Hi new member and my first post, first this site rules and thnks to everyone for the valuable info.
Ive just started to learn to dj (1 year in so far) and for me personally learning how to beatmatch is essential and fulfilling because for me i want to learn everything about DJ ing, the culture, the history, and the knowledge that it takes to be a great DJ. Listen if all you rely on is sync, lemme tell you as a guitarist for 15 years that something WILL go wrong at your gig one day, not IF but a matter of WHEN its gonna happen, and if you dont have the skills to get you out of those hairy situations your gonna sound amateur man plain and simple. Why not go out there with all the skills sharp as razors and most of all the confindence to tackle any situation that may arise, to me not learning the craft seems lazy as hell.
Lemme put it this way i understand where the older djs get pissed at the new ones that only use laptops and sync, they feel their entry into the craft is far too easy now, for as a guitarist it would be like some software that imitates everything ive spent half my life learning and kind of making easy for anybody to do, luckily for guitarist at least theres always gonna be a physical barrier, dexterity, building callouses on your hands, those two things alone seem to stop alot of wannabes from being guitarist not to mention the time, and patience it takes to sound decent, not good just decent.
I mean when i first started learning the guitar i wanted to go out there and wail like Van Halen, quickly realized that was not gonna happen unless i put the time in first, with todays software at least in the DJing world you can take massive leaps and sound great, and this is what pisses off older DJs, but just because you can doesnt mean you should, my take on all this is if you really love DJing then learn EVERYTHING about it. its only gonna help you in the end, and honestly theres not a better feeling knowing youve covered all your bases when some dude calls you a hack, then you get the awesome opportunity of calling them out and see what their skills really made of. Alot of times youll find the ones that bitch the most about such things tend to focus only on that one thing, meanwhile everywhere else is lacking. Just my two cents.
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