, at least for me, it is important to be able to walk away from things, even if it means getting hurt a little bit, it's OK.«

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Terre Thaemlitz: »The actual dead stock archive is a room in my apartment that holds all the unsold records that I have ever produced. Over the years I had a series of problems with major online distributors, like iTunes and Juno and eMusic and stuff selling my albums without contracts with me. And when I would write to them and to say I was the owner of the works and asking them to get them taken down or who uploaded them, who they were paying royalties to or whatever, totally no response. It took me years to get these things offline, and it was finally in 2008 when the last of it finally came down off of Juno. I don't like the idea of putting my content back into these bastard sites. So I didn’t want to come up with an online solution but instead with an offline solution to how people could have access to my catalogue. But I also wanted to get away from this idea of the way that this online distribution works, where people are just looking to get more for their money, get a quick download and more and more content for less and less. Now you have not only the CD length, which is twice as much as the length of a vinyl record, but then you also have the digital exclusive tracks and ‘blah, blah and blah, blah’. DJ mixes and podcasts and stuff, like the podcast that Resident Advisor finally pulled out of me after asking for a couple of years. So anyway, Dead Stock Archive, I wanted to create an offline alternative to these things and also have an economic relationship that people have to this archive and it isn’t an easy transactions or something. It has a big sticker price, I guess there are 600 or 700 tracks on it and I sell it for €220. So if you break it down into 39 cents a track, but that is a massive bite for anybody and you can guess how well it has been selling. The idea of this is that the type of music I do, which is not the type of thing that gets majorly distributed and which makes no sense to be majorly distributed, it is really about trying to encourage an economic relationship with the listeners that is about sponsorship and about taking a kind of different economic relationship to the production of what you're listening to. This is not something that people can easily step into economically or psychologically in terms of consumer relations and stuff, but for me, it was more important that I try and make the catalogue available, but make it available in a way that will not necessarily be about sales or be about replication. It just seems like with the Internet everyone is so hyped up about the idea of having access, access, access, but we know that is not really how the Internet works. It is white noise and we have to filter this out to find what we want. Even though we have billions of tracks online, when we look for music online we don't start with a billion tracks, we go to a specific site or we have producers we are looking for in the same way that we would go into a record store and start being selective and stuff. So I think this is an illusion to get away from and to me, the Dead Stock Archive was a kind of offline reaction to that kind of consumer spontaneity and also to the distributor.«

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Originally posted by Stu Cox Yes and no. Yes it takes more time and natural talent to become a competent producer than it does a competent DJ. By which I mean being capable of the mechanics of DJing: beat matching, picking tracks which go together and generally not playing them in an arse-about-tit order. The entry threshold is definitely lower for DJs, particularly with the technology around now. But, like producing, becoming a REALLY good DJ is something which you never stop learning - knowing what to play when, arranging and mixing the records in a way which creates exactly the effect you're after. You get better with every gig and even after 13 years of it I'm still learning. You've chosen to be involved in dance music. Music designed for clubs. If you want to write electronic music for home listening without DJ-friendly versions, go ahead, but then you're going head to head with a whole world of other artists. Having the club scene there actually gives producers more of an opportunity to be heard than other genres, because with the turnaround of music and the number of DJs in the world there's a need for so much more music than say in rock and indie. DJs buy music out of necessity, not just because they want to listen to the tracks at home themselves, which gives you more of a chance to be heard. Here's a picture of a horse to break up the text a bit: DJs (mainly radio DJs) have always had the most influence over every scene. In the same way that people in marketing have more influence over the industries they work in than the technical people designing the products. It's how the world works. I don't mean this to come across as a huge defence of DJs - a lot of them are shit and get a lot more respect than they deserve. Very very few DJs deserve rock star status and those that do don't claim it. Although as much of a bender as Armin looks on stage, he's done a HELL of a lot for getting new trance producers heard, which is more than I can say for Tiesto and it's something that isn't even in the minds of new DJs nowadays. To me DJs should fulfil one of 2 roles (or sometimes both): a) Getting new music heard ('radio' style, but there's a club element to it too), or b) Doing something very creative with recorded music If you just want to stand on stage and play a load of tunes mixed in the same old fashion waving your arms in the air and don't care about the producers who made that music, you're a cunt.

DJs are so full of shit.

The only thing a DJ has to do is play songs people want to hear, that's it. That's the job. Beatmatching is stupid and pointless. Creating a "flowing and gliding" set is worthless.

DJ: "Did you hear that awesome transition from uplifting trance into darker heavier tech trance?"

Patron: "I was outside smoking...this track is awful."

DJ: "But its techy."

Patron: "Yeah, its techy."

---

DJ: "If I do not beatmatch, then I can't keep the floor going, if I can't keep the floor going then I'll be fired!"

Patron: "So if there's five seconds of silence, the club will evacuate?"

DJ: "They will, and if they do not I will pull the fire alarm."

---

DJs are not artists.

They do no more than the janitor who sweeps up puke after the night is over.

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

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Originally posted by Beatflux DJs are so full of shit. The only thing a DJ has to do is play songs people want to hear, that's it. That's the job. Beatmatching is stupid and pointless. Creating a "flowing and gliding" set is worthless. DJ: "Did you hear that awesome transition from uplifting trance into darker heavier tech trance?" Patron: "I was outside smoking...this track is awful." DJ: "But its techy." Patron: "Yeah, its techy." --- DJ: "If I do not beatmatch, then I can't keep the floor going, if I can't keep the floor going then I'll be fired!" Patron: "So if there's five seconds of silence, the club will evacuate?" DJ: "They will, and if they do not I will pull the fire alarm." --- DJs are not artists. They do no more than the janitor who sweeps up puke after the night is over.

This has got to be a troll or you're so hipster Existo22 would actually fall in love with you because the irony is too much to pass up.

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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

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Originally posted by Beatflux DJs are so full of shit. The only thing a DJ has to do is play songs people want to hear, that's it. That's the job. Beatmatching is stupid and pointless. Creating a "flowing and gliding" set is worthless. DJ: "Did you hear that awesome transition from uplifting trance into darker heavier tech trance?" Patron: "I was outside smoking...this track is awful." DJ: "But its techy." Patron: "Yeah, its techy." --- DJ: "If I do not beatmatch, then I can't keep the floor going, if I can't keep the floor going then I'll be fired!" Patron: "So if there's five seconds of silence, the club will evacuate?" DJ: "They will, and if they do not I will pull the fire alarm." --- DJs are not artists. They do no more than the janitor who sweeps up puke after the night is over.

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1/ its not about the 5 seconds of silence, thats not what kills the dancefloor. Its the next 2 minutes of intro and outro beats that kills the dancefloor.
2/ This post is full of shit.
3/ You've obviously never seen a good DJ, I feel sorry for you because you're missing out on half the point of dance music. Producers need to pull their heads out of their arses and realise the important place that DJs occupy in the scene, without them there would be no scene at all.

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Originally posted by kitphillips 1/ its not about the 5 seconds of silence, thats not what kills the dancefloor. Its the next 2 minutes of intro and outro beats that kills the dancefloor. 2/ This post is full of shit. 3/ You've obviously never seen a good DJ, I feel sorry for you because you're missing out on half the point of dance music. Producers need to pull their heads out of their arses and realise the important place that DJs occupy in the scene, without them there would be no scene at all.

What's a good DJ to you? A good marketer?

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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

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Originally posted by clay a world without djs would be pretty sad.

No one is saying that there shouldn't be DJs. We're saying that their perceived role has been drastically over-inflated to the point where it's often misperceived by the general public and overshadows the far more important roles of the music and the musicians who create it.

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A good DJ is a good thing.

I will say, though, that the role of the DJ is getting less important as everyone's music-finding power goes up because of the net. The DJ's traditional place is one part curator or musical archeologist, one part skilled craftsman, and one part party host. I think the first role is a lot less important than it used to be, as it's no longer as costly or time consuming to find and get interesting records. But it can still be nice to have people who devote the majority of their time to it.

Last edited by MrJiveBoJingles on Apr-22-2011 at 15:35

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Originally posted by cryophonik No one is saying that there shouldn't be DJs. We're saying that their perceived role has been drastically over-inflated to the point where it's often misperceived by the general public and overshadows the far more important roles of the music and the musicians who create it.

Personally, I think it's an economy of scale which raises some questions that may or may not have relevance other than the correlations they imply.

1) What's the over-all ratio of producers to DJ's in regular rotation playing out in clubs?

2) How many producers, here in this forum, take the time to listen to DJ's, who also post on TA?

3) How many DJ's, here, take the time to listen and offer constructive advice to Producers, here?


I'm surmising the answers to the last two questions reveal a bit of a gulf between the DJ and the producer. If that gulf exists or is even consequential, in the grand scheme of things, remains to be seen but it seems to speak to an over-all disconnect between the producer and the DJ that I don't think is doing either, any favors.

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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012

You're right, the whole scene is just one big egotrip and everybody except ourselves are in our way.

But yeah DJ's are hugely overrated especially now every player has a syncbutton, let alone the Ableton DJ's who do a "live performance"

It's not hard to select 10 records, distribute tension and euphoria in a nice buildup. if you can count 4x4 and press a sync button in time your set....... that's why everybody nowadays is a DJ....

I don't listen to DJ sets ever, i listen to podcast shows which get synced in order to stay current on new major releases and listen to Soundcloud producers, never listen to DJ sets on Soundcloud or here.

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Originally posted by EddieZilker 2) How many producers, here in this forum, take the time to listen to DJ's, who also post on TA? 3) How many DJ's, here, take the time to listen and offer constructive advice to Producers, here?

Good questions. I would say the answer to (2) is much larger than the answer to (3).

I think it is generally assumed on TA -- and not just by the DJs, but by most who care about music here -- that the producer forums are full of people stuck in the year 2000, trying to make the perfect supersaw lead and snare roll. While this was perhaps closer to the truth five or six years ago, it has been false for quite a while, but for some reason the perception hasn't changed much.