Why Digital DJ Tips exists, in one rant!

Indeed. Both of your arguments were valid.

In my opinion, each DJ has his own style and uses his own gear that he’s accustomed to.
Wether it’s vinyl, CDs, or controllers, if someone can put up a good show, and make the crowd enjoy their night and have a great time, I’ll believe he’s a good DJ.

The thing is : some people prefer it old school (which is OK), but some among them tend to underestimate colleagues that DJ differently or with different gear. This can be somewhat understandable, since techniques that took years to master using vinyl (beatmatching, pitch chasing, phrasing, etc.), can be done in seconds with software.
However, you have to live with your times! Modern technology opens a whole bunch of possibilities that were unthinkable a few years ago. Some prefer not to follow evolution, some will.

But from a crowd standpoint, what’s the difference? If the music is good and people have a great time, what’s the point in whining about the gear used? I’ve seen DJs doing as much of a good (if not better) show using a controller than DJs using vinyl!

By reading articles in here, I’ve realized there are many aspects to DJing that get more important when using controllers. Since the beatmatching job can be done quickly, a DJ can focus on many other technicalities such as mixing techniques, crowd reading, track selection. In other words, when your mind is not busy beatmatching, it has more time to focus on other things.

In my personal opinion, mixing is an important skill to learn, but picking the right songs always comes first. Yes it’s good to be able to do all the shmansy stuff to add to the experience, but it’s not really necessary. As a person going from a normal perspective to a DJ’s perspective when it came to music in clubs and such, I had never really cared if the mixing was perfect or not (except for when I discovered that the dj playing one night was playing a prerecorded mix, that kinda pissed me off even at the time). It’s about the crowd’s experience, not the DJ’s. So if you can get the basics down, the rest will follow later. It’s all about learning to read a crowd and how to drop that perfect track, everything else is just delivery to make the experience smoother and more refined. Just my thoughts.

Firs off I too like this site alot and do think that Phil does a very good job, apparantly this site is needed because here is a very high frequence of postings. Also the articles are very well written IMO.

Then to the part that I do not agree on:
I for one do not think that Traktor is the future.
It is too time consuming and you need to be really good at how music is built up and
how to program e.g. mapping. Also all controllers that floodes the market
with most of them low quality is never going to be accepted by the big boys and some of us pro DJs that eather runs vinyl or CDJs and can afford them. As long as there is not any really good controller sticking out as the standard.
On the other hand as it is now there are a few good controllers but not any really good software IMO
Therefore I thinke it will be no change from Pioneer CDJ’s as standard in the booth.
CDJ2000/DJM2000 or S3700/X1700 can be used with traktor and I do think that in
about 5 years both Denon and Pioneer will stop putting in CD drives in their CDJ’s.
Then there will be really good controllers that has the same buididea as todays CDJs or vinyl instead of the controllers today with all built in in the same chassies.

Also simular products to Stantons controller with built in software so that you do not need a laptop
is more likely to be the future I do think.
It does not matter if you have a Mac or PC non of them are developed as a DJ gear and are not Pro DJ gear that can handle the beating they get in a Club inviroment IMO.
Maybe someone will buid a PC or Mac that is built specific for DJs that can handle a beer spilt over it or the heavy bass.
I know such a PC exists for milatary and police use, but not for DJ use.

I have my Denon S3700/X1700 that I has used with CDs uptil today but this weekend I will do my first gigg on them with USB sticks (Wish me luck) And I also has a MC6000 that I never has used outside my door, but I will when there is a gigg that has too little space for my S3700/x1700. And then I will have mixtapes in my iPhone connected at all time for security. I do not feel comfortable using my Macbook Pro/MC6000 on giggs. I feel very nervous about it and do not trust it as I do with my S3700/X1700 setup.