DIGITONIC! - This Friday

BODYTONIC

FRIDAY JULY 15th 2005
DIGITONIC!
SOUL A.D. (Playing, DJing, live remixing with Abelton Live)
+ Tayor & Stephen Manning (Pioneer CDJ 1000 & Abelton Live)
+ Ben Morgan (Traktor DJ Set )

Our monthly installment of parties dedicated to showcasing the exciting new techology and new forms of DJing & playing live.

As much as we love it, we reckon that ye olde vinyl is most definitley on the way out and in its place is coming some very exciting new technology that is really changing the face of DJing.

Up on Friday we have your new Bodytonic whiz kid (via Liverpool's Chibuku) Ben Morgan who will be doing a set completley off Traktor, which is basically a virtual decks set up on a laptop, but allows you to be alot more creative and the best bit - all your music can be stored on a wee harddrive so no more agonising back pain from lugging a crate of records around.

We also have our own production duo SOUL A.D. playing on a mixture of Traktor and Abelton. Abelton is basically a sytem that lets you take all the different bits of different songs, arrange them on your screen and basically throw them all together in the way you want, creating entirely new tunes and songs on the go. Great fun altogether

Kicking off the night will be Tayor & Steve Manning who have some Abelton trickery instore for us but seen as Tayor still needs help with his email, we'll believe it when we see it.

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+ Find out more about Abelton here
+ Find out more about Traktor here
+ Ask all the questions you want and find out more on our own music makin' forum here

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BODYTONIC - EVERY FRIDAY AT WAX
Powerscourt House,
Sth William St.,
Dublin 2
Doors 11pm | Adm. eu8

Pint Bottles of Tiger Beer are e4.00 all night

Bodytonic @ Wax is proudly sponsorsed by Tiger Beer

www.bodytonicmusic.com

BODYTONIC

For those that are curious, this here is what Traktor looks like..



Down the bottom you got all your tunes (your record box) and split left and right you have lets say, your left deck and your right deck. Piece of piss and a helluva lot of fun.

And for those that are bored senseless by all this, have a look at this here

Selik

Don't forget about Virtual DJ by all accounts it's an excellent program too possibly even better than Traktor due to it's overlapping waveform of song structures... It can be hooked up to midi controllers, decks (using timecoded vinyls) and external mixers as well as using it in conjunction with decks or cdjs etc...

I guess Native Instruments Traktor is a bit like the Ipod at the moment - they're certainly marketing it better than their competitors are.

POGO

And heres a shot of what Ableton looks like and what auld Mr. Rebotini from Blackstrobe (below) is staring at...








Not quite as sexy as a bag of vinyl buut a good larf all the same.


Also found a video showing exactly what ya have to do to make magic with this Ableton lark.

Click here

weak infant

when i saw traktor set i thought ye meant final scratch!
would have posted out a mix cd if i had known traktor skills only were adequate.
im sure many others would have aswell.
whats the point in learning to use decks if traktor et ableton allow you to do more? just to earn respect? would a guy behind a laptop kill the vibe..

Selik

I think the thing about learning to play on real turntables is the cost, especially records themselves! At least with these programs they let you decide if mixing music (and much more obviously) is your thing or not. Think how many people go out and purchase decks, mixer & loads of wax etc only to find it's either not for them or they don't have the time to practice etc etc etc... If it is however you can advance by getting extra equipment such as midi controllers, external mixers or even a keyboard. And of course "real" decks and cd decks can be hooked up to be used with and in conjunction with the software.

At the end of the day it's about the tunes and how they are put together to make a crowd go nuts that matters not how it's done. I agree vinyl looks cooler to an extent and may well be essential when it comes to elaborate scratching (especially in hip-hop). Remember the reaction when cd decks became more maintream and were being marketed as such? Well the same thing is also happening now to a certain extent with the advent of digital dj-ing. It will pass in time as it always does and no doubt be integrated into more setups than not in the near-enough future mainly due to the extensive possibilities offered by such software that you can't do with cd decks or vinyl on their own ie Live remixing, loops, live sampling. Add that to all the sites now offering record labels singles for download (usually only pressed on vinyl) and this is the way of the future and although it should never fully replace other forms of djing (and I'm sure it won't) it should certainly have it's place alongside them.

POGO

Giles wrote:

At the end of the day it's about the tunes and how they are put together to make a crowd go nuts that matters not how it's done.

True that, any old monkey can figure out how to get beats in time, its all about the tunes and the order you play them in. You should see the raging debate about this over on our forum!

weak infant

i totally agree and thanks for the big reply, but i had only hoped that some purists were going to take the bait.

i'd really like to hear a sound argument. i wish i could go over to your forum and see but the internet plug in wont work from work. i'd argue that any of the keyboard, trick boxes etc technologies you can incorporate into a vinyl set are laughed at by ableton. the only future i see for it is in scratching and people who wont give vinyl up. also people who need real high quality sound..

from my point of view it's 'all about the tunes'(cliche but true!), that and there's this mystical 'dj working the crowd', which basically means using tricks do get a decent response from sub par records. and it's easier for a dj to work the crowd when he looks like he's doing something cool. the face on mr blackstrobe as he plays a few loops on a laptop is enough to make anyone stop dancing. everyone has access to the same tunes nowadays, and it's easy to mimic correct taste for a situation by reading the charts of dj's who play to that and then play whatever your ear doesn't instantly dismiss. computers make it far too easy to figure out what the done thing is, and then do it.

even the order you play the songs in, just graduate the bpms... try not to get a key clash, put in an old rave tune at the end. in traktor you can move the key so you don't even have to worry about that, just run it through once by yourself. how to dj properly is up on the bbc for free....

if laptops become the norm, then the dj will have to be responsible
for a hell of a lot more other than just playing a few songs. he'll have to do his own edits, and his own tunes to set him apart. and they'll have to be better than the done thing. listening to that optimo set was an ear opener to say the least.

another option is to vj, working flashy lights, visuals, smoke etc aswell. because otherwise it isn't a show! you just can't dance around a laptop to the same songs (give or take) everyone else is playing and expect somebody to swallow it. but vj'ing is kinda crap because it's like going to the cinema, you are supposed to be out socialising, not staring at a screen!

if people don't raise the bar immensely with laptop work then i can see dj's getting put back in their box. dance music getting relegated to musak, except for those who really push the boundaries? which maybe isn't a bad thing?

Looking at your post giles you say the thing about vinyl is the price? does that mean to earn the right to play music to people you have to pay your dues? i have a pair of 1210s and a bag of records and i can beat match but i find traktor a hell of a lot better and i don't want to waste my time on perfecting something useless, just to look good or earn respect or shít. it is a useless waste of time, right?

// little did i know i had written an essay, sorry it's so long. just got carried away...

Selik

weak infant wrote:

Looking at your post giles you say the thing about vinyl is the price? does that mean to earn the right to play music to people you have to pay your dues? i have a pair of 1210s and a bag of records and i can beat match but i find traktor a hell of a lot better and i don't want to waste my time on perfecting something useless, just to look good or earn respect or shít. it is a useless waste of time, right?

What meant was that if you like one tune on a record you're going to buy the record right? of course. So you pay E10 or whatever the cost is and you don't fancy the b-side or the remixes at all? Well with digital downloading you can just buy the exact tunes you want. At $1.49 per tune from the likes of www.stompy.com (great site btw) that's hard to beat. I got 6 top tunes the other day off them for less than 10 dollars! The great thing as well is the fact that my money is mostly going to the artists and producers involved which is essential for the belt to keep turning with regards to this type of underground music.

Any yes the bar is getting raised with the advent of digital djing but that's only a good thing if you ask me? Lazy djs just won't get a look in!

On Digitonic - anyone go? And if so how was it?

POGO

Went really well (from where I was standing ) music was top notch. we hid the decks so there would be no skiving off to play some records. Puuuure digital.

Some pictures from last Friday night up here

skkatter

Personally I think that if your tracks are already pre-beatmatched then your set will lose a certain energy. I think that the energy of mixing the tracks (whether it be with vinyl on a pair of decks, CDJs, Final Scratch etc) comes out in the set you play, somehow. (NB, this is just my opinion, this is not a scientific or scientology fact!)

I don't agree with the "any monkey can mix records, it's all about the tunes and order of play!" statement either. Yes any monkey can mix, but any monkey can also buy tunes that are popular and play them in the right order. To do all three things well and play a great set takes practice.

This isn't a vinyl purist argument. Yes, I use vinyl, but I'd use Final Scratch if vinyl stopped being produced. (vinyl sales have actually went up again last year, so it doesn't look like that'll happen for a while) However in a way this argument is a "mixing purist" argument. Purist is a bad term to use though, it suggests that I look down on Ableton 'cause you don't beatmatch with it, I don't. I just prefer beat matching and I prefer to listen to set where people are beat matching as well as performing good tune selection and playing things in a good order. And I believe the beatmatching makes the sets sound better.

Ableton is a great program, I've used it a bit. It opens up a new world of bringing in loops here and there that'd be impossible with vinyl (and pretty hard with a CD deck), but I still prefer the other options.

Selik

Absolute fair point skkatter and I think it's safe to say it's a good thing that their are so many mediums around now for djs to use to play their tunes. It would also be boring if their was only "one" way of doing things so that means there's room for everything and all styles, even electro!

Vinyl should always have a place and I hope it never dies...

P.S. I heard you were headlining somewhere recently (Bodkins?) how did it go???

skkatter

Giles wrote:

P.S. I heard you were headlining somewhere recently (Bodkins?) how did it go???

Yeah I headlined at D1 in Traffic the Saturday before last. Went really well! I don't normally get to play a lot of techno out.