Do you think digital djing makes djs play out to soon???

Pros: those with a good intuition for music and ability to read the crowd can learn really quickly. One doesn’t have to carry turntables and a mixer everywhere. You can learn quickly.

Cons: many start playing out before reaching a point of musical maturity. The market gets saturated with “freejays” and make it harder for more experienced djs to earn fair compensation. You can annoy your friends and family by constantly inviting them to crappy events and such.

I’ve seen rank amateurs come out and play on vinyl long before any laptops got into the booth.

What changed now? Promoters got sloppy.

They want a quick buck and have no clue how to plan and promote events that they take on the freejays or cheap DJs and thus fail. Not to mention since 2000 the promoters have pushed the scene to be about fashion and not about the music. Even now with the whole mainstream popularity and such of EDM, the scene is still more about VIPs, girls dressed like strippers competing for attention, guys pretending to be wealthy alpha males, and the DJ as simply a jukebox.

I’ve seen guys who learn the basics of beatmatching and they run out to play. They have no clue how to open or even how to play to a crowd. They just want their moment to be in the booth and pretend it’s like the fantasies they make of DJing.

Laptops and sync didn’t change this. It’s when promoters made the DJ less important to the night in many aspects, and they now look at ROI to the point that they’ll fathom the rank amateur if they can put a tight leash around him/her.

D-Jam, post: 32056, member: 3 wrote:
I’ve seen guys who learn the basics of beatmatching and they run out to play. They have no clue how to open or even how to play to a crowd. They just want their moment to be in the booth and pretend it’s like the fantasies they make of DJing.

Good grief, this ^

Yes the comments above ^^^ nailed it 100%. If some new DJs think that they have to show their technical virtuoso by mashing up three tracks while running a beat slicer and looping five more tracks with added filtering LFO effects building up to a big crescendo, they totally misunderstand the reason why they should DJ.

Or, instead of spending time learning all kinds of trickery, spend time figuring out how to make a crowd dance and enjoy the evening.

I was about to start a similar thread.

I only recently came back more into the Techno scene (which is pretty strong where I live) along with me wanting to fill some spare time with DJing (I’m definitely not trying to make money or a career out of this). But once you are a “DJ” you go to events and concerts and see everything through completely different eyes.

My problem is not so much with beginner DJs who play out too early (prolly because I don’t go to these places), but more with many DJ/Producers who seem to get booked at pretty much every club now (I’m talking Deep House/Tech House/Minimal/Techno). The resident DJ is left to open and close for them.

Which in itself is fine, but most producers I see performing live don’t play to the crowd at all. It’s f’in 0230 AM and people are really getting into it, lots of energy on the dancefloor – yet they (more often than not these days it’s at least two people I have the impression) are hunched over their Ableton laptops, fumbling their launchpads and APCs, triggering stuff on their Maschine… only to throw in 64bar breakdowns every 2 minutes and completely kill off the dancefloor. Zero crowd interaction.

I witnessed the same thing last night with opening acts for Boys Noize. These guys (6 or so) act like complete tools, wearing masks, I don’t know WHAT they did there exactly (half of them would dance around and twist an effects knob every couple minutes). Who books some douchebags playing TRAP and throw shitty German raps over it occasionally for a Boys Noize show anyway?? Then the next opening act (Spank Rock). They were pretty decent, but it was so sad too when the female DJ who actually startet to play a decent and weird electro house kinda set, that FINALLY got people going a little bit, put it on autopilot to get half naked and dance like a stripper who overdid the cocaine a lil bit.

I think it’s sad that now where everyone is/has to be a producer, gimmicks and “performance” seem to become more important than the music. I’m sure I’m not the only one of all the people paying cover who couldn’t care less if there’s three guys with tons of equip and dressed up as monkeys in the booth pushing the boundaries of technology. I don’t f’in care, give me some good music I can dance to! Oftentimes I (and from the crowd reaction there’s many more like me) actually have a better time when the resident takes over again and plays to the crowd from his CDJs, focussing solely on beatmatching and programming (!!!!!!!). Most people at the club don’t give a #!*& what technology the guy in the booth uses. I’d rather have someone with his Mixtrack Pro and Virtual DJ than all this self-centered Ableton-I’m doing live remixes-BS.

There’s some exceptions, Boys Noize wrecked that place last night. But yeah, I feel like it’s becoming an exception more and more.

D-Jam, post: 32167, member: 3 wrote: I personally think an amateur should first try playing house parties, small events, bars, or online shows. That’s where you cut your teeth. You go, play for small crowds, make your mistakes, and learn.

I think more amateurs need to bring that youthful naivety to the rave scene. Hook up with experienced promoters, listen to them, plan and push the events with them, and then learn how to deal with crowds by playing early sets.

The biggest problem IMHO is too many are DJing like Paris Hilton. They look at DJing from the viewpoint of an audience member in the crowd and only see the “superstar moment” when people shout their name, cheer, and the DJ does a Jesus pose. The amateurs need to also look at the openers who don’t do that, or the wedding/event DJs who play and do things differently.

I won’t ridicule an ambitious amateur, but I will ridicule those who take bad shortcuts and cheat themselves and the crowd. Pauly D is an example of this IMHO.

Again, D-Jam is spot on here. Less fixation with becoming the big DJ and more integration with the scene they wish to be apart of. In terms of underground, dance music, I really don’t want to sound like some old DJ here, but if we can all include a little bit of collective rave scene ethos in to our approaches, we’ll all benefit IMHO.

Any way shameless self promotion time…. apologies upfront to Phil/Terry… 🙂

This Is Our House with Lofty, every Friday 6-8PM (UK) on http://www.nu-raveradio.com, Soulful & Deep House with a generous sprinkling of Old School, Rave Breaks, JTek and D&B for good measure. Listen via net or your favourite smartphone radio app, we’re on ’em all. Listen again to tonight’s show coming up.

rfb, post: 32144, member: 2662 wrote: I was about to start a similar thread.

I only recently came back more into the Techno scene (which is pretty strong where I live) along with me wanting to fill some spare time with DJing (I’m definitely not trying to make money or a career out of this). But once you are a “DJ” you go to events and concerts and see everything through completely different eyes.

My problem is not so much with beginner DJs who play out too early (prolly because I don’t go to these places), but more with many DJ/Producers who seem to get booked at pretty much every club now (I’m talking Deep House/Tech House/Minimal/Techno). The resident DJ is left to open and close for them.

Which in itself is fine, but most producers I see performing live don’t play to the crowd at all. It’s f’in 0230 AM and people are really getting into it, lots of energy on the dancefloor – yet they (more often than not these days it’s at least two people I have the impression) are hunched over their Ableton laptops, fumbling their launchpads and APCs, triggering stuff on their Maschine… only to throw in 64bar breakdowns every 2 minutes and completely kill off the dancefloor. Zero crowd interaction.

I witnessed the same thing last night with opening acts for Boys Noize. These guys (6 or so) act like complete tools, wearing masks, I don’t know WHAT they did there exactly (half of them would dance around and twist an effects knob every couple minutes). Who books some douchebags playing TRAP and throw shitty German raps over it occasionally for a Boys Noize show anyway?? Then the next opening act (Spank Rock). They were pretty decent, but it was so sad too when the female DJ who actually startet to play a decent and weird electro house kinda set, that FINALLY got people going a little bit, put it on autopilot to get half naked and dance like a stripper who overdid the cocaine a lil bit.

I think it’s sad that now where everyone is/has to be a producer, gimmicks and “performance” seem to become more important than the music. I’m sure I’m not the only one of all the people paying cover who couldn’t care less if there’s three guys with tons of equip and dressed up as monkeys in the booth pushing the boundaries of technology. I don’t f’in care, give me some good music I can dance to! Oftentimes I (and from the crowd reaction there’s many more like me) actually have a better time when the resident takes over again and plays to the crowd from his CDJs, focussing solely on beatmatching and programming (!!!!!!!). Most people at the club don’t give a #!*& what technology the guy in the booth uses. I’d rather have someone with his Mixtrack Pro and Virtual DJ than all this self-centered Ableton-I’m doing live remixes-BS.

There’s some exceptions, Boys Noize wrecked that place last night. But yeah, I feel like it’s becoming an exception more and more.

I would gladly like to be that person with my Mixtrack Pro and Serato Intro doing everything I can to keep people dancing! 🙁

D-Jam, post: 32354, member: 3 wrote: I think many amateurs could do much by making guest mix sets for these shows, like backtothefront’s.

You get critiques from experienced guys, exposure, and experience.

Indeed, if anyone fancies submitting a 30 min mix along with a short bio then I’m open to playing it as a guest mix on my show. I would prefer Soulful/Deep House, Old School House, D&B, Jungle etc, only so it’s in keeping with the show, however feel free to PM me with Soundcloud, Mixcloud et al.

Cheers

BTTF (aka Lofty) 🙂