no records - no spinning?
spc
534 Posts
Last night I was talking to a younger dude, around 17 years old who just started out djing with Microwave. He likes to spin breaks and funky stuff, mainly for bboys to dance to. He uses a lot of music he downloads from the internet, from blogs and stuff like that. His main point was, that he had limited money to buy records and that records are hard to get. My point was, that this is the way it always has been and that it is more satisfying to hold the original record in your hand and spin it. He then said that's true, but for the people he is playing this doesn't matter and that it would be better to play downloaded music then no music. If he didn't do it in his town, nobody really would play that kind of music, and when they played it, it was just the same old classics terribly mixed.I was thinking about this all night and I think he has a point. On the other side, nothing beats holding the record in your hands, checking the label and the cover out and hearing the crackling.What do think, playing good music with pirated mp3s or playing whack shit on records?
Comments
It's all about the music, feel me?
versus
Floss some raer, mang
Personally, I feel for kids getting into og vinyl recently.
They have very little chance of building a solid mixed collection of righteous dollarbins spiced with raer froth for cheap.
They're going to have to get very creative to acquire that stuff, or develop unloved genres into hip n cool, or move to a mindset where mp3 cuts it and to hell with vinyl.
I was waiting for that sea-change to happen when CDs took off; vinyl is still holding out.
meh. records are still out there in mass abundance. breaks and classic hiphop is cheaper than it ever was. dollarbins around here still bare rare fruit regularly. plus, all the information in the world is a click of a button away. plus the Roosevelt show is long gone, so know one is going to try to charge you $20 for an Eagles break.
While I want to find affordable OG records, I don't have any gripes about buying re-issues, and in some instances if it's done well (Jazzman/Numero/WaxPo/Honest Johns/Soundway) it's preferrable to the second-hand score; chances are the sound quality may be better, and the artist could be seeing some money.
Now that collecting records has become 'fashionable', the competition is redonkulous, plus with the knowledge and power of the interwebs, nothing is unknown or obscure anymore. I've seen a certain record come up on ebay 3 times in the last 5 months, and everytime I've been outbid. Prior to this period, I hadn't seen a copy on ebay for 6 years or more.
In fact what I'd really like to see would be heads on SoulStrut getting into the re-ish game. SoulStrut Approved: Part 1 - The Funk Comp etc.
Contributors could write the liner notes or something.
Don't hate the Sayer.
You sound American.
Vinyl is dying as a dance music format anyway, right?
Since harddrives are gettin bigger and cheaper every year, I hope mp3s are gone in 10 years and everybody will be rocking 24bit/96khz mastertape rips then.
I don't think these are the only choices.
Personally, I do care if if it's vinyl or dildo or laptop when I walk into a place, but it doesn't decide what I think of the DJ; his/her selections will speak for themselves.
I can't help it, there is a bit of a disappointed sinking feeling to stretch your neck to see who's playing and see the top of someone's head from over a laptop. It might make sense for some genres that are recording/releasing digitally anyway - and I know it's my own mental block - but it does kinda bug me to see people playing old soul and reggae off a computer.
I understand that it's a different culture, but I don't get the appeal. I don't even really mind carrying all that shit around to be honest.
still half asleep... so okay, I'll say it: If you think it's not worthwhile going through the effort of dragging your vinyl to the clurb, it's not worthwhile for me to drag my ass there. To me there's something very ugly about djs working with laptops, it just looks lame. My personal opinion.
Sounds bad, too.
There's the point some people make that the sound systems at clubs already don't sound too great so it doesn't matter what you play from. Wrong: A bad soundsystem is much more likely to multiply the lameness of a flat and cheap sound source and it will never make a mp3 sound like a record.
If you're some superstar DJ who's got all his shit on hi-res wav files and spins loads of personal edits, remixes and own compositions, of course it makes sense to use Microwave. And of course, none of the people who fill their dancefloors would care if it's OG vinly or some digital format.
Same thing goes for the club DJ who's playing sets of various different styles and who wants to be able to have access to a vast variety of tracks from each genre, often not knowing which direction the will go when packing his gear as he will have to adapt to the crowd on how to play more let's say Hip Hop, Reggae, Disco or Funk... DJs who are playing a busy club on a Saturday night that attracts all kinds of people probably see it as a huge advantage to have thousands of titles from a couple of different genres on the harddrive.
Now on the other hand someone playing a Rare Soul or Funk party with a laptop in my eyes looks like a joke and sure as hell will also sound like crap. There's nothing that comes close to the sound of an OG Funk 45 and everybody who says differently don't know what they're talking about.
Why should anyone go to a club and hear the same mp3s one could download oneself and listen to at home?
As a bottom line, I think it's great that so many people are using Microwave. Makes their life easier and if you're playing OG vinyl, it makes it much easier for you to promote and present what you're doing as something entirely different.
And as far as all those djs go who used to spin comps and reissues, I think it's more honest and actually better for them to use microwave since comps and reissues already were mastered digitally so in this case there's really no difference.
I think on this question a lot because I think it opens up some interesting questions around DJ values and standards. We *used* to value vinyl because it was the only medium that allowed us to mix in a particular way. Then CD-Js came out and that changed the medium. Then Microwave and all these other digital DJ platforms rolled out and that further changed the medium, so much so that there is no physical "medium" anymore.
So the question becomes: does being a disc jockey really require having discs? And I think the answer to that wholly depends on the audience. If it's us? Yeah - it matters. If it's the people who hit up the club, looking to get their drink on and grind on? I don't think they give a F*ck.
Those aren't contradictory, they suggest different communities of people who may crossover in a club environment. One gives you props, the other money. Most DJs would probably like both but some don't (on both sides).
Yes and no. I still do vinyl only sets from time to time. There is one party i play at that focuses on hiphop and soul from 79-96 where it is demanded to play vinyl only. The place is packed and people actually do care that vinyl is played. Guy came to me and thanked me and said "its so good to see vinyl in the club again and not a boring laptop". I've heard this from other people as well, they dislike the fact that the dj is staring at a screen. This def. has a negative impact on the performance aspect. However, 99% still don't care. I developed my own ethics and I still wanna be able to rock an all vinyl set with old and new stuff. just because I care. Cosign on Frank's comment on microwave being a good tool for people who play freestyle sets and need a very broad range of music. But I disagree with mp3's sounding bad in the club. If the soundsystem is shitty in the first place (unfortunately that is the case too often) and even a limiter is working, then a good vinyl with a broad frequency range can put so much pressure on the system that it will sound shitty compared to a freakin 192k mp3 that will sound def. louder cause the limiter does not kick in cause bass is missing. A good thing? Hell no. But often the case from my experience.
to conclude: let everyone live and decide for yourself. [kon]records are forever[/kon]
No, I think the reality is that anyone who uses Microwave
is boring to watch. Period.
You look just like the dude
in the cubicle at work watching porn.
Why are you up in the club watching the DJ?
Haha! Sayin'! Dudes are talking about the performance aspect of being a DJ? You play records. Unless you're scratching with your nutsack and juggling flaming bowling pins, there is no performance aspect.
Sayin'. It depends on the night. General top 40/rapp club night with people partying down? Microwave is fine. When I was in Vegas last year, nearly every DJ I saw was using S.erato. Actually, if I had seen any of those club DJ's with bags and bags of vinyl I would have been like "Why doesn't he just use S.erato?"
But if you're doing a themed night like Frank where there's a specific type of music being played and stuff, then I think it does matter. The authenticity is part of the night's vibe. In a situation like that, there are going to be more heads there anyway, hence more people that will care about how shit's being played in addition to what.
If I went to hear Dante at soul night at Danny's and he was up there with S.erato, that would feel lame to me. It wouldn't matter that he owns the records and ripped them to wav. files. The fact that he actually brings those raers out is part of what makes the night special.
I would assume that the hardcore mod soul dudes would front if the DJ at one of their weekenders was using S.erato. In cases like these, the records matter.
Then maybe he should start by watching[/b] DJs instead of DJ-ing himself...
Believe it or not, there are places where there's basically no one to watch. If that 17-year old doesn't start playing good music (regardless of format), no one might be doing it in his town.
Also, to a lot of todays kids, the world of music moves pretty damn fast. Granted, this 17-year old is playing old stuff. But most of the blogging, twittering kids of today have barely seen vinyl or cds. Why should we impose our standards of authenticity on them? I'm mainly talking about kids playing new stuff (I don't think many of them are about to start a club like Franks - a club I myself definitely would like to visit someday).
For me though, it does feel pretty damn nice to bring out the original records. I can remember where I got the records, see the covers, get inspired. Maybe some of that inspiration is felt by the audience, and maybe it isn't.
It???s great when a DJ really gets into what they???re doing, dances, makes eye contact with the crowd and has that interaction. I???ve seen folks cue something, get a flash of whatever, change their mind and then scramble to get something else on in time, who hasn???t been there? That???s a great connection to make with the person who is working to entertain you for the evening, even from a distance.
I play with my back to the crowd because the performance aspect scares the shit out of me!
Also ??? reggae sounds and clashes are entertaining as hell to watch.
I think this says a lot about how Frank experiences being a DJ and a collector. For christsakes, he spent years tracking vinyl in the third world like it was a 12 point buck. Obviously vinyl means a great deal to him. It stands to reason that his DJing values would reflect this experience.
I also hear in his criticisms the mourning of a passing era. When you had to hunt for your collection, that made the DJ guild a much more intimate and personal experience. Knowledge was handing person to person. You had to leave your house to find more records. There was a community based on this shared experience. Now that community exists (for better or worse) at places online like Soul Strut and not nearly as much in the clubs and (remaining) record stores.
I personally have chosen to embrace the new. I enjoy listening to MP3s and love all the new sounds that I am getting because of it. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or the interest to spend my cash looking for OG stuff. I am thankful that I can still keep learning about amazing new records everyday at places like Soul Strut
I think someone should make a "get off my lawn" grumpy DJ graemlin with Frank holding African raers.
do you not know that vinyl is making a comeback?
Back to the point....you can think of it as cheating, but you can also think of it as technology making life easier. Isn't that what technology is supposed to do? Taking the mundane (ie. sorting/marking records) and making it less tedious?
Problem is this is a mighty powerful tool, which is apt to be abused in the wrong hands.
Again, unless you're playing a specialist party for a collector scene (ie. deep funk) then s.erato is very necessary, especially if you're a traveling dj. Why would anyone want to go through the hassles of carrying insanely heavy flight cases, and pay out the ass for overweight luggage? I would like to see someone argue that point.
I actually prefer cdj-dj's for certain scenes too. Karizma on the cdj will knock pretty much every dj here out the box.
it does take some time and experience to develop preferences for high quality, and be able to articulate that to over eager youngins, but it shouldn't take 60 years.
A whole new generation of kids grow up listening to music w/o paying a cent for it. That's just a fact we have to accept, it'll never go back to the way things were.
Seriously
b/w
Can we agree that we're talking about two (maybe more) distinct forms of deejaying here? Despite the technical advantages of Microwave, I (and a lot of other folks I know who DJ funk and soul) come from a place where we're not marking BPM and such. Though I try to work with consciously increasing or decreasing tempo, I do so instinctually via knowledge of what I bring with me, but the most important angle is that of the selector, i.e. the quality of records, and knowing enough, and having done enough research over the years to maybe whip something unexpected on a crowd that's going to blow them away.
The pure style of deejaying is going to increase with technical ease, but it's going to lose its soul.
Yours truly
Grandpa...