FroBot's DJ Lessons of 2010 - Less is More

[Earwax69]

Thanks! really? catching your own fish and fruits? wow! I guess if you have to establish somewhere, hawaii is better than any other place on earth! And with tons of japaneses wedding there, you will have lots of clients! Quite a good idea!

I have a HV20 myself... dont use it much but I was exited with the 24p at the time (I've gave up any filmaking ideas since!). You should get a Canon XSI 4 with a shallow DOF lens, that would be good for intimate wedding shots.

2 of the biggest shooting I did in the demo we had a photo director on set. The rest I did by myself. Its mostly CG anyway. This is not teamwork demo, I do everything alone.

Are you married? no wife would refuse to go live Hawaii!! Me its a bit harder to move since I got kids...

and Im too lazy to learn my japanese... pfffff hopeless!

I hope you'll enjoy the beach but dont let yourself go too soft!

-ho, just saw your new post, I'll send you a mail-

[transology]

I really enjoyed your post. But still I'm confuse on one point. Less is more in your loudness my friend..

I don't get why you want your master output so freaking loud without dynamic all the time ?? It looks like you're playing on a 30 watts systems !? You probably have more 5000 watts I decent clubs. I don't thing club need more volume and more loudness. The biggest reason why MOST of the people don't like CLUB it's because the music is so freaking loud an aggressive without dynamics.

I've seen tons of LIVE SET un-mastered. It's not sounding as a shiny mastered track but if the emotion is there the crowd will enjoy it fully mastered or NOT ... Do you think in the 70's when the disco was on that crowds has less fun than nowadays over loud mixes ?

I've seen the last show of The crystal method. Not my opinion here : The crowd was not exited all. Because of the no dynamics at all. Except 2 songs from there legendary Vegas but not more.

I'll agree that when on drugs and alcohol, louder may sound better. But I a long term, it's very very bad reflex to adopt. Talk about it to tone deft.

BTW, what's the point to master stuff anyway ? It's not to make sure a track sound good everywhere ? In a live situation, this is way less critical.

Less is more in the emotion ?
Less is more in the humanity ?
Less is more in the liveness of a performance ?

I DON'T AGREE

[tripandball]

I am for dynamics over loundess! To be honest, its sad the way it has gone to the point of distortion...im just making an observation of how one track vs another track gets a response in a club, without correction tracks with an RMS meter, and especially when other CDJ djs are playing. Not saying its the RIGHT thing to do, but watching the clubbers response when a louder track is played. Loudness is the most tangible element of sound...even a little kid can tell if something is LOUDER or SOFTER...so obviously that will have an effect on the lay-man club goer...that was my point. From a production stand point...its terrible!!!

[Earwax69]

@Frobot; I cannot send you any email at [email protected]. I dont know why, the emails always come back with a failure. I've forwarded it to [email protected].

[tripandball]

left an i out in the word hawaii! Sorry bro!

[pulsoc]

I don't get the complaints about dynamics. You don't go to a club to enjoy subtleties.

[pepezabala]

hey frobot.

I agree and I disagree.

You are probably totally right with what you say in your article. As always nicely written and lots of insights.

But still I don't agree that a live-PA-set won't sound as good as mixing some readymade tracks. At the beginning of your article you write that thee simple tracks sound better - well why shouldn't a simple Live-PA not sound as good as that? I have heard people coming with a drummachine into the DJ-booth and it was definetly as pumping as the records, probably even more. When there is a live percussion player in the club, it might not sound as great as percussions recorded and mixed in a top notch recording studio. But the vibes will make up for that easily.

If the only criteria is to have a steady pumping beat with perfectly produced changes and melodies on top, without someone risking something, well than it's probably stupid housemusic for stupid people. I don't doubt that there is a market for that (I live in Barcelona, there is actually more than enough for that).

But I hope that technology enables you DJs to get over this. Other than that you can get easily replaced by a mix-CD and a couple of strippers.

[tripandball]

Again, the topic was LESSONS FOR DJing. So, when in a DJ setting, im just saying what happens when these djs are back to back with live improv acts. If you were to carefully think out your live-pa set, and really control your frequencies, you could probably get a bangin set. I love playing live sets to be honest...its tons of fun, way more than DJing...again, just basing my writing off of what I have seen from the booth and in the clubs from tons of shows. There are a lot of people, famous too...who are known for doing live sets and people love them...but, there is also a lot of extra processing and thought that goes into that. Anyway, if you like doing it bro...ROCK IT OUT! Just my opinion in a DJ setting, you can hear the difference...at least in Japan and on our systems.

[beats me]

Sort of a side discussion here, but I'm personally getting a little spent on the less is more song structure of House music. It may be sonically pleasing and/or banging but it's also a lot of songs that are easily interchangeable and nothing that makes me go "That's the jam!" more than any other track.

Case in point, when I went to the Voodoo Festival last month Boys Noize put on a perfect set of what I am talking about, a lot of banging formulaic Electro that sounded awesome sonically but was very boring in originality and variety. There wasn't any tracks that really stood out more than others.

By comparison the Crystal Method set, a set I wasn't particularly looking forward to in advance, was quite enjoyable. They had some House bangers but also threw in some tracks that were more melodic and even threw in some down tempo that the crowd was really grooving to as opposed to just bouncing up and down fist pumping. In other words there's still some appreciation of this type sound but IMO there's a lot of laziness in Dance Electronica right now that producers are just going to the easy same minimal over saturated bass line that never changes other than breakdowns. But I guess luckily for DJs these tracks are a lot easier to mix.

/opinion

[tripandball]

I think you are wandering a little into TASTE here rather than theory. Sure, I get where you are coming from...boring tracks are just that...boring. But, when I mean less is more, maybe there is a line on the opposite end also. I myself dont like a boring track...i dont think anyone likes a "boring" track...but boring is very subjective. Just because a track isnt busy doesnt mean that it doesnt have some really sweet, timbres and well placed swing grooves. Please dont mix HOUSE and MINIMAL. House is really really groovy. For me, I actually do a lot of tech house, and its super groovy in my opinion. But again, less is more to a point. If I was gonna say "less is more" in terms of going on a diet...it would make sense, but if I said "less is more" in terms of starving, it wouldnt make any sense. Know what I mean?

[beats me]

Sure what I said has to do with taste and I wasn't really arguing your point about DJing this type of music.

When we were at the festival it was mostly about rib crushing bass lines that pretty much drowned out other elements of the music. One night when the festival was over we went to a club that was spinning Techno downstairs and Minimal House upstairs and I swear to you that pretty much the entire time we were there, there was no bass lines to groove to on either floor, polar opposite of the festival. But what all locations had in common was monotony in the tracks. Maybe if I was younger or just somebody that goes out to dance I wouldn't notice it as much, but as with anybody who works on music we tend to get preoccupied with analyzing music even when we're supposedly just out for a good time.

And maybe it's also an age thing for me, but I remember when just a single track could take you on a journey instead of the journey happening over the course of a 45 minute DJ set.

[tripandball]

I totally agree with that man! Especially what you said at the end about a whole album taking you on a journey. Not to seem like I love these famous artists, but I remember when I first discovered electronic music...and heard Paul Oakenfolds "transport"...that whole album from start to finish was a journey. You couldnt just listen to a track in the middle without listening to the whole album. Even an old 1200 micrograms album use to be amazing, and Robert Miles. I dont listen to that kind of music much anymore, but those albums still throw me back. I was like 16 or 17...and at the time...those albums could take me deeper into a trance than anything now.