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The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

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Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#31

Post by calmoo »

dylan604 wrote: post #28
jrowen wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a sad commentary on today's DJs then. Not really, you just have a lot more information and tools at your disposal. It's going to be a better performance. In no other area of endeavor is anyone expected to limit themselves to decades-old technology, that would just be madness. but that does not diminish the vinyl as a controller being superior to a tiny plastic spin wheel on a digital controller. How is it supe…

If you've never used vinyl enough to "get it", then how can you say that it's inferior. The tactile experience of controlling the sound with the vinyl is so different than some digital plastic feeling controller. Yes, the higher end CDJs have a better feel to them decades later, but it is still not the same. At this point we might as well be arguing about tab vs spaces. Using vinyl is my thing, and it is just not goi…

you're arguing about something different to the person you're replying to.

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#32

Post by jrowen »

hnlmorg wrote: post #29
jrowen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a tool to beat match has always been considered "cheating", but it is obvious why it is a tool. I guess in the same way that using a higher-level language than Assembly is "cheating." I'm not sure if you're referring specifically to the Sync feature (which is still largely frowned upon) or more generally analyzed beatgrids, BPM readouts and Master Tempo (which keeps the pitch in tune when you change the tempo),…

> sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment). I was with you right up until this point. People care about the music, not about how tight the beats line up. I’ve heard some amazing DJs who were actually shit at beat matching but had unparalleled track selection. I’ve also heard some technically amazing DJ…

I'll give you that I was being overly harsh or generalizing too broadly, perhaps with the hope that someone would challenge that.

The points you make about DJs are valid but irrelevant to the hardware. If "all else is equal," the newer tech just has the benefit of decades of engineering and feedback loops and is purpose-built for that exact application.

It's not going to be beat by 1970s tech, your once-in-a-blue-moon anecdote is outweighed by countless frustrations with turntables[1], and you won't find anyone in the industry that thinks it's going to work easier/better to set up turntables than CDJs. Supporting vinyl is a huge hassle and it's generally only done for special events or artists (or vinyl-specific bars that have gone to great lengths and leave their setup intact).

[1] Not to mention that yes, having a replacement on hand (or already hooked up) is the pro move to solve that problem quickly. As badass as it is, I don't think it's all that desirable for a DJ to be opening up hardware mid-gig.

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#33

Post by hnlmorg »

jrowen wrote: post #32
hnlmorg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment). I was with you right up until this point. People care about the music, not about how tight the beats line up. I’ve heard some amazing DJs who were actually shit at beat matching but had unparalleled track selection. I’ve also heard some technically amazing DJ…

I'll give you that I was being overly harsh or generalizing too broadly, perhaps with the hope that someone would challenge that. The points you make about DJs are valid but irrelevant to the hardware. If "all else is equal," the newer tech just has the benefit of decades of engineering and feedback loops and is purpose-built for that exact application. It's not going to be beat by 1970s tech, your once-in-a-blue-moo…

It’s only a huge hassle now because most DJs don’t spin vinyl so a special effort has to be made for them.

Modern turntables aren’t 1970s tech any more than CDJs are 1980s tech because it has a CPU in it. For starters DJ turntables are direct drive whereas the stuff from the 70s (and, to be fair, most home record players too) are belt drive.

The reason vinyl turntables fail less is because there’s less stuff in them to fail.

That’s doesn’t mean that vinyl turntables are better. Like with a lot of modern conveniences, we gladly enjoy the benefits of the extra tech knowing that it makes those devices harder to repair. But when you say that CDJs are more reliable, I have to call that out as incorrect. It’s just reliability here isn’t the primary concern because CDJ reliability is still very good.

It’s also worth noting that DJs don’t really use CDJs any more either. These days turntables take USB pen drives rather than CDs. I forget the model name for the Pioneers off hand though.

> As badass as it is, I don't think it's all that desirable for a DJ to be opening up hardware mid-gig.

This was a squat party, so very different circumstance to your typical club. But you’d be surprised at just how crappy a lot of club gear can be. I’ve played at places that didn’t even have a working DJ mixer. And this was an iconic London venue too

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#34

Post by lbotos »

calmoo wrote: post #31
dylan604 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've never used vinyl enough to "get it", then how can you say that it's inferior. The tactile experience of controlling the sound with the vinyl is so different than some digital plastic feeling controller. Yes, the higher end CDJs have a better feel to them decades later, but it is still not the same. At this point we might as well be arguing about tab vs spaces. Using vinyl is my thing, and it is just not goi…

you're arguing about something different to the person you're replying to.

He's.... not tho?

> but that does not diminish the vinyl as a controller being superior to a tiny plastic spin wheel on a digital controller.

It's absolutely objective, but the feel of vinyl on a slipmat is absolutely so much nicer than a jog wheel.

But many ppl barely even use jog wheels these days. Just nudging to get in time.

When you spend countless hours getting the right light touch on a vinyl that Tactile feel is absolutely lacking when it comes to more digital interfaces.

I'm not arguing vinyl records sound better. GP and me are arguing that it feels better.

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#35

Post by nisa »

eminence32 wrote: post #4

A few months on Hacker News there was a post about Mixxx[1], an open-source DJ software. It prompted me to download it and play around. It's very cool. Despite being a complete novice, I learned a few things after a dozen hours of playing around: * I don't have a physical controller, but I can understand why people always use them. Keyboard and mouse are not fully sufficient. * The built-in key and beat detection is…

> I don't have a physical controller

There are a lot of really cheap USB based controllers on the second hand market - I've got an old Vestax USB 1.1 based controller that was state of the art in 2007 and was used by some famous DJs back in the day for 50€ and it's working perfectly fine - it's only midi - you can dump the hex values using midi tools in Linux when you turn the nobs.

Surprisingly for me latency and interactivity are no problem. Eq'ing, pitch, jogwheel feels like analog. However I'm not a professional but I didn't recognize any noticable delay.

You can even scratch using the jog. I'm sure there is a reason for the price difference to modern hardware but from a haptics and sound perspective it's perfectly fine. Mixxx is doing all the hard work.

Mixxx has a really long list of supported devices: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility

You probably need another soundcard for headphones, there also exist lots of cheap old USB soundcards for that - there are also controllers with an audio interface like Vestax VCI-300.

Then it's up to you to practice. I'm also struggling to get better but it's really all you need to DJ. I'm also yt-dlp'ing my collection which feels strange but is budget friendly :)

I've used to DJ as a hobbyist using vinyl ages ago and I'm not missing anything. You can ignore the sync button, hide the bpm on the screen and mix only using your ears like you'd do with vinyl only. Matching the beat using pitch fader and gently pushing the jogwheel is very similar to like you'd do it with the platter on a turntable. Of course it's not the same but for me it's close enough.

Maybe don't tell your vinyl snob friends or other fundamentalists but it's lots of fun for little money.

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#36

Post by dylan604 »

jrowen wrote: post #32
hnlmorg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment). I was with you right up until this point. People care about the music, not about how tight the beats line up. I’ve heard some amazing DJs who were actually shit at beat matching but had unparalleled track selection. I’ve also heard some technically amazing DJ…

I'll give you that I was being overly harsh or generalizing too broadly, perhaps with the hope that someone would challenge that. The points you make about DJs are valid but irrelevant to the hardware. If "all else is equal," the newer tech just has the benefit of decades of engineering and feedback loops and is purpose-built for that exact application. It's not going to be beat by 1970s tech, your once-in-a-blue-moo…

Because all new tech is better for the sake of being new? Your sleight of 1970s tech is weird as it’s really more of that tech was just so good it doesn’t have room for improvement. The classic build a better mouse trap conundrum.

For example, the butterfly keyboard was not a better improvement.

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#37

Post by jrowen »

hnlmorg wrote: post #33
jrowen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you that I was being overly harsh or generalizing too broadly, perhaps with the hope that someone would challenge that. The points you make about DJs are valid but irrelevant to the hardware. If "all else is equal," the newer tech just has the benefit of decades of engineering and feedback loops and is purpose-built for that exact application. It's not going to be beat by 1970s tech, your once-in-a-blue-moo…

It’s only a huge hassle now because most DJs don’t spin vinyl so a special effort has to be made for them. Modern turntables aren’t 1970s tech any more than CDJs are 1980s tech because it has a CPU in it. For starters DJ turntables are direct drive whereas the stuff from the 70s (and, to be fair, most home record players too) are belt drive. The reason vinyl turntables fail less is because there’s less stuff in them…

It’s only a huge hassle now because most DJs don’t spin vinyl so a special effort has to be made for them.

If you're standing in front of an empty table before a show at an actual venue with money and stakes on the line, and the hypothetical is posed, "which is more likely to produce a smooth listening experience for our guests tonight?" the answer is always CDJs. The vibrations, the stabilization required, the needle quality, people bumping the table, the wear and tear of records that have been played and lugged around...vs a digital stream that has none of those issues. The only real issue is complete malfunction of the player and you can gig for years without experiencing that. Other than that, you throw it on the table, plug it in, and It Just Works. Your sound guy isn't going to be on edge the entire night just praying that some weird turntable shit doesn't go down and make god awful noises on very loud speakers.

The current top of the line is the CDJ-3000. The is the absolute standard that you will find in bars and clubs (or one of the CDJ-2000 models if they haven't upgraded yet) and on virtually every pro DJ's rider. It doesn't play CDs anymore but it's still called that. They have a line called XDJ that is cheaper (XDJ also refers to a line of all-in-one units that are increasingly popular these days but the gold standard is still the individual CDJ player).

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#38

Post by w_TF »

jonwinstanley wrote: post #24
dylan604 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Call it whatever you want but you're going to be incredibly hard-pressed to find anyone that can mix as smoothly on vinyl as someone decent with CDJs. Sure it's a cool dying art and analog and all that but at this point virtually anyone trying to play vinyl out is sacrificing the listening experience for cool points That's a sad commentary on today's DJs then. Yes, there were some very bad vinyl DJs that loved the…

I agree that the beat sync tools feel like cheating for the old school DJs, but the newer generation are using it to get more creative. Without spending half the time beat matching, they now have time to interact with the tracks more - play with stems, loops, filters, fx, scratching etc. It’s becoming more of a live performance

>but the newer generation are using it to get more creative. Without spending half the time beat matching, they now have time to interact with the tracks more - play with stems, loops, filters, fx, scratching etc.

>It’s becoming more of a live performance

while this is true in theory, i find that sometimes the new tools end up becoming a crutch making djs extremely boring

the extra time freed up from not having to concentrate on beatmatching etc. is replaced with nothing

a lot of the time i have no idea what people are even doing they may as well just be playing a playlist from spotify

whereas i can generally discern what a vinyl dj is doing, and watching someone like jeff mills dig through piles of records & spinning 3 decks while being on the edge of trainwrecking has a kind of energy and tension that gets lost and is not replicable with newer technology

it's sorta like someone being able to sing really well naturally vs someone with autotune

that being said i've still seen amazing sets from digital djs or people with interesting live setups

Re: The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

#40

Post by shit_game »

dylan604 wrote: post #19
eminence32 wrote: post #4

A few months on Hacker News there was a post about Mixxx[1], an open-source DJ software. It prompted me to download it and play around. It's very cool. Despite being a complete novice, I learned a few things after a dozen hours of playing around: * I don't have a physical controller, but I can understand why people always use them. Keyboard and mouse are not fully sufficient. * The built-in key and beat detection is…

Song selection comes from hours of listening to music in the style you will be playing. Eventually, you will hear a riff from one song and it will make you think of another song. Those will be interesting to mix together. You might hear one song with a bass line that you really like with a melody line that is on the lighter side. You might then come across a song with a strong melody, but a bass line that could be pu…

> The physical controller is precisely why I love vinyl.

It's interesting how djings origins in vinyl led to the controler interfaces we have today. I don't have any aptitude for djing myself, but also having played with mixxx before also, it makes so much intuitive sense why the controller format of turntables and sliders works so well.

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