i agree with brendans post below. the software approach only becomes invalid when the mix is presented in a trad 2x1200 and a mixer way (like a lot of these main stream protooled juke-box style mixes)
i was listening to the megamix on the "techno 1 - the new dance sound" compilation the other day and noticed (over)use of the spin back which i guess made a lot of people see that this could be used when mixing in a live (not megamix) setting. so when a dj hears some interesting approach done in software is he/she more likely to try and reproduce this sort of this on decks? i think he/she is, so i'm quite excited by all this. it's amazing what can be done with a simple sampler, decent eqs and a delay live...this all bodes well for the future of djing (as does the use of FS, so adding your own edits into the mix). i see there's another article in Jockey Slut this month saying that mixing records together is an out of date approach. i beg to differ. robin... > I look forward to it too - well done to Alex, by the way, who I notice > has one of his OurTime tracks on the compilation! :) > > Anyway, on the point of this being a new form of mix - I think it is the > logical progression on from the Hotmix 5 style megamix, and I am > prepared to argue the point. > > First off, the argument that a mix is only really "valid" if it's made > on purely two turntables and mixer - I can see the point of view, but am > reminded when I hear this argument of people who once said that music > wasn't "valid" unless it was played live, on real instruments. It seems > to me that since the very early days of our strand of music (Ron Hardy > at the Music Box, etc) the best DJs have basically used the technology > they have available, to the fullest extent possible, to give people an > enriching and fresh experience on the dancefloor. Using technology to > augment the basic components of traditional DJing is actually not a new > idea; it's older than house music itself. > > Second off, the argument that it's "cheating" - I agree with this > argument, but *only if* the DJ in question is presenting his > digitally-assembled mix as if it had been recorded live. The only way > someone can do this is to deliberately "create" some slightly dodgy > mixes and transitions in order to have that air of authenticity, to > avoid using the more advanced functionality of the software in question, > and to also put in artifically long breaks between mixes, projecting the > illusion that they are flipping through records while in fact their > mouse is simply hovering over the next track the whole time. So, yes, > people are cheating if they go to the effort of hobbling their digital > mixes so that they sound "real", and if they then present these mixes to > people as though they are "real". > > However, anyone who used something like Ableton in this way - going to > all that effort to hide the fact that they've done a digital mix - would > be seriously missing the point, IMHO. Ableton enables people to do > things that you could never even hope to achieve on a traditional decks > setup, and it's with this in mind that people should approach doing > mixes in Ableton. Basically, Ableton gives you the potential to make > something that's less a mix, more a bizarre hybrid between mixing, > sampling and composition. So we should think of Ableton-produced mixes > and traditional decks'n'mixer mixes as two completely different > entities. > > The DJ making a mix with Ableton has a much higher "bar", so to speak, > than the person making a mix with decks. They can't just segue from one > track to another and expect praise. They need to use Ableton to its full > extent, and give us listeners an experience that we could never get from > a person (no matter how skilled) with just a pair of Technics. And if > they do, then they deserve respect for that, and don't deserve to be > shouted down for not having used decks. > > I can well imagine that if someone took a laptop with Ableton to a club > and started DJing out with it, a lot of people would go up to them and > slate them for not using decks. But a skilled user of Ableton would > quite quickly, I think, be able to silence the haters by showing them > exactly what they can do with it. > > So my message is - digital mixing is indeed crap and cheating if the > person involved is just making mixes that could be made on decks; but it > allows people to go much further than just that, and the more people who > come out and show just what this technology can do will, IMHO, go on to > create a sort of hybrid art form which will probably change the way we
