I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring, learn how to play instruments and all the theory behind pop music, then figure out the software and hardware to play live sets. Obviously you're going to need to understand the basics of mixing to play live sets, but playing a regular DJ set in front of an audience to me is the same thing as covering stairway to heaven or wonderwall. Keep practicing until you're actually good. All of my friends who could play instruments had a much easier time getting into producing than the people who never learned a single scale. And it's not just the composition aspect, it's all the sound design, sampling and just understand the programs that gets easier.
>I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring
Exhibit A for the defence: this utterly masterful set by garage legend DJ EZ. He deftly plays with the build and release of tension without relying on formulaic drops. There is still enormous creative mileage in traditional two-deck mixing.
Selectors don't even mix in the traditional sense, nor do they compose or produce, but there's a tremendous art to what they do. If you're unfamiliar with sound system culture and clashing, I'd suggest the Red Bull Culture Clash as an accessible introduction, particularly Rebel Sound's 2014 performance starring the inimitable David Rodigan. It's worth watching the "making of" documentary on their performance; it took months of painstaking preparation to play 40 minutes of music.
The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ. Back in the day you needed decks, you needed to learn to beatmatch, you needed to hunt down white labels, you needed to get dubplates cut. There was a barrier to entry, an apprenticeship you had to serve before you could call yourself a DJ. The term has now been diluted to the point of meaninglessness, but that doesn't diminish from the artistry of great DJs.
>The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ.
This is the point I was trying to make. I'm very familiar with soundsystem culture, I've been making a living from it since I was 17. Obviously there's some good sounding stuff you can do while mixing on two decks, you just gave decent examples, but in my opinion it's never going to be as mind blowing as Birdy Nam Nam or Araabmuzik absolutely killing it on some freestyle stuff. It's never going to beat a great vinyl jungle set with an experienced scratcher, and it's certainly not going to beat some of the crazy live sets people in the downtempo psytrance scene play.
I went to a rave on halloween, and there was these two guys doing a live set. One guy was just doing regular 2 decks stuff for the rythmic section, while the other guy had an mpc, a controller and electronic drums plugged into his computer for the melodies. It was great seeing the drums used as melody, I've seen thousands of sets in my life and I was mind blown. There are no videos of him playing live, but here's his soundcloud.
> Selectors don't even mix in the traditional sense, nor do they compose or produce, but there's a tremendous art to what they do.
I disagree with you on not composing or producing - at least at the highest level of sound clashes. I skipped around a bit in the Red Bull video you linked, and each and every song I encountered was re-recorded (by the original singers) specifically for this event with tweaked lyrics denigrating the challenging sound systems of the day, in line with clash norms.
I agree there is tremendous art, but there is a lot of production around re-recording songs. It's a level above just mixing.
I never expected to discuss Sound System / sound clashes on HN - this is a delightful surprise.
Clash dubplates are traditionally cut at the original studio by the original producer, by request of the sound system. I suppose it depends on your definition of "producer". I'd consider the role of a clash selector as part DJ, part A&R - as much as anything, their skill is for identifying talent and making the connections required to get exclusive dubs cut.
Rodigan is such a dominant figure in the clash scene because of the mutual respect between him and the Jamaican music scene. He can get dubs that no-one else can, because he has served Jamaican music faithfully over many decades. Through thick and thin, he promoted Jamaican music in Britain and internationally.
His career speaks more broadly to the vital role that DJs play in musical culture. DJs are the link between artists and audiences. They curate, they encourage, they introduce. What they do in the booth is the product of their work, not the work itself.
This is why I'm not a fan of protecting your playlists as a performer. I understand when some performers have stems or remixes which aren't available anywhere public, but renaming tracks / hiding playlists / refusing to tell anyone "what song that was" always just comes off as a dick move to me.
Having to get two tech 1200, a decent mixer, headphones, and some monitors raised the entry level. Then you had the effort of having to learn to beat mix vinyl. Not hard but time consuming, for most, in the begining. Its weeded out the masses. Now the tech has taken the learning curve out and i am not saying thats good or bad but its why there are a million "producer" "Dj's".
I think the track selection and the crowds reaction will go over peoples heads who aren't familiar with garage. A lot of tracks EZ dropped in that set were huge in the 90's and early 2000's (in terms of the garage scene). If you live in London, its likely you would get nostalgic over those songs. You probably aren't going to get the same reaction in most of the US.
There are different kinds of djing, and 'boring' sets where you just mix two records together all night are a skill all their own. Sometimes people want the DJ to disappear so they can focus on dancing all night. They don't want someone scratching or doing live remixes. They want to just get in a groove and feel time stop while an endless beat plays.
It's really hard to keep a crowd like that dancing all night when you aren't performing. I've had 1000 people jumping up and down and screaming and I was just standing there doing nothing while a record played. You really need to know what the crowd wants to get them there and the difference between getting people amped up and just having them wander away from the dance floor is subtle.
I see where you are coming from, but masterful DJing takes much more than switching from desk A to desk B. Song selection is crucial, it's even more important than transitions, moreover you need to play the right music to the right audience. Those things you won't find in tutorials, and that's what makes a great DJ set great. On top of that you can combine producing with playing live by adding effects, creatively transitioning between songs and cue jumping, this takes a lot of skill too.
As someone who plays lots of music, but never listens to music because its just too much of a chore, I appreciate that a good DJ can find a form in multiple songs none of which I ever have any chance of know about myself.
That's interesting, I'm the opposite - I listen to loads of music but don't play much. I would've thought one would lead to the other, but I guess not.
Seems a little harsh to label it as absolutely useless. How is it any different from learning to play the piano to play your favorite piano pieces? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by produce?
Yeah, that is really elitist. And it's just your opinion, so you're allowed to hold it :)
A good DJ can make the difference between a mediocre party and a really amazing party. I agree that the more tools in your arsenal, the better you'll be but don't brush off what can be achieved with 2 turntables and a really good knowledge of music.
Music is really subjective - and I'm not aware of a way to quantify the impact of music generally. The same challenge applies to a musical "artists", but justification of the skills of DJs is often demanded, where the skills of artists isn't. Why is that?
From the perspective of someone who had gone through the learning journey, I know full well the difference between my abilities when I begin and now (and there's still a lot of space for me to improve). Those first times I DJed were fairly horrible experiences for everyone - most of all me.
What can we figure out though? There are really just a couple of main dimensions to consider, song selection and how those songs are put together.
Song selections are crucial to DJing and you can think of it in terms of tailoring the music to the environment. Whether you have 2 turntables or not, this is the most important part. Maybe you have a someone putting on other people's mix tapes - understanding the energy and environment are still crucial. I've seen people who are accomplished musicians get this very wrong. It's not something that comes of being a good musician, it's a totally different skill-set.
So before you even look at the medium (turntables), I think we can agree that there's a skill involved in being able to apply music to enhance the environment.
Then there's the turntable aspect. If you give someone with the skills to apply the right music an infinite supply of music and an mp3 player they'll struggle to make the experience smooth. A pause in the music is going to kill the energy in the room. But that's just the start. You can change the energy just by moving through tracks faster, before you even start looking at the interesting ways you can put the music together. Not only that, but pretty much every DJ setup these days is digital with much more you can do to the music in the mix.
It's like lighting - take a perfectly good party and put strip lighting in. It's all about creating the right environment. Music is a big part of that - though I suspect I'm more aware of it than other people.
> DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose
But then give no reason for this to be the case. You imply that DJing takes less skill than composing/producing/performing, and that may be true, but that doesn't make DJing useless if done on its own.
I'm having a hard time understanding where this comment is coming from. I can understand if your exposure to DJs has been limited (I'm sure we've all seen performers who are just about useless at truly engaging crowds), but there are some who are genuine performers behind the decks. Not just from the perspective of technical proficiency, but also of artistry.
I'll argue that the actual instrument doesn't matter. A mixer and a pair of turntables (or CDJs, or a laptop) can, in an artist's hands, produce as engaging an experience as a "live" setup.
The comparison between DJing and covering Stairway is very misguided, in my opinion, because it implies that the former is as inherently devoid of artistry as the latter. That's simply not the case.
Yep, and I've also heard performance set-ups which sucked. I've heard Araabmuzik mess up pretty badly live (he's normally phenomenal). For me, it's interesting in that it humanizes him a bit; "hey, I get to fly around the world tapping on my MPC to make crowds go wild, but I'm not perfect".
Controllerism is a whole other thing, and if you're curious, go read about it / listen to it / go to some meet-ups / shows. It's big in the Bay Area and many other places. The monome community in particular is really awesome (I'm sure many are but that's the one I have some limited personal experience with). The best part of different music scenes IMO is the variety and the people. You get a bunch of random weirdos together and play with putting your own spins on a genre, twisting it and pulling it into your own direction while making nods to those who came before you. You use the right samples, sometimes with your own personal touches, as tiny musical shout-outs to the other people in the scene; the musical family you've chosen. The audience is in on the fun and the jokes too. It's the sort of thing which tickles the brain in a manner unmatched by other worldly pursuits.
Absolutely. One of my favorite performers (Daedelus) uses a monome for his live setup, and there's nothing on Earth like a Daedelus set. It would be exceedingly difficult (or essentially impossible) to specifically match or emulate what he does with a 'traditional' DJ's setup.
That's not to say that what he or other live performers do is inherently better than someone proficient with turntables, of course. He chooses a monome as his primary tool to achieve the type of performance he strives for, and for some, a controller like that is simply not the right tool. To me, it's all good — the hardware involved has little to no effect on how well a performer can match or exceed my expectations.
