DJ ing with laptops

[tone-def]

I don't think the big dj's mess up to often. Villalobos can when he's a little to fucked but i've seen him on occasions when his mixing has been spot on everytime. Jeff Mills makes mistakes because he's pushing himself to the limits.

[MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE]

I don't think the big dj's mess up to often. Villalobos can when he's a little to fucked but i've seen him on occasions when his mixing has been spot on everytime. Jeff Mills makes mistakes because he's pushing himself to the limits.

You CANT sync a up track perfectly everytime, like jessejames said, unless your just mixing over 4 bars, youll HAVE to give the record a nudge / change the pitch very slightly to keep your mix tight, everyone does it, decks arnt super accurate, the skill in beatmatching comes from knowing when the tracks are starting to phase before anyone else does... (you hear flanging / bass drop ever so slighlty before the beats become noticably out of sync)

Obviously some people are more accumstumed to this than others, hence why theres such a varied viewpoint on this thread....

One thing we all have to recognise is; some of us are discussing technique, while others are discussing track selection...., obviously the latter is the most important, but the former is what actually makes a dj set a PERFORMANCE.... as my interpretation of performance is a demonstartaion of ones skills to an audience.....

[superk]

[/quote]of course its an integrale part of what makes a good DJ, thats my point, these big names you talk about, they simply arent good DJ's, i dont really care about how big someone is, if they cant beatmatch theyre a sht DJ end of story. they may be awesome producers, but that doesnt qualify them to be quality DJs. two different disciplines.[/quote]

word that sh!t. your bang on. I personally think a good dj should be bang on with the beatmatching as well as riding the atmosphere. Surly to get status as 'Good' one must be able to mulitask to some extent.

[superk]

I don't think the big dj's mess up to often. Villalobos can when he's a little to fucked but i've seen him on occasions when his mixing has been spot on everytime. Jeff Mills makes mistakes because he's pushing himself to the limits.

Most djs make small mistakes, I heard Troy pierce last week and at the end of his set he was running a soundbite out of sync for about five minutes. He was so involved lining everything else up that he wasnt keeping track at all. Still its obvious that a lot of the time it due to pushing limits. As you say Jeff is a great example. People like sven get very messy during some sets and fck up pretty badly. Still its all part of the fun.

and it makes amatuers like me feel better.

[Storlon]

sync. sync, sync... what about the tonal part of it ?

[AVX23]

Also - ask yourself this - what exactly is the musical merit of being able to beatmach ? Is this process itself actually lending anything musically to the performance ?

well I dare say yes. it does lend something musically to the performance in terms of flow of music melodies, rhythm and clearness of sound. if you can't beatmach you ain't a proper dj. if you don't beat match during your set, you're a "music selector", not a dj, imho.
that's why so many people actually can dj with ableton and with the help of technology.
I'm not against it, I dj with ableton but somebody would say "learn to walk before running".

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant.

I mean - if you didn't have to do it, what would be the musical merit of putting it back in.

and I think you are now grading different styles of DJing with different names now, Ok - if this makes you happy - fair play , but I'd have to ask, why ?

Have DJs now elevated themselves beyond people who play other peoples music, and make selections ? are we taling about some breed of 'super dj' ? Like I say , the lines are being fast blurred between live PAs and DJ sets, so I can see where you are coming from, but I'd argue a DJ can be whatever he or she chooses to be. Some DJs might have better taste in music than others, some might actually prefer to play MUSIC (eg, stuff which perhaps cannot be beatmatched due to changing tempo and time signatures). go check out Vex'd - see how much beatmatching goes on, then tell me Vex'd isn't good......

Or listen to Sven Vath's early mixes from the Omen.....tell me Sven Vath was no good (technically many people argued that he was no good at the time, but that didn't stop thousands of people with taste going to see him over and over and over again)

I think you've missed the point of a lot of what I was trying to say.

And If we're goign to be that pedantic about what makes a DJ or doesn't , then I'm all going to have to refer you to Plus one, Richie Rufftone, The Scratch Perverts, Qbert, The Invisible Scratch Pickes etc.....

If what you say is true, then everyone making or playing minimal should give up , or call themselves something other than DJ yeah ?

[plastik]

I think you may have misunderstood what I meant.

I think you did the same. or maybe we were saying the same thing with different words.

and I think you are now grading different styles of DJing with different names now, Ok - if this makes you happy - fair play , but I'd have to ask, why ?

no no. let me try to explain this: a rock dj doesn't generally beatmatch, but still people call him/her a dj. I'd rather call him a music selector because I like to think of djs as people able to mix and beatmatch electronic music (that meaning a super wide range of styles, from house to techno to whatever). but that's my view, and it's a bit on the "purist" side. those guys in jamaica in the early 60s playing loud ska and bluebeat tunes from dodgy soundsystems are seen as djs (different styles and different names, eh?), but would you call them like that?
I hate people promoting themselves as djs when the only thing they do is inserting cds in the cdj player. but if that's enough to be a dj, then so be it.

I think you've missed the point of a lot of what I was trying to say.

yes, I guess so. did I make up for it?

And If we're goign to be that pedantic about what makes a DJ or doesn't , then I'm all going to have to refer you to Plus one, Richie Rufftone, The Scratch Perverts, Qbert, The Invisible Scratch Pickes etc.....

thank you very much for doing so. but so what's your point? "you can dj withouth beatmatching"? I've never had anything against that. I was just wondering what other people thought about the subject and I reckon you came up with an answer and I respect it.

If what you say is true, then everyone making or playing minimal should give up , or call themselves something other than DJ yeah ?

hell no. why on earth did you get to this conclusion? have I ever mentioned this? it's not about styles or genres. it's about techniques and skills. you can either be called a "music selector" or a dj (please allow me to use this words) regarding HOW you play, not what you play.
somebody mixing and beatmatching two or more tunes in sync is a dj. somebody who doesn't and just plays them one after the other isn't, in my opinion. or did I completely miss the point

[MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE]

Francis Grosso would be turning in his grave (is he dead? !)