Ableton Forum

Pandamonium wrote: DJS ARE NOT MUSICIANS

There... I said it

ignorent statement

many "dj's" make tracks

BUT even if they don't

performance art is art on display...so supper extreme beat mixing skills is public performance..thus art with sound...therfore musician.

Is a highly skilled juggler a performance artist?

yup!

if you want to play with live play with live
if you want to mix and scratch and play records do that
if you want to integrate the two do that

if you want to be an imitator and try and impresses chicks go play with yourself in the corner

many many so called "dj's" who play records can't mix for shit anyway (ok ok maybe i'v spent to much time on the west coast and here north of nowhere) but i'v seen more dj's on tables stroking themselves then i have seen pushing limits..

ohhhh...but all original sets with live
thats the bizness

anonymouse wrote:personally, the only use I see for Live is for people who want to use it as a musician. That means tiny clips, original composition, lots of live VST, strong relationships with your audience, effects and improvisation.

autowarp of techno & "DJ'ing" is for deeply retarded muppets.

I agree. I used Live solely to Dj with for a while and it doesnt fit as a DJ tool for many reasons one of the biggest being audience interaction or lack thereof. I also felt like an idiot standing behind a computer delicately pressing buttons so I swicthed back to vinyl and use Live as a third deck. I get the same interest, but without the snidey comments and Looks from my peers. I believe there are better solutions to DJ with (Traktor) or Traktor as a front end for Final Scratch. Its all very well having the ability to edit tracks but in general if I buy I track I usually like it for what it is and that includes the arrangement.

using live to perform an actualy Live performance is where its at. Not as a Dj tool (solely)

i wrote up a bit about all of this on my site recently, if anyone is curious you can read it here:

http://www.asmodaios.com/JoshVon/tech/josh-von-tech.htm

i think the whole issue becomes a moot point when people hear what you're doing, and its something different somehow than what they've heard before.

and .. its "good" .. ie not overly complex noise, or screwing with tracks and arrangements and ruining them (as opposed to hopefully improving your mixing with them) ..

also, when they see you moving and doing mysterious things to do it all, this helps immeasurably.

then suddenly none of this debate matters, i think a lot of people are overthinking it. if what you have to present is rad and you know it after a while the followers follow - who cares what theyre doing right now:

its old, its been done. what we are doing is not.

you have to have some imagination i think in order to do something different and make it work and make people believe in you.

for all the crap he takes on this forum from the small minded and the celeberity haters, sasha is actually doing a great job of it imo and i have no doubt hes only going to get better at it as time goes on.
.

Ok I wasnt going to say anything about the Richie Hawton video but I'm tired and cranky so I guess nows the time. I think watching a Dj blend by using a mouse and hunching over staring into the little screen of his laptop is lamn. Djs need to come up with ways of using Live more creatively "externally". bring some midi controllers, fx units, synths etc. then you will really do some damage and people will not think you are doing nothing.

And I think alot of you are right(as I've thought from the very begining), beatmatching is stupid and if there is a way to get rid of it, WHY NOT? there is absolutly no creative thought behind holding a tempo. all left brain crap and who needs that anyways? lol

Needs2Know wrote:Ok I wasnt going to say anything about the Richie Hawton video but I'm tired and cranky so I guess nows the time. I think watching a Dj blend by using a mouse and hunching over staring into the little screen of his laptop is lamn. Djs need to come up with ways of using Live more creatively "externally". bring some midi controllers, fx units, synths etc. then you will really do some damage and people will not think you are doing nothing.

And I think alot of you are right(as I've thought from the very begining), beatmatching is stupid and if there is a way to get rid of it, WHY NOT? there is absolutly no creative thought behind holding a tempo. all left brain crap and who needs that anyways? lol

i think watching a DJ is lame anyway. It's about the music that's played and the girls/guys on the dancefloor isn't it? At least, thats what it used to be about....

Olaf

olafmol wrote: i think watching a DJ is lame anyway. It's about the music that's played and the girls/guys on the dancefloor isn't it? At least, thats what it used to be about...

I was about to make the same comment. What's so exciting about watching a person cue up for most of the time the previous tune is playing (thereby not paying attention to the floor and the vibe of the tunes)? Even when you get to the point of being in the mix most vinyl djs do very little (I know, sweeping genralisation alert! )

Instead of "going to see" a dj some of you should try relaxing a bit and "go and dance to" the person playing music. Honestly, you'll have much more fun.

The point that Live is not a Dj tool is kind of valid if all you are going to do is play a set of modern electronic dance music (and just blend the ends together). One of the exciting things about Live is the way one can play re-arranged version of old disco/funk/what-have-you tunes in a modern way that would prove impossible using tables.

All my comments refer to house/techno/electro/disco mixing btw. The comment about turntablists is taken but we are not talking about the same thing here.

supster wrote: i think the whole issue becomes a moot point when people hear what you're doing, and its something different somehow than what they've heard before.

I eneded up 'DJing' at a party over the weekend - mainly due to the lack of an alternative !
so I dutifully set up my laptop just with the intention of simply slinging a few tunes end to end and give me achance to chat. But, during the night I started running in a few of those beasties samples to do a call and response with missy elliot, over the top of the chemical brothers, with a bit of a Scientist bassline underneath

Aaanyway - one of the girls comes up and says "I thought you were DJing .. but what are you doing .. are you remixing, you're re-mixing aren't you! "
Ihave no real idea what this means, mainly it was funny because she had this really puzzled face on - it must have been bugging her for ages.
The overall response was a lot different to the general crossfading - 'DJ' sections which I did when I wanted to have a break.

edit

mike holiday wrote:

Pandamonium wrote: DJS ARE NOT MUSICIANS

There... I said it

ignorent statement

many "dj's" make tracks

BUT even if they don't

performance art is art on display...so supper extreme beat mixing skills is public performance..thus art with sound...therfore musician.

Is a highly skilled juggler a performance artist?

yup!
s

Ignorant? hmm hardly

Maybe a highly skilled juggler/DJ is a performance artist.. but he's still not a musician

Regurgitating other peoples art doesnt necesarilly make you an artist, no matter how purty the puke is, because if that were the case, we are all artists, even joe blogs humming his favourite tune in the car on the way to work is a musican (even if he is really good at it, it's still a stretch to call him a musician!).

Musicians can survive quite happily without DJs, but without musicians, DJS would have nothing to play. ANY musician can whack a few CDs in the player and get a crowd moving, let's see a dj get up and play a piano concerto

As I said in my orignal post, DJs have their uses and many of them are very talented, but it's a bit of a stretch to call them musicians and most of the ones I have met that do call themselves musicians are maybe building themselves up somewhat unrealistically.

Of course like everything in life, there are exceptions and I know there are guys that are great musicians that also DJ, and some amazing hybrid DJs/laptop musicians playing loops and midi inst live through Ableton, but in the above rant, I am refering to the guys you see in clubs with no musical knowledge playing CDs, and acting REALLY precious about it. While I find this attitude hilarious in a sad kind of way, it still kinda shits me because these dickwads are getting money that used to go to highly trained musicians playing real live music on musical instruments.

In my opinion, many DJs are talented enough to move on to becoming musicians rather than simply regurgitating someone else's talent. I wish I had that talent. I'm working on it!

No matter how many mash-up/beat-repeat/EQ kill/filter-sweep/dance crowd psychology/punch-the-air/full-body-motion-knob-twist skills DJs claim to have, they wouldn't be there without the talent of the musician.

It's probably a good thing that they ARE left behind to promote musicians! Although if I were a musician, I don't think I'd like my material massacred by cheezy Live effects and mash-ups...

why does this sound like its djs versus musicians? surely the fact that you're all using the same software should bring the two together? although there are obvious extremes, the line between the two is now fully blurred.

we really need new words to describe what is now possible, trying to shoehorn everything thats going on now into these two terms seems a bit backwards (imho) especially because instruments and records are not what this forum is about.

this argument is so last century!

_____________________________
www.musicfromspeakers.com

Guy 1 - "Dude, you going to the movies tonight?"

Guy 2 - "I don't know, who's the projectionist?"

Tarekith wrote:Guy 1 - "Dude, you going to the movies tonight?"

Guy 2 - "I don't know, who's the projectionist?"

LOL!

But they'll probably know who the actors/actresses are...

as much as I enjoy the projectionist joke, I know that in 5-10 years time it will be irrelevant.

I feel like current technological asvances have pretty much eliminated the boundary between performing electronic musician and DJ

when I started out I had a couple of SH101s , a korg Mono-poly and some old drum machines that I played and programmed right there on stage. Not because the gear was cool and retro, but because it was current!! That was all we had, programming that shit was painfully hard - we made cool stuff out of adversity sure, but also some real painful 17 beat accidental ugliness. Likewise - "DJ's" had to use vinyl because that's all they had, scratching and looping wasn't about 'scratching' it was them attempting to give birth to a sound - not the act!

Right now I feel like electronic musicians and DJs have been building a technological tunnel and just now have they met in the middle with a confused look on their faces.



In 10 years time there will just be a big 'multimedia performance' grey area with video and lights in there alongside making noises to people.

The whole idea of 'separation' is wrong and purely historical, you can occupy any part of the spectrum you want to, are able to - or is required by the situation.