RSS08.27
I’ve been using Ableton Live to produce for a few years now, but the foray into DJing with Live has been more recent. I’ve only started to scratch the surface of it’s potential, but am quite aware of it’s capability to take DJing to that next level of musicianship & performance.
Going down the road from spinning real vinyl on turntables, to using Serato and learning CDJs, and now finally on to Ableton has had me thinking a lot about the role that music technology plays in DJing. A post by Anodyne over at glitchhopforum.com touches on this issue. The post is titled “hardware inferiority complex” and shows a video (posted below) demonstrating the possibilities with the AKAI APC40. For those of you who don’t know, this is a new midi controller designed specifically for tight integration with Ableton Live.
Anodyne comments, “Ok, so I’ve got a less than one year old Novation Remote Zero SL controller that I LOVE. But now I’m seeing people doing amazing things with the new APC and it’s making me feel like I’m just not cut out for performance anymore.”
The following is part of my response: “any controller is just a tool… while it may be true that the APC is easier to setup / use for what is done in this video, that isn’t to say you can’t accomplish similar with other hardware. and at the end of the day, if you’re having fun and the audience is feeling how you’re building your set (which takes into account *so many factors* beyond just hardware), then it doesn’t matter at all what you’re using.
there’s always a better drummer at the next club, and always a more ideal live setup. it’s often limitations that drive artists to new heights of creativity & invention, depending on your willingness to probe these limits. no need for inferiority complexes now, that’s just what the controller industry wants you to believe.”
After which Anodyne agrees & decides his issue was more of gear lust (perfectly fine in the music community!) rather than a “hardware inferiority complex”. Still, this brings up a bunch of interesting issues on the role of technology in music. Does the value of tech tools change depending on the audience? Do simple music fans or dancers care about shinier toys as much as fellow DJs, musicians or critics? What matters more, the strength of the tracks you play and sets you build or what equipment you use to do it? And how does playing original productions vs. other artists’ tracks weigh into this?
Given YOUR personal experiences and background with music, I want to hear your thoughts on all this.
-Lokae (nerd mode)
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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As Lokae said, I believe that there is a question of orientation when examining this issue: are you trying to rock the party or impress the spotters smirking by the booth?
If your approach is action-oriented, then yes, it is definitely possible to make the floor go bonkers with all-analog gear – IF you know how to use it, know your building blocks and feel the energy flow. Yes, I am in California, how’d you know?
Alternately, if your approach is on the academic/artsy side and you want to push the boundaries of sound manipulation in the live arena, then yes, the most advanced tech can help you do that.
The bottom line is, in a club, our bodies first react to sonic frequencies in a primal way, in a cognitive way secondarily. Dancers are feeling the beat and are most likely not looking at the DJ’s hands or gear for motivation to move, though a good peformance is a bonus and can help initialize the energy in a room by example.
Bass is maternal. Turn that ish up!
The differences may depend on music background as well. For hip-hop influenced DJ’s, would they would not give up the sonic qualities created by scratching and beat juggling by using strictly laptop machinery? That’s a serious question considering that I do not know much about Abelton or other computer software out there. Of course one could build use hardware / software as well as turntables.
Anyway, I’ve seen pretty intellectually stimulating and artistically innovative music made by musicians just using turntables. Add an MPC onto that and you could layer samples / make beats on the fly on top of prerecorded sounds.
What I want to know is what can let’s say Ableton do that maybe a Cut Chemist or DJ Shadow couldn’t do?