My take on all this is theres no excuse for a serato dj not to have 20-30 recs on him just in case....
A dj can do damage for at least a good lil while with that number of records.... anyways, i still think vinyl always sounds better, unless youre carl craig and you use a radar hard recording system to burn your vinyl with expensive converters... http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Aug01/articles/izradar.asp?print=yes he outfits that with crazy converters being c2 anyway, whats the point of playing an amazing system w mp3s and such? do you think the paradise garage, music box, or MI could have gone down with serato ? the time and effort required to acquire a sick record collection and then to know how to play it out in a set and tell a story used to help ensure that only those djs knew how to dj would get to dj....they were the ones who had already made a huge sacrifice. now with the democratization of djing, everyone knows how to dj supposedly.... the printing press was indeed an innovation, but the quality of literary output is surely down in a world where literacy is epidemic and books are published every day only to be thrown out the next, where writing has devolved into txting and blogging. just as it is with the written word, so too with electronic music in my book. -alex ps. having said all that, i am a futurist, and innovation is where its at. but i think being judicious about how you go about it is key. and in a world full of amazing dollar records (think of how many copies of vanity 6 are out there), it still makes $ense to own vinyl On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Andrew Duke <[email protected]> wrote: >> On 17 February 2009, kent williams wrote: >> >>> I've seen loads of DJs play boring sets with no consideration for >>> their audience, using good ol vinyl and turntables. To paraphrase the >>> NRA, "Technology doesn't bore a crowd, DJs bore a crowd." > > Exactly! > > I think the important thing to remember is not process, but results. > So much of this turntables vs software talk has nothing to do with ears, > it is all eyes, to be honest. > > I've often wondered about this scenario: > 2 friends who love the same music attend a party together; one is sighted, > the other has 100% loss of vision in her/his eyes; after the party, both > want to > talk about the music they listened and danced to that night; while the > non-sighted > person ends up talking about the music, chances are pretty darn high the > sighted person is going to have been influenced in his talk by having seen > who used tables vs who used tables and/or software, who was the flashy DJ > vs who was low-key, perhaps also by what sex DJs were (many "listen" to a > female DJ differently for some reason), age, skin color, fashion sense or > lack > thereof, interaction with the crowd, etc, etc, etc; so many many things that > don't have any affect on the music heard. Like does Strings Of Life played > by > a woman who is 23, uses only turntables and wears baggy trousers sound > different than the same > song played on the same sound system via turntable via Traktor Scratch by a > man > of different age, clothing, etc, etc. Of course not! With the sighted > person, s/he is likely going > to talk about the music seen/heard, not simply heard whereas the non-sighted > person won't talk about the music "seen", just heard. (I'm not going to get > into that non-sighted people use their ears in a more heightened manner > because > of not having visual sight; I'm just using this drastic juxtaposition to try > to do > a proper contrast to make the point). > > Personally, I don't give a darn what kind of set-up the DJs uses (ie what my > eyes see > in a DJ), I care about what my ears hear from that DJ in question. I don't > like to > watch music videos, I want to hear the darn music not see it, unless we're > talking > about a live PA, and that's a whole different story; we're talking DJs, not > live acts here. > > I tell my sound design and music production students over and over again to > turn > the screen off or look away from it when listening to their work. That > visual BS > that Windows Media Player defaults to play? That's turned off in my classes > because > it affects, even if subliminally, how you're experiencing the music. > This past Sunday, a student, instead of playing his homework in an audio > player (Mac > students in this case, so whatever the Mac player is called), wanted > to play it in an audio editor to SHOW us the waveform version of his > homework > and blab on about this section vs that section, pointing to the screen and > the like; > I said "No way, we're listening to your homework, not watching it. > We want to hear you song with no visuals, not watch the waveform scrolling > by in an audio editor. If you play this music for other people in future, > they're going > to judge it with their ears; they're not going to demand to see a visual > representation of > it before judging whether they dig it or not!" > So many people don't get this aspect of music--listen to it and appreciate > it with your ears. > Students so often want to show me/the class their song and this that and the > other thing in the > waveform display of it, and I'm like "no way, we'll experience it with our > ears, thank you, not our darn eyes!!!" > I teach a sound and music class, not a visual art class! > > For a long time I had 3 turntables, but due to having mortgage payments and > other bills, I'm > down to 1 Technics 1200 these days. I could use something like Traktor > Scratch or > Serato, etc, to use the turntable live in conjunction with audio files on > the computer when > doing the show, but I don't do this because my daughter is keen on abusing > my turntable at > every opportunity so it is in a place high above her hands and thus totally > not in a good place for > using to mix with. So my mixshow is done with Traktor; any vinyl I want to > play is > recorded into and saved as a WAV file on the computer; a bit time-consuming, > but after > having a dog chew on vinyl and having my daughter try to destroy records and > the tonearm, I'm willing > to do this until she (and the forthcoming son due June 13) are old enough to > allow daddy > to use his turntable in a "live" manner later in their lives; maybe some > don't know this, but > while many songs synch perfectly with software like Traktor, Serato, Ableton > et al, most still > need to be nudged and adjusted just like one would with pitch control on a > turntable. > (And there's still a human being doing the actual song choice and song order > ie programming). > Traktor, Ableton, and the others can do some tempo synching, but they don't > pick the songs! :) > Listen to my mixshow; it's full of mistakes, but I think the fact that I > play music from > the heart matters more than the occasional gallop, even while using Traktor. > I could edit out mistakes and redo shows, but the only time I have redone a > show > was one time (show M50 premiered) when I had my recording levels set way > wrong and it was all so > horribly distorted that there was no way I was going to subject anyone's > ears to it. Even in redoing it the > tracklist ended up different. > > After all this rant, here is my point: > I don't think technology matters a damn bit; analog DJ vs. digital DJ? I > don't > care as long as s/he plays good music and presents it (ie audio-wise, not > visual-wise) > well. > > My CDN $0.02 > > Andrew > > np The Black Dog--Vexing EP (Soma263) out April09 and to be featured on next > mixshow > -- > Andrew Duke In The Mix weekly mixshow (est. 1987), excl. DJ mixes, PAs, > interviews: > http://cognitionaudioworks.com/AndrewDukeInTheMix.html > sound design and music content provider: > http://cognitionaudioworks.com/sounddesignandmusic.html > sound design, music, production, DJ courses: > http://andrew-duke.com/course.html > http://myspace.com/andrewduke > http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1614666166 > http://www.discogs.com/artist/Andrew+Duke > http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj-page.aspx?id=5947 > > Andrew Duke Cognition Audioworks > 57 Hastings Drive Dartmouth NS Canada B2Y 2C7 >
