DJ Snobbery

I am pissed of at people comparing entery level toys to Pro DJ gear!
So try comparing a little mor fair.
DJ ergo is a toy IMO and should be compared to entery level CD players
as Numark CD Mix1 or some American Audio entery level CD players.
Just because it stands Pioneer on the unit it is not pro gear anymore!
In fact their controllers is not amongst the best at all IMO.

Also I have been playing Vinyl and bought the Denon DN-D2000F
in a very early state, but I think the Digital is not really as pro as CD players or media
players such as Denon S3700 or Pio DJM2000 so I will proberbly stick to my S3700/X1700
together with the MC6000 for a long time before going all digital.

There is IMO some good reasons why Vinyl and CD playing DJs have negative attitude towards digital DJs.
As there is some of them using cheap laptops with cheap toy controllers, pirated Traktor SW and stolen music
so the laptop has to be restarted several times at giggs and they uses the auto sync button only because they does not know how to beatmatch properly. Those guys are really destroying for us serious DJs when they play for no money IMO!
I don’t care if you use a DJ Ergo or Pio CDJ2000 but if your laptop does not work properly and you have to restart it
or you do not pay for music and software. Or if you use the autosync just because you do not know how to beatmatch and does not use the extra time to be creative then you are not a “real” DJ in my world!
Also if it souds bad it is bad IMO!

José Reach, post: 10532 wrote:
If thanks to digital DJing more people getting able to dj, and more people having acces to gears, then there will be more competition. In the end, being a good DJ will not be about who has the best, most expensive and impressive gear, but about who gives the best parties. I think that’s the fear most CDJs are having now.

That is totally wrong! The fact is that the ordience and clubs only suffer from kids who wants to be cool and plays for themself and not for the ordience! And to compete with a kid that has not payed for his music/sw and that does play for nothing is not the easiest, because most club/barowners I know has no knowlage about music/gear or how a good or bad DJ sounds like. He only count the money spent on DJs every week. The DJ who takes zero money in sallary is the best DJ to him! It is for me not a good thing that more people are being able to DJ because they have no barriers and nothing to struggle with today and that is not a good thing. It is too easy and to cheap to become a DJ these days IMO.

DJ Hessler, post: 10538 wrote: And to compete with a kid that has not payed for his music/sw and that does play for nothing is not the easiest, because most club/barowners I know has no knowlage about music/gear or how a good or bad DJ sounds like.

Then he’s just going to lose money. People may not know a really good DJ when they hear one, but they certainly know a bad one.

As Jose said, it’s not your gear, its how you use it. If you rock an entire floor using nothing but your keyboard and a DJ2GO, good on you. All these new DJ’s make more competition, so it forces them to work harder. The weak ones quit, and the ones who come out the other end are better DJ’s for it.

the ergo does at least look like a toy and not sure i’d want to dj out with one of those. it looks good for someone starting out with digital dj’ing tho

there again – many dj’s are going to hate on the likes of twitch/vci100/vci400/s2/s4 too ofc…

I learnt to mix vinyl on 1210s when I started – I move with the times – I’m now fully digital and have different software and hardware – my personal preference is traktor and I like using the S4, although equally at home using Serato. I used to be a pioneer pig but as stated above, their controllers are sadly lacking (including their showpiece DDJT1 and S1). There’s also nothing wrong in using the auto sync in my opinion, I don’t run people down if they use it and have never mixed properly. People look down on others who use software such as VDJ, but by using the auto sync it allows you to be more creative in the mix (obviously in traktor you have had to set your beat grids correctly and Serato there isn’t one lol).
At the end of the day it’s still a level playing field for everyone when you decide how you want to DJ – we all have the same choices. And whatever way you choose, the software can’t gauge your dance floor, cannot decide what to play next, cannot read the crowd and cannot entertain, that’s down to the individual skill and talent of the DJ.
Digital DJing is the way ahead, it IS the future. Look at Fatboy Norman, he’s now fully digital (he uses Serato), he’s even dispensing with his timecode vinyl, he hasn’t done too bad for himself 😉

DJ Hessler, post: 10538, member: 537 wrote: That is totally wrong! The fact is that the ordience and clubs only suffer from kids who wants to be cool and plays for themself and not for the ordience! And to compete with a kid that has not payed for his music/sw and that does play for nothing is not the easiest, because most club/barowners I know has no knowlage about music/gear or how a good or bad DJ sounds like. He only count the money spent on DJs every week. The DJ who takes zero money in sallary is the best DJ to him! It is for me not a good thing that more people are being able to DJ because they have no barriers and nothing to struggle with today and that is not a good thing. It is too easy and to cheap to become a DJ these days IMO.

I cannot disagree more and I am someone who has the skills, has DJed for 15+ years on vinyl and CDJs.
Yes there are some club owners who will let the cheapest DJ win and you know what: Usually their clubs or bars suck beyond beleave and they will usually be out of business sooner than you can say zippo. If people do not like the music or mixes played they will go elsewhere, if the club is empty and not selling any drinks… it will die.
Thankfully there are still more than enough club owners or bars that hire DJs by reputation or by auditioning them. The crowd will then tell if you play the right tunes, the right effects and the right music at the right time. If you do, you will get hired as word of mouth propaganda is the DJs bread and butter and always has been.
Love and passion for your music cannot be bought.
So if the first poster buys his DDJ-Ergo, which actually is not as bad as you make it (ok the lightshow is a bit… off), and he has this love and passion for music, then he should go for it. Hell he can use a Mixtrack Pro if he does it right he might even win an audition and get a residency.

I welcome that the entry into DJing has become more and more easy. It makes it possible for people that have this love and passion for music, but cannot afford a 4k entry investment, to express themselves and possibly one day become excellent DJs all by themselves and I do not care if they use the SYNC button or not as long as I like what they play and how they mix it.

I for one, I am going digital. I do not even have my own controller yet (still researching which to get), god forbid as long as I do not have it, I use old CDJs or a borrowed S4 as I sold most of my other gear already.

Also on the topic in paying for music: It is really easy to get good music, legally, very cheap these days. iTunes and beatport are actually quite expensive, there are easy ways to get promos etc. In the old days do you really think I payed for the 5k+ vinyls I have in my cellar or the 3k+ CDs? 80% are promos, whitelabels etc. etc. etc. and today with DJ internet services it is even more easy to get those, back then we had to beg the labels to get a DJ listing even if you had a good residency, today you pay a small fee a month and you are hooked. I love that fact.
The hard thing: Choosing what music you actually will play and take out however has remained as hard as ever and will have much more impact.

I think those haters of young DJs using cheap controllers are just afraid of the competition, that they actually have to listen to music again and feel the audience to win an audition or to keep a residency.

So Darren, buy the Ergo if it is the right controller for you. Play out for audiences, let the feedback decide. Have fun at what you do, love the music you play and try to get better at it every day. This is what makes a DJ, not the gear he uses.

Hee Won Jung,

I can see where you are going with this and I totally understand your arguments. I can also relate since in my lifetime I made a huge investment (or rather more than one) already and while I did not chose my controller yet I already invested in a 15” MacBook Pro and many other stuff (apart from lots of music services to further grow my collection and musical horizon) and I have the same reasons as you for going the controller way (and actually not wanting to update my CDJs to current modells).
The question however is: How much of “our market” do these young DJs canibalize or are they just giving parties with 20 people in their cellars? This market has actually always existed, although a bit more expensive. But you had those DJs with 200 bucks turntables and a mixer that barely deserved the name, hooked up to a 200 year old HiFi system playing with self made “funny lights” infront of those 20 people…

There actually is more danger from cheap bar owners that buy a used macbook, hook it up to their cheap sound system and let an iTunes Genius playlist run all night long. I fear those more than the amount of young DJs, because they are making DJs obsolete. This is what lets the amount of “real clubs” shrink. Thankfully those real clubs with real DJs still have enough audience and I surely hope it will stay that way.

oh and I use sync cause i just cant be bothered beat matching anymore. its so last century.