When is a Dj a cheat....?

I meant to put something substantial together on the weekend, but didn't. I was helping with baking for a children's party on Saturday, then mixing on Sunday; putting together a mix for Planet Angel *Chilled* in a Field (haven't got a gig there yet, but fingers crossed! That's what the mix is for). Anyhow, I do have some thoughts about Djing and the technology involved and wanted to talk about them.


I have been having an internal battle with myself over what exactly constitutes 'cheating' as a club-style Dj. I never had this problem when I was Djing with vinyl, or a combination of vinyl/cds - either you're good at all the skills and you sound good, or you're not and you don't. No-one realises how precise you need to be with a mix to make it sound good until you hear someone who isn't, then the cacophony and discord is enough to make most people wince (at least, most people who're likely to be at a rave/club/party listening); the beats need to be matched to within a significantly small fraction of a beat (anything less than almost perfect leads to either flanging of the beats, or occasionaly the phase of the beats cancelling each other), the tempo needs to be matched (less important, as it is possible to make corrections once you get good at hearing how it's wrong) and the bars/groups of bars need to be matched (nothing sounds as awkward as two overlapping songs 1/2, 1/4 or 3/4 of a bar out. Not matching groups of bars sounds nearly as bad). I haven't checked, but I suspect our hearing can pickup much finer mistakes in sounds than our eyes can in pictures, mostly due to how our vision works in practise - it actually only 'sees' the very middle portion of your vision in detail and colour, then the rest is filled in by the brain.... maybe I'll expand on this in the future...


Anyhow, I never had this existential issue until I started Djing 100% digital. I did this for two reasons; primarily, one of my decks broke. They're expensive to replace and I am poor. Secondary to this, vinyl has a tendency to sound a bit shit played along side digital formats. I think this has more to do with budget/low-grade vinyl pressing and bad audio mixing than the limitations of the format (I actually have a record where the bass was set too high and it clips/distorts?!). In addition to this I was buying most of my new music digital, then burning to cd. 'Fuck this' I thought, 'I'm gonna save myself the cash and arse-ache, and just Dj digital', and apart from the fact that I have now given up on ever becoming a 1st-class turntableist (I was never gonna be anyhow since I never practised and am unlikely to ever have the time) I have no regrets about it.


Now, this is where I get to the point; in any Dj software I've ever used there has been a 'sync' button. All this does is automatically shift the pitch-slider to the correct position so that the BPM on the deck is matched with the other deck. I never used it; 'This button is cheating', I told myself, 'no real Dj needs to have a computer beat-match for them' and I got on with doing it the old fashioned way. As time went on though I found that the software was practically never wrong when it came to the tempo of a track (not always, but I reckon I have less than 10 that are awkward) and increasingly I was simply manually moving the pitch-slider into the position that the BPM counter matched on both decks - I was basically taking longer to perform the task that the sync button does instantly. I started feeling pretty stupid, like someone who refused to use the automatic suggestions on a spell-check and insists on looking up the words in a 'proper' dictionary. I felt like a Luddite who refused to move on with the technology, eschewing a large selection of the extra features of the software, clinging to the last remnants of what it means to be a vinyl Dj...


Around about this time I simply started using the sync button. Mostly I just accepted that this was pretty much all I was doing anyhow - looking at the BPM counter and matching it on both decks. I wasn't fussed if anyone would be more impressed with my skills if I manually moved the pitch-slider instead, I'd just think the person was a bit too easily impressed and a bit stupid for not realising that both actions are essentially the same thing - matching the BPM counters - only one is done manually and slowly, and one is done automatically and instantaneously. Partly, it was simply that I am for the most part a bedroom Dj - I'm not hungry for a career as a Dj, I'm not chasing gigs, I have other stuff I'm interested in, so it isn't as if it will actually effect my life. In addition to this, I knew I could mix without it, so I felt secure in my skills. Also, I came to realise that it wasn't the sync button that was the issue - it was the BPM counter. What was I supposed to do? Stick blu-tack over the BPM on my monitor? Find some way to change the settings and turn it off? Find some other way of deliberately crippling the software so it was more vinyl like?


Crippling, that was what it would be like. I would be deliberately crippling the tools I use in order to make it harder. Like a Snooker player cutting off the thumb he rests his cue on. If simply making it hard was all it was about then why have any technological advancements at all? Why have software with two players in, why not two separate players or computers? Why include practically all the same features on the top-end cd decks when they're not 'meant' to be used? In fact, when you get right down to it, why have a pitch-slider at all?! Surely it would be supremely skillful to Dj well with the only tool available to get records matched was your finger manually keeping the tempo!



So, still feeling slightly like a cheat, I continued. And I found something out; by removing the tricky (if skillful) song-to-song drudgery of beat-matching I had begun to excel in other areas of my mixing. My timing was getting much better, so I was dropping tracks in more accurately. I started to concentrate on the mix more, playing with the levels and eq and etc. more, making the mix sound a bit more dynamic. I was managing tight and swift mixes that before I would never have achieved due to time constraints. I was actually becoming a better Dj. I started feeling (having also thought about the idea in the previous paragraph) pretty fucking pleased with myself. But I was still thinking about it...


For starters, there is obviously a point at which you are cheating - using MixMeister to pre-mix a set and then simply letting the program run is not Djing. But then, letting a computer do the playing isn't necessarily wrong (IMO), else how would dance music be made? With no sequencers? So what is that point? Had I already passed it, but simply rationalised it away to myself?


I would hate to say I have the answers to this, but here are my own thoughts on it - please feel free to leave you're own:


This is my starting point. For starters, a Dj is not primarily there to be really fucking cleaver and skillful. They're not there to show off loads of cleaver tricks, especially since most people wouldn't notice them, being either; too high, too engrossed in conversation/dancing, or just not giving a shit. In fact, at the end of the set most people probably won't remember half the songs that were played. Well so what. That's what a Dj is for; playing great music for people to dance to. Taking people on a bit of a journey with it, sure, but it would be better for the Dj to go completely unnoticed than for him to be doing so much cleaver dick stuff that you never get in the groove of a set and the crowd notices too much.


So point one - Dj is there for the crowd's enjoyment, not their own self-publicity.


They are, however, a performance. They're there primarily for the crowd, but they're also supposed to be bringing a live, human aspect to it. Otherwise a club could just play a mixed cd - hell, that way every club could have Fatboy Slim play simply by popping on 'On the Floor of the Big Beat Boutique'! So you do need to bring something new and unexpected, and to do it live. It is still supposed to be a special journey (this takes us back to it being for the crowd).


I suppose you could compare this (loosely) to singing; it's fine to have a polished studio album, using all the bells and whistles in a studio's repertoire, but any singer who doesn't sing live is undoubtedly a cheat. Worse, every gig would be the same and there would be no point in doing anything except listen to a recording.


So, to my mind, a good Dj is one who plays good (appropriate?) music to the crowd's enjoyment. That's it. They're only a cheat if they don't play live. That's it. I came to this opinion listening to some people play - they're skills were perfect, but the music was dull as dishwater! I realised I would rather hear someone with no skills at all, who simply faded quickly from one song to the next, but played really amazing music. Everything else is just for Djs (and enthusiasts), not for the crowd. The Dj is the evangelist of music - searching it out and putting it forward for the crowd's consideration.


The only bad Dj is one who plays crap music. Or tries to pull off Dj tricks they really can't and ends up sounding messy (they should just fade across, but I still might forgive them if the tunes are good enough!). That's it.