Sakari, Ah, as I suspected, there is a somewhat of a difference in tempo in our sets. My sets would rarely be so slow, for one thing because I play techno and UR electro the upper limit is more like 150, regularly, and I rarely would go below probably 125 usually, although I don't own a BPM counter. Well, I might mix in a slower track, but I probably won't beatmatch. Interestingly, it sounds like you are letting the tempo fluctuations of electro dissuade you from programming it so much! Also, it almost seems like you are able to do this easier because you don't buy techno records that exceed 130 bpm, does this limit your buying choices at all? I pretty much play 3 tempos: house, tech-house, and techno to electro. In each range there tends to be a record or two that really belongs in the category but needs to be pitched up a bit to fit in the right place in the mix in terms of texture and energy. Especially in the tech-house some of the more techno tracks are at 0 to -2, while the housier tracks may go into +3 to +6 range. While I don't always like having to pitch up, I don't have any way to really make the track selection I want happen without doing this. Your main upper limit, 130 is very slow for modern techno-ish type tracks, even ones with a Detroit feel. I can't imagine having that as my upper BPM limit really!
Curious if anyone else has any thoughts on this? ~Dave -----Original Message----- From: Sakari Karipuro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 5:46 PM To: David Powers Subject: Re: Vestax or Technics David Powers wrote on Mon, 28 Jul 2003 about following: hi david, > I'll ignore spw's essay on trendiness, that has nothing to do with this, he's quite annoying, isn't he :) > but I'd mention that your rule would make it very difficult to mix in > older classic tracks in a slightly uptempo set. well, most of the classics are in range of 115-125 for house and 123-130+ for techno. i don't see any trouble here.. of course you need to occasionally break the rule, but i don't do it with EVERY mix in the set (or every other mix either) :) (and you can always just change, and not beat mix at all) it's a kinda shame that many good house records are nowadays somewhere around 128-130bpm range, even the MAW have gone up those tempoes. what i like in house music is the a bit lazy drums and enough space for the bassline (ie not too fast tempo) so it keeps the groove, for me this seems to work best at around 120-125 bpm. > couple of bizarre sounding things done by booty DJs with classic > techno tracks pitched at +45. it's when you hear "bucketheads - the bomb" played at 45 +16 mixed with some cheesy Music TV-advertised "GABBER" you start to cry. > This doesn't seem like a great rule for all situations, why do you find it > so important to stick to this? just my personal opinion. i like the music as it was made. the dj is supposed to play the records, he's given +-8 scale to allow beatmatching. just too many records from my collection sound bad pitched too much. be it house, hip-hop, soul, techno.. maybe it's just me but thats how i like things. > records all played at 0). Maybe 2/3 of a set are in the range you > give. What styles do you play and do you think your rule applies to > all of them? i play mostly house & techno, sometimes starting the set from 110bpm and building my way up to 130 (with time).. i can play some rap/hip-hop, soul, r'n'b (mostly b-sides of house-records from early 90's though, since most of the good stuff was remixes from those), some more eclectic stuff like the orb, bjork, theo parrish, fsol, idm'ish stuff to rob hood to UR to harder old techno, not forgetting early nineties rave & breakbeat (the good stuff below 140bpm :) i can even throw a set of early nineties euro-dance for kicks (i used to dj some kids school discos). but yes my rule applies like say 90% of the time. there's always the record you cannot remember that's 118bpm or 129bpm.. :P oh i forgot the electro, which makes the biggest problem keeping the rule since it goes all the range from 120 to 150bpm and i'm not buying much of that stuff. generally i just drop the tracks in that part of the set they fit considering their tempo. generally, it's quite easy. sakke -- Timing must be perfect now. Two-timing must be better than perfect. http://www.arabuusimiehet.com/sakke/
