Djing Digital or CD?

[frickler]

I don't think it's really about the principle; it's about the relative enjoyment of digging through a crate or browsing on a screen, no? To me, looking at the cruddy waveform display or track number on a CDJ1000 is totally not the same as having a precise illustration of where the beat is on a 15" laptop screen in front of me. And browsing through a CD bag is much more like flicking through a record crate than searching my MP3 collection.

I'm not a purist; I just don't enjoy playing off a laptop very much.

agreed!

When playing with a laptop you definitely end up looking at the screen more than you need to (unless you're incredibly disciplined), which means you're not interacting with the crowd/mirror as much.

agreed!

[coldfuture]

When playing with a laptop you definitely end up looking at the screen more than you need to (unless you're incredibly disciplined), which means you're not interacting with the crowd/mirror as much.

Conversely, I hate the new "knowing look" you get from DJs nowadays along with the little "fist circles of k-hole triumph."

Pure hilarity. I much prefer the Jeff Mills/Robert Hood approach. They don't have time for doing the monkey dance for the crowd because they are moving through the tracks too fast to care.

DJ's should shut up and get to work. Where is the mystery? Where is the techno? The music these days is all dressed up in personality.

I mean who cares? At the end of the day, we are all suckers for paying money to go listen to some guy play his record collection in public.

I can live with being a sucker like that, but I can't live with this constant pseudo-intellectual dialog about DJing. Its such a ridiculous type of performance in the first place, when compared to live music played on actual instruments.

Turntablists may be a different matter, but putting one record on after another? Did it ever need to become the subject of endless debate?

[Edward_Molton]

I always thought dj'ing was about playing music but apparently it's browsing in cd-bags and vinylbags.

Off course everybody has his own truth but I really like to play with Traktor, especially with the new Kontroll X1. It's really the ideal controller for Traktor. To lovely thing is that it's so flexible.

CDj's are way to expensive to have them at home. Well at least I like to spend my money on other things.

In the end it's the music that counts. I prefer a guy/women who plays great music but looks boring behind the decks than some one who's jumping, doing monkey stuff behind the decks but plays the most horrible music.

[swarlied]

Oh well people,
you think its all about the music and not about how the dj looks like browsing through his library?
friends, that an illusion - and you all know that. a screen is like a wall between you and the crowd. and its a perfect wall to hide behind if you like. for a dj the contact to the crowd is one of the most important things and its not very easy to keep this 100% straight with a screen between you and them.
on the other side, djs have been able to play techno music without looking on waveforms for around 20 years. and on top of that many many djs of today, even "big" names do not play very good ( I miss the "dominant crowd controll" very often). niveau is getting down a little bit, bit thats just opinion.

never the less, i know all your arguments because I was fighting for digital djing too - ignoring the fact and lying to myself that
1. it looks stupid
2. its damaging the crowd connection

a solution would be to completely put the screen away to somewhere aside. I have seen to many notebook djs getting frozen in front of their emails.

[BigPoe]

Thank you swarlied, DJing is about playing to the crowd. The DJ is there for entertainment, he shouldn't just be playing a few of his own records that take his fancy in that particular moment. IMO the greatest skill of a (techno) DJ is tune selection.

Of course I'm not endorsing prancing around like a monkey on acid just to get the crowd aroused, but a DJ has to connect with the audience otherwise you might as well just put a mix CD in the machine and press 'play'.

[sea.envy]

this must be why i never cut it as a dj, i just don't give a sh!t what 'the crowd' wants to hear. lol

[STML]

a solution would be to completely put the screen away to somewhere aside. I have seen to many notebook djs getting frozen in front of their emails.

Honestly, a good controller will do this. The only time I ever have to look at my laptop is during track selection, but I never have to touch it. The only thing I ever touch is my Vestax VCI-100. If I am using a sequence of 10-15 tracks (a particular build or whatever), then I don't even have to look at the laptop.

IMO, it opened up a lot of stuff for me. I used to spend more time hunched over the record bag than I do looking at the laptop.