What constitutes "boring" minimal?

[S.D.L]

Speaking of good vocals Victor.., check out the new Heinrichs & Hirtenfeller track 'Free'. That's what I call a nice vocal!

that vocal sample was taken from http://freesound.iua.upf.edu. I was actually pretty surprised and disappointed when i realized this after listening...

Why where you disappointed, because it was free? I liked that sample in that track, there's that darn own preference again......

[tone-def]

Stephan Bodzin is probably one of my favorites of NOT BORING producers. He uses interesting pads and automation to change the moods as the track flows bringing intesity and emotion up and down. You can really tell he spends ALOT of time on most of his songs.

Bodzin is a great producer, but he doesn't make minimal techno.

This comment isn't aimed at anyone...I've said it before and I'll say it again, techno (esp minimal) is made to be mixed. Some tracks are made to be tools and some are made to be played out in full. Maybe the producers aren't conscious of this, but as a DJ I sure am. To judge a track solely of its own accord is fine, but it may turn into a real gem if it's mixed with the right track.

A great point regarding some of the music people would find boring.

Example: Funkatron - In Du Lona
Amazing track to mix, but you'd only play this standing alone for 3 minutes if you wanted to kill the dance floor.

I agree with the use of songs like this as tools to be mixed with but alot of mixes I hear the songs being played for 5 minutes before mixing.

If you mixing in and out of these loopy tracks every two minutes your changing the sound constantly which in essence is the same as playing songs that arent just a looped groove.

Maybe the focus should be that djs need to stop thinking that just because a repetitive loopy track is seven minutes long, they should be playing the entire seven minutes. Many minimal mixes bore the living sht out of me for this reason.

Also if the tracks were meant as tools they probably wouldn't average 7 minutes in length.

I like to mix using these loopy tracks as tools and when i play them i'm mixing it in with another track for maybe 2 or 3 minutes, so sometimes 7 minutes is good.

I'm really inspired by Archipel latest concept assignment 3. Here we have lots of stripped back beats which are all 3 minutes in length. for home listening this is the perfect length but when it comes for playing in the club i will have to do some edits to make them longer.

I don't understand any DJ who plays the same loop for 7 minutes. People who play minimal like this should not play in clubs. I've always enjoyed technical DJ's like Jeff Mills. He plays very loopy techno but makes it interesting by constantly mixing.

[miroslav]

I don't understand any DJ who plays the same loop for 7 minutes. People who play minimal like this should not play in clubs.

!!EXACTLY!! amen to that.

[steevio]

my own feeling on this is that its all down to personal taste and the individual tunes in question.
minimal loops work by hypnotism, if its an interesting loop with some element evolving in time, then it can keep your interest for a suprising length of time.
if it is simple drum machine loop with no modulation it can bore the sht out of me in 20 seconds, even in a club. its down to musicianship.
some people like things to be constantly changing, others like to be hypnotised.
last night a mate of mine played a mix of really boring minimal, (i 've no idea who the DJ was) and when i commented on it, he said 'yeah but you need to be on ketamin in a dark club mate !'
not my thing.

[ano.phi]

my own feeling on this is that its all down to personal taste and the individual tunes in question.
minimal loops work by hypnotism, if its an interesting loop with some element evolving in time, then it can keep your interest for a suprising length of time.
if it is simple drum machine loop with no modulation it can bore the sht out of me in 20 seconds, even in a club. its down to musicianship.
some people like things to be constantly changing, others like to be hypnotised.
last night a mate of mine played a mix of really boring minimal, (i 've no idea who the DJ was) and when i commented on it, he said 'yeah but you need to be on ketamin in a dark club mate !'
not my thing.

Still not understanding the ketamin thing.. Why is it so big nowadays? All i remember about doing ketamin back in the day is being absolutely incapable of dancing when i was on it.

[shypht]

- A lot of the usual minimal clickety click (ei. minus stuff), i just CANT stand it. But when i DJ, i really like to use them as a layer. Again, its a matter of timing and use.

I just thought i wanted to bring my view on this subject

You see, you take the clickety click, and mix it with the bloopity blip, toss in a layer of wobble .... fade in the tshhh tsk and a bit of reverb, and then we are getting somewhere

[tone-def]

my own feeling on this is that its all down to personal taste and the individual tunes in question.
minimal loops work by hypnotism, if its an interesting loop with some element evolving in time, then it can keep your interest for a suprising length of time.
if it is simple drum machine loop with no modulation it can bore the sht out of me in 20 seconds, even in a club. its down to musicianship.
some people like things to be constantly changing, others like to be hypnotised.
last night a mate of mine played a mix of really boring minimal, (i 've no idea who the DJ was) and when i commented on it, he said 'yeah but you need to be on ketamin in a dark club mate !'
not my thing.

Still not understanding the ketamin thing.. Why is it so big nowadays? All i remember about doing ketamin back in the day is being absolutely incapable of dancing when i was on it.

it's nice at an afterparty.

more of a sitting down kind of drug.

I know someone on this forum who doesn't drink, smoke or do any other drugs apart from K and they get though sh!t loads of it and still bang out an amazing live set, which is full of really interesting and inspiring sounds. Shame he only djs now.

[oblioblioblio]

Still not understanding the ketamin thing.. Why is it so big nowadays? All i remember about doing ketamin back in the day is being absolutely incapable of dancing when i was on it.

it's nice at an afterparty.

more of a sitting down kind of drug.

I know someone on this forum who doesn't drink, smoke or do any other drugs apart from K and they get though sht loads of it and still bang out an amazing live set, which is full of really interesting and inspiring sounds. Shame he only djs now.

hmm. not sure why it's popular either but it seems to be associated with some techno music, and I think it's big in the UK now (maybe it always was?). With a lot of the people I know though, it has a very bad reputation, and I can understand why. Quite a few people seem to treat it as some kind of lesser relative of cocaine, which definitely doesn't really encourage great results.

I think it can be quite useful, especially in really quite small doses. Gives things a certain edge, quite weirdly physical, but without being overwhelmingly dissociative. I definitely enjoy dancing at this dose, and think it can be conducive towards making tunes. Sometimes it can be fun to get lost in a higher dose in a controlled environment though as well.