I’m probably late to this party, but I just saw this post by Donnacha Costello over at the Bodytonic site. It’s good to get a producer’s viewpoint, and interesting to see him talk about switching back to vinyl. I can definitely see a wave of people doing just that in the near future, for various reasons. The more high-profile types who do it (especially if they talk about it publically), the better! My comments were too big for their comment section over there, so I’m putting them here. I’m pretty sure I’ve been over these thoughts of mine here on ISM before, but if so it has been a while. So here they are again!
I’ve been rattling on about this exact idea of “letting the music breathe” for years now. This is one of the primary reasons I use only vinyl when deejaying. I may not be the biggest purist (though make no mistake, I am a vinyl purist) as i believe using CDs to play re-edits is generally a decent strategy, but I think that is a good tool mainly because the re-edit is thought out in advance.
I love jazz music and the concept of improvisation, and I think that kind of approach can work well in electronic music. Looking at Shawn Rudiman’s live set that is pretty much 95% improvised (with only some preprogrammed sequences that are still live arranged and effected being the exception), you can see how a musician can use electronic instruments and their accompanying sound pallettes to improvise and get good results. For whatever reason, while this works with jamming on a drum box or a synth, jamming on loops from records doesn’t seem to yield the same kind of results. Perhaps the ease of messing with loops in Ableton is too much to resist, but it generally tends to lack the subtlety of Rudiman’s sets or a live jazz performance.
What it boils down to for me is that deejaying is really just about deejaying. You play one record, you mix in another. It is simplicity defined. I was never into crazy trick deejaying like the DMC cats or whatever, it suffers from the exact same problem that the Ableton guys have. Of course “just” mixing records is more complicated than most people give it credit for as well. The evidence is in the sheer number of terrible, talentless deejays who were banging out sets in the vinyl-only days. The point is that being a good deejay is a very specific skill set, and you get a ton of people who have no business being anywhere near a set of decks doing it and screwing it up in a variety of manners.
I’ve never thought about the “limitations” of deejaying as being bad. Never have the “advances” of things like Ableton or even Serato occured to me as being something the set I am playing would benefit from. All the best sets of deejayed electronic music that I have seen have been played off of vinyl with maybe a few CDs mixed in here and there, all letting the tracks breathe and do their thing.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to mess with the original source audio. I’m a firm believer in sampling technology, and the ability to take anything you want from any source as long as you’re doing something creative with it. But there is a very fine line here, and it is one that I think is unquestionably better walked in the studio where time and energy can go into making sure the results are actually worth hearing. Without that filter, it very quickly descends into wankery in nearly every case.
I believe that a GOOD deejay does know best how a song should be used. And 99.9% of the time, that involves exercising great restraint and utilising subtlety. These guys trotting out Ableton when playing records would be the best choice is like a heart sugeon using a machete to perform open-heart surgery. If you wanna slice and dice, become a producer and commit those cut-ups to permanent media and see how well it holds up. My guess is it will be very infrequently.
I’m very interested in seeing what else Mr. Costello will be writing about in his columns. This was definitely a good start.
8 Comments
Great response except I was a little confused by this: “I was never into crazy trick deejaying like the DMC cats or whatever, it suffers from the exact same problem that the Ableton guys have.”
Turntablism has never been about inducing trance-like states of euphoria/dancing which seems to be the holy grail for most techno/house/disco/trance(…right) DJs. It is very much about the skill of the person behind the turntables, showing off a lot of training and meticulous planning. In the same way, a hip-hop party is very different from a house party; I mean at a hip-hop party you want the DJ to scratch, beat-juggle and slam in the next record to keep the vibe going. Another kind of “happy” from the house/techno party.
Apples, oranges?
i look at it this way: deejaying is a mixture of function and form, with the function part of the equation being the most important on the dancefloor. both house/techno and hiphop style deejaying is about pleasing the dancefloor in their most basic terms. Ableton and turbtablism are both about taking the form to higher levels while sacrificing the function for dancing.
while the specific techniques are different for each style, either one can be overdone with the results being “noodly”. the use of the computer only makes it easier for this to be done in house/techno music, though it is obviously not the only culprit since the turntablists did it with just wax and a whole lot of effort. this is really what i was getting at, i should have been a bit more clear in the comparison.
Surely it’s possible to allow a track to play out when using ableton or traktor? Isn’t Costellos article actually inconsequential bullshit? What exactly is the point of telling everyone that you are considering switching from MP3\Wav to Vinyl? Does anyone actually give a shit? As for promoting discussion of said article… Was it a slow news day?
hi. you must be new here.
did you bother to actually read the fucking article? the artist went though the decision process in writing for everyone to see. obviously plenty of people gave enough of a shit to read it and then comment.
also, this is our shit. we can promote and discuss anything we fucking want to. step the fuck back.
I read the article and thought it was spot on. I’ve always felt a dj’s role is to play the right record at the right time and mixed nicely.
Although, I play mostly cd’s, I always play them in a linear fashion. Unless I’m reworking one of my own cuts or remixing someone’s tune that I’m working with, I never edit anyone’s work. 9 times out of 9, editing a tune down to loops won’t make it better and it’s disrespectful. As the article stated, what’s the point of putting hours and hours of time in the studio if someone’s going to deconstruct your tune?
Personally, I think if you feel you need to cut songs into loops to play in ableton, you NEED to be making your own loops to play. Not coping someone else’s style.
yeah, turntablists alway get a bad rep because it really is a “by the maker, for the maker” art form. most people aren’t even going to understand it, and the real complex shit will go right over a “mix-only” dj’s head.
although ill never forget a rave i was at where oddly enough Qbert and Dstyles played. all the fucking E heads were loving it. adam x also played that night and he was fucking LOVING the shit they were doing.
i guess it probably helps that Q and D are probably the 2 best scratch dj’s out there.
Sometimes turnablism can be really good fun, and I’d disagree that it goes over other Djs heads. We know what they are at, but too often the actual outcome just comes out sounding silly.
Actually I see what he’s aiming at but it’s constructed on a false premise. While the greater flexiblity/ control of digital platforms might allow you to be more trigger happy in your approach, there’s nothing in a digital setup that prevents you from “letting the records breathe” as he puts it.
In fact most of the times I’ve DJed with Ableton my approach has simply been to sync up the tracks and mix them in their entirety just as I would with turntables, not to chop them up into a million little loops. Arguing whether turntables or digital is better is like arguing whether a paintbrush is better than clay (or a mouse).