Comments on: You Can Be a Pro DJ

By: Ean Golden

Ean Golden — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:55:49 +0000

preach it brother, preach it!!

By: jdt

jdt — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:27:48 +0000

Heck, any club that won’t let you plug in your own gear probly isn’t worth playing at anyway… unless they are gonna give you rehearsal time on their equipment.

Like… ” Sure we’d like to have B.B. King do a set here, but we don’t want him playing that old damn guitar of his!”.

Peace,
jdt

By: Vic

Vic — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:21:10 +0000

Hi Ean,

I’m just getting started with Djing and I’m planning on buying a VCI-300, primarily because I think that ‘laptop djing’ is the future. I would love to get myself 2 cd players and a mixer but damn they’re expensive. How can I convince a club/bar/lounge place to let them use my own stuff, since they usually already have dj gear set up.

I mean:

- Hi want me to play tonight?
- Sure, drop in later today
- Can I bring my controller and laptop?
- Ehm, we already have a dj setup?
- Oh. Well, then I cant play.

…Thats kinda lame…

Help me out!

Regards
Vic

By: Mr flexxx

Mr flexxx — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:12:06 +0000

hey ean,
i been deejayin for a while now and cant believe my luck that i get paid for it. i gotta say though for anybody startin out u need to be flexible with ur selection and remember ur there to entertain a crowd.
i used to be an rnb deejay, but since i went digital(i use a vci) my musical tastes have widened and i’m more imaginative.
i’m definetly gonna get the book cant beleive i never thought of writing it 1st!!!

By: Ean Golden

Ean Golden — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 23:42:04 +0000

Fatlimey summed it up really well! You can also ask yourself the following question. Do I want to layer 3 or more sounds together 25% of the time or more? If the answer is yes then Live is your program.

By: Jonny Pez

Jonny Pez — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:24:57 +0000

Great response Fatlimey, I think your absolutely right about the differences between the two programs. When I bought Live I wasn’t even thinking about acting as a club DJ. I was thinking more on the lines of Prefuse 73 or RJD2, who oddly enough don’t use software.. but their sample based creations are inspiring. The biggest question in my mind is how to move from the studio to the stage without touching a mouse every five seconds.

Kid 606 put out a mix album “The Action Packed Mentalist…” which I thought was a great blend between mixing and performing. Though his hardcore/noise style is a bit heavy for most, you can really appreciate the amount of control he has over these songs by completely transforming them into his own style. Plus I think some of the tracks are just brilliant.

I’m thinking now that Live might be great for creating your own remixes and dj tools, and then perform in tracktor for continous yet flexible sets.

There is more to be discovered as far as I’m concerned.

By: Fatlimey

Fatlimey — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:41:01 +0000

Ableton Live DJing is *all* about the preparation. I’m not sure it’s even possible to take an arbitrary MP3 and drop it into Live while playing and have good results - the instant scanning and fallback vinyl techniques that Traktor has will get you out of almost any bad situation. I’m sure there are Live masters who can handle it, but I sure can’t.

Having said that, Traktor is about playing, matching, looping and adding FX, essentially playing out tracks in a linear fashion with embellishment. Ableton Live is about cutting up tracks, reordering sections, using mad VST plugins, adding effects, looping, layering, inserting new elements and *intermeshing* the tracks with other sound sources. It’s far more intense and expressive, but it takes a lot of offline setup to reach that point. When you have a well organised library of predigested tracks that you can drag’n'drop into a Live set, things get really interesting.

Both tools are good - I’m sure using the Loop Library in Traktor, some good cue points and better controller mappings you can do some of the cutup, re-ordering and layering that Live can do, but Traktor will have limits that Live doesn’t. But IMO, limitations are a good thing for creativity - it’s easier to be creative inside a fixed space than it is to start with a blank, endless sheet of paper and create with only a vision.

Ableton Live is what you need when Traktor starts putting limits on what you want to do.

By: Jonny Pez

Jonny Pez — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:01:59 +0000

I would love to read a detailed article on Moldover’s setup. I know my setup wouldn’t be the same (I’m not going to duplicate his custom controller for starters), but it would be extremely helpful to see a controllerist fully working setup and playing methods.

I can see pieces of the puzzle, but not the whole picture.

Thanks for the link Xsquizet, I’ll be checking it in my free time ;)