quote:

Originally posted by Apeattack tl;dr

Kinda like the manual on your decks and mixer?

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quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos playing a pre-recorded ser is not only inmoral but also won't work. You can read the crowd better or worst but you even unconscious get information from them and act so. I imagine my friend who likes electro a lot playing some underground tracks in a row and people leaving the venue screaming, if he hasn't got it pre-recorded is easy, you think "this is not working, try other thing".

There is an implicit agreement between the DJ and crowd that the DJ should mix songs together at the club, so I could see how a DJ using a premixed set could be considered 'immoral' because he breaks the agreement. But I wonder if the crowd would be happier if a DJ spends a lot of time making a flawless, incredible set at home and pretends to mix live. If the DJ is a good actor, I think the crowd would be happier in many cases.

If a DJ premixes two songs together in an incredibly awesome and novel way and plays that two-song mix at a club, is that wrong? How about three songs? Are playing prerecorded mashups wrong since the DJ isn't mashing up live?

Just something to think about. There is a lot of gray area.

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quote:

Originally posted by Mr.Mystery Kinda like the manual on your decks and mixer?

Maybe if you spent a few minutes reading my posts instead of thinking of ways of writing pointless posts you would understand that I only use the sync button to match the tempo instead of using a pitch slider, which is a bit insensitive on my otherwise deliciously wonderful Numark Omni Control. I understand Traktor and my Omni Control quite well.

predicted response: "tl;dr"

Well-done again sir.

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I am the opiate of the masses.

My mixes:
****Favorite Trance Songs of Early 2012 Mix(July 2012)****
****Love & Loneliness Vocal Trance Classics Mix (July 2012)****

By the way, sorry to 360madness for how the thread has deviated from the questions in the OP. :P

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I am the opiate of the masses.

My mixes:
****Favorite Trance Songs of Early 2012 Mix(July 2012)****
****Love & Loneliness Vocal Trance Classics Mix (July 2012)****

if a dj doesn't spin live is like an actor acting while he reads the papers, it's not natural, it's not good. It's fine to bring pre-made mashups or edits, i am a great fan of this, but i feel that you always have to add some element of surprise to the mix, droping tracks you feel crowd wants, making tricks with the fxs... when people ask me for a track i usually add some extra things, say an acapella, skip the breakdown (i have a cd of breakbeats that i usually place inside the breakdown when is long/boring, this is handy to keep the flow) i think is what makes djs different to jukeboxes :S

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Originally posted by Apeattack I'm not surprised that on a forum dedicated to DJing that many people are passionate about the need for manual beatmatching. Right now, most DJs have been DJing for years and are used to manually beatmatching because they had to. Being able to manually beatmatch used to be a valuable skill that club owners were willing to pay a lot of money for. Now that skill is worth a LOT less and will one day be worth nothing as sync'ing technology becomes better and more widespread. My posts are regarding the near- and far-future of DJing. What I stated in the above posts is inevitable. The sooner you realize this the less frustrated you will be in the years ahead when DJs who use a lot more auto-features than I do will be willing to DJ for far less money than you think your skills are worth. I want to stress again that I do not think manual beatmatching is silly or a waste of time. If you enjoy it, do it. At the very least the beginning DJ who practices manual beatmatching will get into the habit of listening for patterns in music and beat-counting while learning a skill that may occasionally come in handy (in the next couple years). But in the near-future I predict that most young DJs will see auto-sync'ing as normal and completely acceptable. There is a reason why a sync button was invented... there is a demand for it.

That's actually quite a good post. And i agree nearly with everything you've written.

quote:

Originally posted by Apeattack If a DJ premixes two songs together in an incredibly awesome and novel way and plays that two-song mix at a club, is that wrong? How about three songs? Are playing prerecorded mashups wrong since the DJ isn't mashing up live? Just something to think about. There is a lot of gray area.

Not really. Common sense should tell you that it doesn't take long for the crowd to get bored and stop paying attention to your mix, if it sucks. You can lose a considerable portion of your audience in less than a single tracks amount of time, let alone a full hour or more of premixed material.

I think it's okay if you want to play premixed material, but you should keep a very close eye on the audience's reception to it, and you should have a way to mix out of it very fast if the audience isn't enjoying it. Many times, you won't have any idea of what kind of music taste your audience will have on any given night, so the entire notion of spending hours "perfecting" a premixed set seems silly.

Last edited by brucelee6783 on Nov-02-2010 at 04:58

Pre mixed material will only work for a short time. I honestly can say I've never personally have seen it done. It would get boring really quick and eventually your crowd will find out that your not DJing. Hence less work for you. It's like going and watching a one man band. It's great that you bought all of these virtual instruments, but I want to see actual musicians. As a former drummer, I find drum machines to be insult. In some instances, they're fine to use, but never live.

Beatmatching manually or having a computer do it is always gonna get positive or negative feedback. A lot of old school DJ's will say manual is better. Especially when your first learning the craft. The reason I say this, no two DJ booths are alike, and you may find yourself in one that is not set up with today's gear. What are you gonna do then? It's always a plus to learn the old way first. As a kid I learned on two turntables (belt driven, before I bought my first 1200's) and a mixer. Sixteen years later getting back into it, I still prefer the old way. I do own Torq, and Traktor, and although they are great tools, majority of the time, there not for me and I leave them home. I trained my ears by listening to things musically, and for me looking at a waveform just doesn't work. It looks pretty though.

On topic. I learned by using two copies of the same track. I played it over and over again, then would move on to another track and follow step one. Learn this one, then onto another, then another. With this kind of training, I was able to train my ear on counts. Another good practice, don't rely on beat counters. They're never accurate, and cause problems then good results. Plus, just because two songs might have a beat count of 128, doesn't necessarily mean they will blend well musically.

There's many ways to learn the craft and make it your own. It all boils down to practice. The more you do it, the more you'll know your music, and the more you can rely on the ears first. Then go to the technology if you wish.

Last edited by Brandt Slater on Nov-02-2010 at 04:40

DJM - 600 has a beatmatching tool (on the effects) "AUTO BPM" i've never tested it, but as far as i can remember 800 hasn't got it so i think works pretty bad if the high end stuff hasn't got it.

On the other hand i believe most brands will start including the bpm sync, without judging if someone is a good dj or not a lot of people will look for sync button on their setups and club owners will look too as all the djs will be "decent" in opposition to whay they currently have (most can't beatmatch, i remember a funny article in a blog where it said: "Those djs who constantly make the songs sound like "pumpampumpampumpam" in their transitions but that when surprisingly the tracks are matched put a god face you feel the need of slapping them" )

But well on topic, i think this will become a standard, i remember that some people said in the past "LOL, bpm counters on stuff???? that's for noobs!!" and now everything has a bpm counter, i think something similar will happen with sync.

The logical next step is start using drum machines and other tools to make live sets like Deadmau5, Zabiela or Hawtin does...

Auto-beatmatching? dont let the pc do all the work for you
would look ridic on stage

Like a lot of people, I started out on 1200's and you HAD to manually beatmatch because that was a LIMITATION of the equipment being used.
Today I still do it because it is what I am use to and I trust my ear more then I do software. If Traktor (or any other software) could guarantee a perfect sync everytime , then why the hell wouldn't you use it ? You are now past a limitation that once was, and you have more free time to be more creative.

I don't know why people are on this whole thing about having to do it manually... I guess people are not looking at it the same as me.

*shrug*

Jay