Turntableism - (Digital Tricknology)

Zascar

What do you think of Turntableism lads? Does it make you weak at the knees or does it bore you to tears? I do like to watch these guys at work putting together some very creative stuff, and I am absolutely in awe at the skills they have - lets face it, its 100x more difficult than mixing techno.... However, despite all this, after a few minutes my interest dwindles and I kinda get bored (almost wish they'd just let the dam tune play out lol)

I just saw some video's on Native Instruments site where a DMC Champion has a very interesting setup using Technics Turntables & Traktor Scratch Pro, the Kontrol X1, and the Mashine all in one. Here are the video's:

Rafik chops up the Chemical Brothers sample "Block Rockin' Beats", triggering individual cue points so he can re-create and re-structure the lick in his own way. On the other deck he runs a hi-hat a Gater and Filter (chained) and a Beatmasher controlled via X1. The result is a blistering performance made possible by TRAKTOR and the X1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6bapWp-4k0

In this video a vocal sample is loaded into the left deck while MGMT's "Kids" (Soulwax Remix) is on the right deck. Cue points set on the right deck allow one-shot drumming via quick hits of MASCHINE's buttons. Rafik then brings in a self-made guitar sound using a Beatmasher and Gater effect controlled via the X1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i0OLlrK49Q

Rafik chops it up with drums triggered from the X1 on the left deck, and the same guitar sample from the 2nd video on the right deck. TRAKTOR's Gater in chained FX mode, and an additional LFO filter every 1/4th bar in Advanced Mode, Rafik rips up the rule book for a serious wonk session.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aottpSCk4Fs

It certainly brings it up a notch from just using records I suppose (although I eagerly await the onslaught from digital haters). However, even though he's doing is very cool and he is undoubtadly ridiculously talented, I can't say it excites me too much more to be honest.

What do you think?

colin29

It's impressive to say the least but as you said yourself, very easy to lose interest, "controllerism" as they like to call it can be very boring at times as they never just let a song play.

Jev/N

I haven't had the chance to watch all videos but TBH (and I use a laptop) if the DJ wasn't scratching, as in the first video, I would have considered it a complete waste of time and a tarnish on the name of DMC and turntablism as everything is pre-beatmatched and a lot of the "skill" is in hitting pads and turning pots as the right time.

The skill in turntablism embodies so much more, especially when you take into account what can go wrong - you can cue up the wrong point, skip the needle and mess up your timing on the crossfader.

For the most part, this doesn't happen here....

D Audio Tripper

You've hit the nail on the head pretty much in your first paragraph - good turntableism amazes me, I've watched so many videos on youtube and do be in awe of what they can do, especially live.... or 'on the fly' as they call it now!!! After3mins though it's all just appears to be the same and I too loose interest

Doing it using Traktor does nothing for me at all..and I'm a big fan of Traktor!
I think the reason turntableism is so good is because we all know how hard it is to skip through vinyl the way they do, scratch without it ever skipping and just generally multi-tasking and never missing a beat, all the time eveything sounding perfect
Pressing buttons on a midi-controller with pre-set cues points just doesn't compare IMO - technically anyway

BaZmO*

Zascar wrote: »

...I am absolutely in awe at the skills they have - lets face it, its 100x more difficult than mixing techno.... However, despite all this, after a few minutes my interest dwindles and I kinda get bored (almost wish they'd just let the dam tune play out lol)

D Audio Tripper wrote: »

You've hit the nail on the head pretty much in your first paragraph - good turntableism amazes me, I've watched so many videos on youtube and do be in awe of what they can do, especially live.... or 'on the fly' as they call it now!!! After3mins though it's all just appears to be the same and I too loose interest

That's it pretty much in a nutshell. Amazing skill but it just gets very old and very repetive very quickly.

To me, scratching and all that goes with it is just an extra tool in the DJs arsenal and it shouldn't be the whole toolbox.

Daroxtar

I agree, too much scratching and messing around is a pile of dung , but at least you know there's actually someone behind the decks unlike the seamless soulless robot mixing you hear a lot of the time now.

I wasn't impressed with the first 2 clips at all. He's just tapping out the "Scratch". Very little skill to most of what he was doing IMO. The last clip was the most impressive.

I watched Ronan Carney(Kearney?) recently at a music conference in Newbridge using Serrato scratch and the guy was excellent, incorporating loops and efx on the fly into his mixing and scratching. I have no problems whatsoever with someone using the technology to enhance what they are doing on the turntables but most of what Rafik is doing in the first 2 clips is just button pushing. DJ Hero.....

Here's some proper turntablism, especially from about 2:50 on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPutHJ4qCss

red_ice

Daroxtar wrote: »

Here's some proper turntablism, especially from about 2:50 on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPutHJ4qCss

jesus, i completely lost interest in watching people beat juggle.. think it was 2000 when i stopped watching it, when p-trix won the DMC (he was sponsored by a skate company called senate, so i followed him). That video was amazing, i was laughing for most of it

Zascar

You know on one hand, because of the fact that digital makes it so much easier to pull this stuff off without having to have the skills of a DMC Champ, in one way it's making it more accessible to mere mortals like ourselves. DJ Tech Tools just brought out this "Midi Fighter" which looks pretty cool and is fairly cheap.



I'm not really sure how this works exactly, but it could be cool to be able to easily have certain presets/hotcue's that you could throw into a random mix to spice it up a bit - or even assign them on the fly. Might make things more interesting than robot mixing...

colin29

Zascar wrote: »

You know on one hand, because of the fact that digital makes it so much easier to pull this stuff off without having to have the skills of a DMC Champ, in one way it's making it more accessible to mere mortals like ourselves. DJ Tech Tools just brought out this "Midi Fighter" which looks pretty cool and is fairly cheap.



I'm not really sure how this works exactly, but it could be cool to be able to easily have certain presets/hotcue's that you could throw into a random mix to spice it up a bit - or even assign them on the fly. Might make things more interesting than robot mixing...

I think the Midifighter is for using multiple cue points, each button can be a cue point and then you just use it to jump between each one.

Zascar

Sweet. Can you set 16 cue's on Traktor? I've never tried. I assume you assign it to a deck - you could use decks 3 & 4 and have some custom type tracks with multips sound effects etc etc - I'm guessing.

I like the way they have done this where its a build it yourself kit - and the software is ope-source. No doubt there will be audio-hacker types doing some very interesting stuff with it

colin29

Isn't it 8 cue points for each deck, so maybe this could be split between two decks or maybe even the four decks with fours cue points each, I haven't researched it enough yet to know.

D Audio Tripper

Zascar wrote: »

Sweet. Can you set 16 cue's on Traktor?

Yeah you can, but I think once you set more than 8 you have to use the little arrows on Traktor to jump between them - not much point in setting more than 8 really unless you had something like the midi-fighter

Zascar wrote: »

I assume you assign it to a deck

Never thought about that, yeah you must assign that to just one deck so.. Buy4 of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zascar

Oh yeah that would make more sense.

Here is a video of how a similar one has been set up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mpoaFNb3dM

D Audio Tripper

Just had a look at Traktor there, you can also use the 'cue-point name' dropdown menu to jump between cue-points 9 and higher

electrogrimey

Thought the scratch stuff was pretty impressive, fair enough I wouldn't want to listen to a 2 hour set of it, but if a DJ threw in few bits of it during a set it'd definitely earn my respect.

electrogrimey

Zascar wrote: »

You know on one hand, because of the fact that digital makes it so much easier to pull this stuff off without having to have the skills of a DMC Champ, in one way it's making it more accessible to mere mortals like ourselves. DJ Tech Tools just brought out this "Midi Fighter" which looks pretty cool and is fairly cheap.



I'm not really sure how this works exactly, but it could be cool to be able to easily have certain presets/hotcue's that you could throw into a random mix to spice it up a bit - or even assign them on the fly. Might make things more interesting than robot mixing...

Wouldn't something like an Oxygen 8 be able to do the exact same thing, and more, for half the price? You could just assign the keys to hot cues, and even throw some effects on top of them with the pots.

Zascar

Yeah you prob could but then you would no be able to look super cool and retro with your arcade buttons

electrogrimey

Techtools are mad for the arcade buttons, I don't really get it...

Executive Steve

electrogrimey wrote: »

Techtools are mad for the arcade buttons, I don't really get it...

If only you'd grown up pouring your pocket money into Streetfighter 2 down the local arcade...

Executive Steve

Personally i think it's great that people are really starting to properly get creative with technology like that, although I wonder what the point is in buying a tune if you could clearly just load a whole bunch of random sounds and samples and loops up and create something far more personal from the ground up?

I think that technology is going to get us further and further away from the idea of the finished tune as being a finished product in it's own right, i know there's labels already who release sample packs, stems of big tunes and locked grooves, breaks etc for their releases, and facilitating the act of creatively reassembling them on the fly is clearly what this technology is going to start excelling at, rather than just letting people automix clickety-blippity minimal and tech house tunes together every ten minutes...