Canadian turntable wizard Vekked recently made a Facebook post noting how the battle scene suffers from a decline in funding and prizes — prizes which, aside from incentivising DJs into competing, also help justify and cover the tremendous effort that goes into preparing routines.
There are reasons for this I’ve wanted to elaborate on for a long time. As a former competitor and organizer, I’ve been on both sides of the table, and want to share my perspective to help you understand how things have turned out to be this way — and how we could possibly turn this around.
GEAR VS MONEY
From an organizer’s point of view, hardware prizes are relatively easy to get. Of course, having a good personal relationship with people working for the companies whose doors you’re knocking on helps a lot — but that’s true in every line of work, and generally most brands are actually very open and supportive about these things even if you approach them out of the blue. All you need is a solid concept. But there is one important truth when it comes to getting sponsors on board: it’s significantly easier to for them to justify supplying product for prizes than spending actual money. And that’s where running a physical battle event gets tricky.
Overall, it’s not rocket science to put something like this together — it’s pretty much like throwing a party. Promotion, venue, technicians, security and other personnel all need to be paid. And if you think whatever you ask at the door is going to be enough to cover it, you’re being naïve. Ideally, you’d also want to support the competitors by helping them with travel expenses, but more often than not, that’s simply not possible. Without financial support, you’re looking at significant losses — and like I said, getting sponsors to put in real money is a tough thing to pull off. But people still do it, because they love it and live it to the point of personal sacrifice.
FILTER BUBBLE
I understand those of you who are quick to point out the discrepancy between sales of DJ product and budgets allocated to competition events. But I’ll tell you right now, your perspective is warped. Turntablism, or let’s call it “performance DJing” in general, is a niche. And a small one, too. When you’re locked in your social filter bubble — which being a Facebook user, you automatically are because of how the content delivery algorithms work — you may think DJing is this huge thing that impacts everybody you know. But when most of your contacts are DJs or fans… well, of course you’d think that. Thing is, you’re wrong.
FACE THE MUSIC
In reality, nobody cares about nerdy technical DJ battles — besides us nerdy technical DJs, that is. And in the whole scheme of the DJ technology business, the ultra-niche of turntablism doesn’t count for much at all. I expect raw, seething hate in the comments section for saying this — but let’s get real. In regard to your individual career, unless you constantly pump out quality content, your skills and titles… are actually worth very little. Nobody is going to book you just because you’ve won DMC World — you have to ride that very brief promo wave, and ride it hard, otherwise you’re going to lose momentum. There are several incredibly skilled people with countless championship titles who have made it nowhere for that very reason.
Yes, a lot of kids these days want to start DJing and buy their basic two channel controllers, and there’s a lot of money flowing into the industry. But it’s really not because of DMC or IDA. It’s because of the Dimitri Vegases and Like Mikes of this world — the Aviciis, the Garrixes, and Skrillexes, who do nothing but basic A/B mixing with pyrotechnics and visuals they (most of the time) had no part in creating. It’s not because of the Qberts, Crazes, and Woodys. Those are our idols, they’re unquestionable legends of DJing, but they’re still only a tiny part of what has become a massive global market over the course of the last decade.
So when DMC and IDA don’t have budgets to even cover your travel and accommodation, let alone shower you with prizes and money… it’s because their influence and status aren’t as important as they once were, and that change directly translates into cash flow from sponsors. The golden era is past. It’s over. Poof. Gone. It’s time to look reality in the eye and accept that fact.
POINTING FINGERS
It’s mostly the battle organisations’ fault for failing to evolve at the same pace as DJ technology does, and follow the workings of the industry. I don’t see how there’s still no pure controllerism / live category in DMC or IDA, when it represents such a significant portion of the market. And I’m not saying that because I myself represent the controllerism corner, and don’t really scratch — which is why, despite doing some crazy advanced tech stuff, I’ve never made it further than a couple of national championships. My personal stance has nothing to do with this. I’m not bitter or disappointed because no rule set can accommodate my way of doing things — I’ve only ever competed for fun, and I’ve had plenty of that. So, no — it’s really just about the significance of a DJ battle event in a brand’s business/marketing context, which is when you need to look at things from the industry’s perspective.
Do you really think any of the companies (as opposed to brands — Ed) out there make the bulk of their profit with turntablist gear? Nope. It’s all between the basic starter DJ stuff, and high-end (but still basic) stuff for clubs; entry-level controllers, CDJs and club mixers. I’ll let you fill in the blanks in regard to which companies own that market. What you need to realize is that if they put out equipment aimed at turntablists, it’s never their flagship “moneymaker” product. The stuff that triggers all your hateful #realDJing comments — that’s where the money is, and you should really be grateful that the industry still bothers with making us nerds happy.
HAVE ANOTHER RED BULL
You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned Red Bull 3Style at all yet. That’s because they’re very different from DMC and IDA. At the same time, however, they’re perfect for illustrating my point. First of all, 3Style is not really a technical battle, and shouldn’t be regarded as such. It’s a club rocker competition with some technique sprinkled on top, and raw technical skill isn’t the key to winning it, as we’ve clearly seen last year. It’s mostly about having a cool, original selection and controlling crowd energy well… something that doesn’t matter that much in pure technical battles, where literally nobody dances. Ever.
That’s not the only difference though. Red Bull is a veritable behemoth — you really only need to look at everything they’re doing all over the world, and you’ll see that it’s a company with budgets most people can’t even imagine. They can quite easily pay for everything, several times over. If something is interesting to them, like funding a base jump from the upper stratosphere, they’ll just do it, because they can.
However, like any company, their budgets need allocating — and for that reason, the people in charge of the 3Style event are most definitely fighting the same battle the DMC/IDA crews are. Perhaps an even harder one — because DMC/IDA are more idealist at the core, whereas Red Bull is very much a business making business decisions. For that reason, they are by far the best indicator of how much DJ competitions matter.
The key word here is “return of investment”. While 3Style is part of Red Bull’s massive brand image apparatus, if it ends up not working out for them, it will immediately reflect in how much money is devoted to putting it together. It will happen much faster than with DMC/IDA, because Red Bull doesn’t really need to rely on sponsors to make budget decisions — whereas DMC/IDA will accept potential losses in order to keep the tablism subculture alive.
Red Bull, on the other hand, has adopted parts of that subculture and successfully turned it into its own thing. It’s something a lot of people hate on, but I’m not one of them. Arguably, they’ve done more for promoting DJ culture to the mainstream consumer than any other organisation in recent years. For that reason alone, I’m glad they exist. What they’re doing may not meet your definition of #realDJing — but if we’re gonna throw hashtags like shurikens, I’m gonna go with #actualDJing. That’s right, I said it. 3Style is closer to actual DJing than DMC and IDA combined, and winning 3Style once does more for your professional career than any number of nerdy battle titles.
EXPECTATIONS VS. REALITY
Obviously, none of these events would exist without the artists making them possible. And having invested heavily into battling myself, I see and agree with that part of Vekked’s argument. Therefore, some degree of transparency is required so that people who often spend months of their time preparing material know exactly what to expect in return, which is tremendously important when DJing isn’t just something you do — rather something you do for a living.
However, it all boils down to your frame of reference. Where did you start, where are you now, how high are you aiming in the long run? That’s what defines your expectations. Let’s put things in perspective: a seasoned, working DJ will approach a competition differently than somebody who’s barely started and does it purely for fun. Winning a controller or mixer is a different kind of incentive when you already own high-end gear anyway. Getting a huge brand to push out a video of your performance doesn’t benefit you as much as it does them if you already have a significant following of your own. At some point, you need to realize that what you’re doing is work, because you create content few other people can — and exposure doesn’t pay the rent.
At the same time, keep in mind that for every person who’s spent the majority of their adult life DJing and/or producing, there’s a couple hundred beginners who are perfectly happy just surpassing 100 views on their stuff for once. For those people, participating in even a national battle is such a big deal, they’ll happily cover the expenses. And you can’t really blame them, nor the battle organisations who literally bank on that being the case. Remember that up there on that stage, your track record doesn’t matter. Only your current performance does.
Don’t get me wrong here — I definitely believe everybody’s efforts, regardless of level, should always be compensated. Heck, I’m one of you. But in the grand scheme of things, the people paying for this stuff aren’t doing it out of the goodness of their heart. They’re investing, and investments need to pay off. A DJ equipment manufacturer who’s put a certain amount of money into battle events over the course of half a decade will know what the effects of their investment are — or aren’t — and react accordingly. So whatever happens, always be grateful for what you get before you start making complaints and demands, because the people behind these events are doing whatever they can to make them as awesome as possible, and support the artists along the way. Sometimes things just don’t work out as intended, and it’s tough to go on your social media channels and say “hey guys, we’ve lost a bunch of sponsors this year, we hope you’ll still come”. Maintaining an image and being fully transparent don’t really go hand in hand.
The bottom line is this: if you don’t want to be disappointed, don’t walk in with high expectations. Months of preparation don’t guarantee a win either — you can unleash your absolute a-game and still lose. So treat battles as an investment in your career — because the material you prepare will still be useful even if you don’t win, and it’s excellent practice as well. I’ve learned most of what I know by thinking of what I could possibly come up with to set myself apart from the rest, and I’ve definitely succeeded there. The way I look at it is this: worst case, you’ll have new content to publish — and whether you’re already successful or still on the way there, it’s always a good thing.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Ultimately, keeping the nerdy battle scene alive is on us. If the industry doesn’t feel they’re benefiting from supporting those competitions, that means it’s our turn to adapt, evolve, and make this stuff interesting to them again. Because when you take a step back and look at it all critically, there really hasn’t been that much of a development in battle performances over the last decade — and there is a rather massive gap between the handful of DJs who do true next-level stuff, and the rest whose names and routines you struggle to remember. That gap can be filled by accepting that there is no such thing as #realDJing, and finally welcoming controllerism and live performance into the family for more diversity and healthy growth.
An excellent example of that would be Berlin’s Sample Music Festival, which hosted a finger drumming battle this year – and boy, that thing took off like crazy. Picture condensed sweat dripping from the ceiling as people collectively freak out over what a lot of you dismiss as “button pushing”. There’s some serious potential here — the crowd has spoken, and we should listen. But Sample Music Festival didn’t exactly discover a new thing here. Beat Battles and Laptop Battles have been around for over a decade now. I’ve attended my first in 2007, and still go at least once each year. This scene is a hyper-niche, even smaller than turntablism, but despite the fact that everybody is competing for pure fun and glory (there haven’t been prizes in a long time), it’s still going strong. That’s mostly because everyone, regardless of musical style and hardware of choice, is welcome. You get people on MPCs going against people who use GameBoy sequencers, and computer users against pocket synth tweakers. While it’s pretty hard to have a fair common ground for judging, crowd response often dictates the winner – and it’s always an incredible experience. Why not join forces and learn from one another?
Broadening the scope of battling doesn’t mean that we need to abandon turntablism — we just need to realize that it’s simply not all there is to what DJing has become. If you look at where the industry is headed, you’ll quickly realize that production and live performance are at the core of most brands’ marketing efforts. The reason for that is simple: there isn’t a whole lot left to innovate when it comes to regular DJing, and we’ve seen so much cookie-cutter gear over the last couple of years that any designer would be hard pressed to reinvent the wheel here. The issue I see personally is that we’ve already got incredibly awesome tools to take our performances to the next-next level — but few people actually bother to explore their possibilities, and instead wait for the industry to drop some magically ground-breaking tool to help them get there. Sorry, but that’s not gonna happen unless you push the art form. Most of the time, the industry doesn’t dictate trends — it responds to them, as it recently did in face of the rising popularity of portablism.
The one major trend, or rather truth you need to get through your head is this: becoming a stand-out artist through DJing alone is nearly impossible these days. If you want to succeed, you need to familiarize yourself with production, and ideally look into ways to perform your stuff live for added value. If you look at the rule set of Red Bull 3Style, they’ve actually spelled it out for you: “Making and finding edits and remixes adds an element of exclusivity to your sets and can help you stand out from the pack”.
This isn’t even the future — it’s the freaking present. Don’t be afraid of it. Where Red Bull 3Style represents the crowd rocking aspect, DMC and IDA can adopt and embrace the nerdy side of things, as they always have. They’re not opposites — they’re counterparts.
Performing doesn’t lose legitimacy when it abandons traditional ways to spearhead new ones. Isn’t that how scratching was invented? In a similar fashion, there now are mind-blowingly awesome things you simply can’t do by flipping patterns on two turntables and triggering a couple of hot cues. Constructing and dropping an awesome controllerism routine in Ableton Live is a skill in its own right, and it’s just as legit as high-level scratching. Both require years of practice to master – the only difference is the interface, or instrument you’ve chosen. In the end, #realDJing is when the crowd is rocking out to your music – it’s about what you play, not how you play it (which I’m pretty sure is what A-Trak said originally, when he coined the term). DMC and IDA need to start reflecting that if they want to be relevant in the future.
To those stuck in the past, I say it’s time pull the proverbial stick out of your rectum and drop the fundamentalist attitude already. Stop looking at what separates our individual art forms, and instead look at what we all have in common: we play, and make, music. And in that context, the medium is not the message.
Beautiful piece of writing, but this is a reflection that not so much djs are willing to accept. Even skratchworx was a niche and has expanded to all kind of gear then evolve into DJworx.
Kilroy was here.
A few people have commented that I haven’t mentioned Beat4Battle or the Goldie Awards, so let me add a bit about that here.
I’m very well aware of Beat4Battle – but these guys don’t do anything futuristic. Yes, they do gather an impressive amount of tablists in one room, but it’s still just a lot of people doing the same thing that has been done for decades… and the Goldie Awards haven’t been around long enough for anyone to voice a truly informed opinion. One thing’s for sure – they definitely don’t have a controllerism category.
you forgot that
beat4battle has organized battles for more than 10 years and that we are
present in many countries … there you summarize us to an event around
a record that we made to have fun and chambered the marketing of the red cow
I did not forget, and I’m not hating on you guys. I’m just trying to explain that the scene you represent isn’t all there is to DJing. Several decades have passed. There are new ways of performing, new technologies. It’s getting harder for us to keep doing what we do (remember I have done it as well) without accepting that fact, and changing. Like I said in the article: I don’t want us to abandon turntablism. Just to broaden our perspective, and better coexist with people who have adopted other styles of performing.
as a DJ you dont need to produce, you need to play other people’s music.
when you are a producer (a beatmaker with a contract or earning money from labels) then you are a DJ/Producer
A DJ who makes beats to showcase live is not a producer as anyone can do that. Most people are not waiting for that they want to hear familiar tunes they heard on radio TV or YT.
turntablists just need to manipulate songs that we already know wich will be appreciated by a larger audience.
Safe the selfmade beats for the bedroom or for a small group of selected fans
Most successful DJs did at some point start releasing their own music. It’s a logical progression. Especially these days (again: as I said in the article) nobody gets noticed just by playing other people’s music anymore. “Evolution, Morpheus… evolution.”
“A DJ who makes beats to showcase live” is, in fact, a producer who performs live. Long as they actually – you know – perform live. Being signed to a label has nothing to do with it. There is a long way between achieving a skill and getting paid for it – and getting paid for a skill isn’t a measure of said skill, as evidenced by most of the EDM scene.
The beautiful thing about “self-made beats” is precisely that with the technology available to me, I can perform them, create them on the fly and incorporate them into a set whenever I want. Whatever you think about who I (and other people like me) should be playing it to has zero relevance – we will play it to whomever we please, the crowd is the only judge that matters.
Your troll powers are, in Pokémon parlance, not very effective. But since you’ve so desperately been asking for more attention, I’ll feed you one last time. Open wide.
“Anyone can do that” – really? You know what, how about I show you precisely just how much you CAN’T do. I mean, I wouldn’t challenge a turntablist to a scratch-off – but I will face anyone in a controllerism battle.
So step up and let’s go one on one. Stop hiding behind your poorly-constructed, incoherent sentences, show your face and fucking bring it. Talk is cheap.
The ball is now in your court. Anything you post after this, aside from a controllerism routine video (which I doubt we’ll see, but hey) is just your pussy-ass making pussy-ass excuses. COME ON!!
https://youtu.be/uymd-DDJhvQ?t=45s
Hi Ray,
The other Denzel did his best to politely bring to your attention something your are clearly overlooking.
You’d benefit from gratiously accepting his insights and striving to integrate them into your own thinking.
Scratching, cutting, and juggling are the icing on the “cake of djs being popular beyond the level of the bartender”
These comments is a bad look for the site.
Are you in the right comment section? I’m pretty sure Denzel and I ended up agreeing up there a while back, and are cool.
The challenge post was clearly directed at Delaware “I troll anonymously” Square, who I’m sure won’t back his cheap talk up with actions and will instead just use another user name to comment here and throw the conversation off topi… oh wait
Yes, i’m in the right place.
I’m wondering if you are.
This article, considering that it was written as a rebuttal to the dmc champion, (which, if you were interested in such things, breathed an air of life back into the dmc which had been missing for a while) , is conflicted on many levels, and demonstrates one big problem; focusing on scratching and neglecting juggling, which is what has really hurt the dmc…
How does one write an opinion on something, admit repeatedly that they aren’t passionate about it (trust me, if this was the subject for you, your mind would be awash with records you always wanted to flip), and then argue and criticize those who are passionate about it.
This is a subject you should be asking for thoughts on, not giving.
Ray offers his opinion from the experienced viewpoint of a competitor and organiser, and is the invitation for others to offer theirs. Commentary needs context, something that Ray delivers perfectly.
I’d say that challenging content followed by constructive discourse is exactly the look I want and will continue to nurture for DJWORX. That’s rather the point of content like this — it posits an opinion (often things that need to be said), and after some back and forth intelligent commentary, we’re all a little more aware of each other’s viewpoints, and the wider community has hopefully learned something from it.
We have a big problem in the world today.
People using “opinion” when they should be using
“Assumption”
In this article, you imply that catering to turntablists is the reason IDA / DMC are having a (supposedly) hard time attracting money / sponsors. Fair enough, regular “punters” don’t exactly turn up to regional finals, do they? You’ve probably got a better perspective on the operations of a major contest than I do.
I do have an issue, though. In Everything you’ve written (besides that dj stand review) for the last 2 or so years, there has had some “dig” at people who call themselves “turntablist” / “real dj’s”.
Your opinion / perspective on what turntablism is, and where it fits into the dj landscape is EXTREMELY European, and is indicative of someone who does not participate in hip-hop (the culture). Turntablism (the name) has only been around as long as babu creating it, but turntablism (the actual THING) is INTEGRAL to hip-hop, and has been around as long as the artform itself. Some would argue this whole thing started with turntablism (obviously, the “writers” aren’t making this argument lol).
You fail to realize (again, because your perspective is distinctly European), that to a particular section of consumers (read: black people in the united states), djing on turntables, back spinning, cutting, scratching, and generally showing off / showcasing your superiority on the decks IS real djing. To most of black america under age 70, a Dj looks and sounds something like Grandmaster Flash.
This audience wouldn’t know what to make of a dj who showed up to the club with a two laptops, a d2, an f1, two dif versions of maschine, and a push…. but no turntables. Because A. that’s not what a dj looks like to them and (most importantly) B. that dj probably wouldn’t be playing hip-hop. But they can digest the guy in front of them making a new beat out of two copies of the record he was just playing, because that’s ingrained in the culture. You must realize, even though this portion of hip-hop has fallen out of favor globally, it is still the predominant way of playing music to a crowd in our culture.
TL:DR You contend that turntablism is niche, but in hip-hop / black america, it is not only NOT niche, it is predominant. Perhaps “we” should bring back the New Music Seminar as a way to ensure that our the competitive side of our culture isn’t left to the whims of people with only a passing interest in it.
To further illustrate my point, compare and contrast the in article picture of Shiftee (with “arms crossed”, front row punters), with this video of Shiftee at the Delaware Regional DMC Final.
Sure this video is from 2004, but I contend the difference in energy has MUCH less to do with time, and much more to do with culture. Also, this is videographic proof of people dancing to pure, technical turntablism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzk1rFYKLsE
Hi The Other Denzel, I watched the video right through and apart from some of his crew head nodding and bobbing up and down a little in the background I didn’t witness anyone “dancing”. Did you post the wrong video or is this what you consider dancing. I love battles and love Shiftee but as a DJ I notice that if another DJ gets technical it usually clears the dance floor. Hip hop gets people dancing for sure but scratching more than a 30second burst doesn’t work 99% of the time. If the crowd are hard core battle lovers then they will show their appreciation with some movement to the beat but not what I would call dancing to the extent that playing a hip hop record straight through without the scratching would.
Conversely, it could be said you’re falling into the trap of suggesting the US represents the global market. You’re talking about a segment of a segment of the world. And Ray isn’t even talking about getting rid of the turntablist competitions. Just adding categories to better represent the more varied skillset that digital DJing can represent.
I’m merely providing perspective by talking about the world I actually live in. The one with the ubiquitous use of turntables and the scratching.
It is the world you live in, and despite the occasional jab I’ve taken at tablism, I’ve repeatedly stated I love and respect that world – I wouldn’t write this many words if I didn’t care about it. But it’s not THE world. Just a tiny fraction of the world – especially from the industry’s perspective, which is what the article is about.
Word.
I’d actually love an all styles dj battle. Like the original concept for the UFC. Bring what you use, and whoever has the best 6 minutes wins. I’d also love for their to still be a distributed network of competitions purely for turntablism, at best to progress the artform, at worst, to keep the technical aspects of it alive for future generations.
All That said I absolutely agree with 99% of this article.
As an aside…
I’d argue that, on the whole, hip-hop’s influence has reached critical mass globally, and represents much more than a tiny fraction of the world. Strictly talking about the industry, there is no serato / rane without Hip-Hop.
Even the length of a battle matters. 6 minutes in turntablist time is an eternity but an EDM DJ would be just getting started. Its like putting a sprinter against a long distance runner. Who’s the better runner? The guy who can get to 40 yards in 4.5secs then collapses or the guy who who will take 20 secs to get there but can also run 20 miles. That is the crux of DJ competition. That’s why 3style does do well. 15 min is a great time length. Long enough to tell a story and not making the set completely technical, but also short enough to force the competitors to do something interesting and technical.
But it’s still a bubble, as Ray mentioned. All my friends are techno DJs who use all in one controllers or club mixers. That’s not representative of the world, though
I have to disagree about Ray having a dig at people calling themselves turntablists. Check the list: https://djworx.com/author/arkaei/ – literally not one.
As for “real DJs” — oh absolutely. Ray and myself in particular have no time for people who put themselves on a pedestal and look down upon other styles of DJs. Such arrogance has no place in DJing or DJWORX.
As the elder statesman of DJWORX and skratchworx, I’m confident in saying that looking outside of your scene on a global level (which is after all our reach), turntablism is niche in the whole DJ industry scheme of things. But turntablism is glamorous and makes for way better social media content than watching a DJ mix EDM for hours, which perhaps disproportionately gives a false impression of its popularity. Gear sales figures absolutely back this up too.
Granted, the US is probably the biggest single country for manufacturers, but it is a long way from being the majority. And when you look at the DJ Times Top 100 US DJs, there are definitely more Hip Hops DJs than appear in the DJ Mag top 100. But the turntable using Hip Hop DJs are still overshadowed by CDJ rocking House DJs in the US list.
> As for “real DJs” — oh absolutely. Ray and myself in particular have
> no time for people who put themselves on a pedestal and look down upon
> other styles of DJs. Such arrogance has no place in DJing or DJWORX.
Of course, I’m a fan of many styles of music, and the different ways of playing them. Ean from DJTT is one of my favorite dj’s, and i’ve only seen him touch a tech to explain how they worked in a tutorial. lol.
As for the DJ Mag, General consensus among working american dj’s is that its just a laugh. Apparently, Jazzy Jeff isn’t good enough to have ever made the list, But Martin Garrix, who by all accounts, isn’t that talented at djing is the best in the world. Then Carnage, who neither actually produces his own tracks, nor is a good dj, is within 10 spots of Daft Punk, Carl Cox, and Laid Back Luke, all undeniably talented dj’s and producers. Does anybody know what this list actually measures?
Far as I know, the DJMag Top100 list measures how much money has been transferred to secure a certain spot on that list.
The DJ Times list is nominations. Not sure who nominates though. But it was good to see Qbert win a few years ago. I find polls like this to have only a small value in terms of if you wanted a list of popular DJs. But as for winners and placings — meaningless piffle. In some ways, these are also DJ battles…. runs for cover…
Allegedly Ray. Allegedly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz8RjPAD2Jk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_7e1jNBaSI
Well put and on the $.
(I think DJ Disk has proven he created the term Turntablist)
he did?
I think there’s two things at play here….
1. I think turntablism has suffered from the same problem lots of media suffers from, which is that in the modern digital age there are so many distractions and alternatives. The internet/modern age means we have too much information. Too many things people can get into and try for a little bit before discarding for something else. Turntablism is just one thing in a sea of a million hobbies and interests which are all now possible because of the reach of digital/the internet.
2. Everyone can be a DJ and can record and broadcast their set. Quality dips (in a similar way to the fact it’s so hard to find a decent tune these days because anyone can put a tune out on beatport/Juno). There’s simply too much of it. DJ’ing is oversaturated. Back in the day it was underground and you’d fiend for those annual DMC VHS tapes. Nowadays there MILLIONS of sets put up online. There’s nothing rare or special about it. DJing, as a paying job in general, is finished in an era where everyone is a DJ/has gear and where people are paying to play.
I upvoted you just for saying “fiend”.
I upvoted you just for fiendishly upvoting.
there is no DJ culture anymore but there are still people who appreciate real music and go out and purchase it on plastic..
Aside from the fact that this has nothing to do with the article… clearly, you didn’t read – or chose to ignore – the part where I said “in this context, the medium is not the message”.
And because I know you (or someone else) is eventually going to do the “you know nothing, button pusher” thing: I started on vinyl and still buy records, but only to appreciate of a unique production that deserves to be put on one. Because most don’t. I won’t take that precious piece of plastic to a club though – it’s much more efficient to play a digital copy using control vinyl because when those deteriorate, you just swap them out, and digital quality remains unchanged.
And (attention: subjective opinion) it sounds better, too. The “warmth” of vinyl is just the needle not picking up all the details of the (DIGITAL) master pressed onto a record, and adding some analog dirt (AKA dust and handruff), which is sexy but objectively speaking delivers a less detailed output and becomes the weakest part of the signal chain.
That doesn’t mean I’m saying “vinyl is inferior”, because people who desperately want to misinterpret that what I said above will inevitably do so. I’m taking that argument away from you before you can use it. Vinyl is neither superior, nor inferior. It’s just another medium, and the medium doesn’t matter to the people on the dance floor. It never has. They came to dance, and they will dance to an iPhone playlist if it has the right tracks in it.
Fundamentalists and purists focus on how they’re different from everybody else, and conclude that their way of doing things is the only right one. But nobody is entitled to saying their preferred medium is superior to another person’s. It’s just different.
What I’m saying is: we should focus on tearing down walls instead of building new ones where they aren’t necessary. Don’t go Trump on this shit. DJ culture is defined by diversity of styles. The right way is when you are playing music, and people are enjoying it. Do it however you see fit, and don’t diss others for doing it however they see fit.
I’d like to put forth a notion; The “warmth” of vinyl has less to do with the crud that gets on vinyl than the mechanical nature of turntables which grounds people through very subtle (or not so subtle feedback).
I’d also like to say that digital isn’t perfect. Even if you backup things can mysteriously happen to files. Backup definitely.. but also make sure those backups are in different formats and vectors themselves.. Data degradation is a bummer.
Which comes to..
The marriage of vinyl and digital is the best solution and allows everyone to be in their comfort zone. It does nothing to lessen other types of DJs such as vinyl only or 45 jocks and allows people to be even more creative in their sets and routines. Shiftee is a perfect example of this. He’s all over the place and he uses new tech with old in novel ways.
etc; 180 gram might hold up with normal usage and good cleaning, but a lot of really good records got pressed super thin and/or imperfectly wrt the physical material. I have some really worn much loved records that sound like shit and I also have some well loved records that sound almost as good as the day I bought them.
I’ve read about deteriorating digital storage methods, but never witnessed it with my collection (I do change backup drives at least once every 2 years and use 2 different file systems).
On the topic of vinyl, all its imperfections are what defines its unique nature – and that’s great. There are things about it I had never considered, and learned only recently.
When I complained about the “ahh” being the number one predominant scratch sample used everywhere, and effectively sounding the same, Symatic explained to me that it actually doesn’t when it comes from vinyl.
The same scratch record used by different people using different techniques will have different signs of wear around the same sample. So, his “ahh” will sound different that somebody else’s “ahh”. It’s a small difference, but I appreciate how that can mean a lot to someone – and it’s an individual connection to the medium that can never happen with timecode vinyl.
ahh man.. we’d have a LOT to discuss about why vinyl sounds the way it does.. The intricacies of analog audio are many and multifaceted – you need to look at the whole picture: how the record was made (what the mastter transfer was like, how the vinyl was cut and by whom, material properties of vinyl etc), how its been handled, what playback system you are using (turntable/cart/needle/preamp/etc).. every step of this chain changes the sound more or less dramatically. The long and short of it is, like you say, vinyl can sound sublime or terrible, and everything in between. But please lets drop the “vinyl only sounds different because of wear”.. Its much more complex than that.
Scratching to me personally only became “alive” after abandoning digital systems. There is an inherent richness/dimensionality of sound in scratching a real piece of wax that I yet have never heard from a digital system. I do not have the knowledge to know why this is though. It somehow reminds me of how digital “virtual analog” synths used to sound compared to a real analog synth (emphasis on “used to” – I think we are finally reaching a point where the diff is disapppearing).
All we really can say is that vinyl sounds different than digital. Going past that point would require quite a bit of engineering education to prove academically.
@EVERYONE — there’s a huge amount to be said on the technical and anecdotal analysis of vinyl vs digital, but this is not the article for that. Let’s keep on topic and discuss that in another more focussed article.
Agreed, but with the opinion that digital wins more when it’s coupled with a DVS input.
Time allows people to witness many things. stay vigilant.
This argument is really getting seriously boring. That a digital file has no value to you is your personal oppinion and I´m not intending to try to change your point of view here but your analog music collection is nowhere safer than any digital collection. Never seen a house burning down? Or an earthquake destroying whole cities? Floods, tornados, theft… the list goes on and the result is always the same: everything´s gone!
I used to buy a lot of records but like Ray I´m limiting myself to only those releases that are special to me. Not because I think that any medium is better than another but for two reasons:
1. I´ve been moving quite a lot during the last years and I reached a point where I´m just fed up carrying them around, especially the records I have been listening to in years (there was a nice article on here a while ago about just that).
2. Resources! This aspect seems never to be on anyone´s mind, at least I haven´t read it anywhere yet. All physical releases be it vinyl, books, dvd´s etc. need resources to be produced and as we all know a lot of people and the environment have to suffer a lot so people like us can choose from a million useless things and can buy our little things for cheap and then waste our time by arguing who/what is better on devices that are produced the same way (ironic I know). We have reached a point where we just can´t keep going on like we used to unless total destruction is what we´re going for. I would really like to see a infosheet on how many resources are needed to produce a certain amount of vinyl, has anyone ever done that? Point me to it please as I really want to know and haven´t found any info on that yet.
I still enjoy my vinyl collection, my book racks with my art books etc. but I decided for myself that besides a few very special releases I´m not buying any physical releases anymore, neither records, books or whatever when I have a digital option. Maybe we´ll find good alternatives to produce these things in a healthier fashion for everyone/everything on this planet. Vinyl has been around for a long time and hasn´t changed significantly over time but at the same time it doesn´t mean that it´s the end of the story. Keep your mind open and try new things. Bruce Lee for example isn´t admired all around the world to this day because he was strictly following traditions but because he broke free from it and developed something new and inspired a shitload of people to start questioning things.
One more thing I´d like to mention is that by buying a digital release on a plattform like Bandcamp you´re supporting the artist directly, besides a fee for the plattform the money goes directly into the artists pocket unlike with a vinyl release where a lot more people want their share of the release. And to be honest the prices for some new releases over here are just beyond ridiculous so the decision if buying the release digitally or analog answers itself by the price difference.
we all know that physical items are heavier than virtual bytes. Im just saying that a digital file has no market value…when you buy an album on iTunes you basically buy something without reselling value.
Thats why i dont care much about DMC anymore because the music is not obtainted by ways of physical activity.. its obtained in a bedroom presssing a mouse or tap screen.
That is true but might change in the future. Google and Facebook for example are making a shitload of money just with our data that is esentially the same as a digital audio or videofile -> bits and bytes.
If there is something boring, that is digital djing nonsense. #realdjing #keepitreal
Word! Great Work Ray!
As a long time, part time DJ, this article is on point. I say this because my day job has and is, doing business development and sales and marketing with small clients and large companies. The DJ scene needs to stop the pissing competition about what is real DJing. Turntabalism and controllerism both have a place and both need to be respected.
From a commercial point of view, they also both have value. With the right criteria – like red-bull 3style, the styles can both adapt to changing consumer tastes. Turntabalism can still be featured as an elite style so too controllerism – this is traditionally known as market segmentation. Consumers will do it to you whether you want it or not. The trick is to use it both for fun and craft development (raising the bar) as well as commercial benefit of all.
Don’t forget there is the third segment – actual DJing – where a party goer just cares what you play and is they energy there. Redbull is dabbling here, others need to follow.
Stop fighting, start coming together and respecting. Develop the crafts. Make that paper. Have fun. Entertain your audience.
My sentiments exactly!
Only hiphop fits into..
“Es ist etwas zu tun nicht, aber zu sein”
and that is the attraction that made djing a culture
Fun fact: did you know I speak native-level German? Allow me to assist.
What you tried to say up there is several layers of wrong, but in that context I believe you were going for something along the lines of “it’s not about doing something, rather about being somebody”.
To borrow from one of the things you said to me below… how does one use a foreign language without being passionate about it? :)
You believe your own bullshit tooooo much.
Verstehen sie?
Great words, nothing else to add.
Or maybe one sentence : Music is an art form as DJing is. Don’t be afraid to explore things, the challenge yourself, because the real pleasure comes when you go out of your “classic beloved” comfort zone.
(English is not my native language, I hope i gave a good feeling with this words…)
I agree! Progress can pretty much *only* happen when we get out of our comfort zone.
Happy accidents :)
Right? We did talk about those once :)
Haha. We need to meet one day in a tradeshow to talk about all this things :)
I’ll not be at BPM this year, but I’ll be a Loop, looking for something different and open minded.
Sadly, there is some overlap between Loop and Øredev, which I’m attending. But as I’m sure I’ve said before, we live in those nice times where physical distances aren’t in the way of a conversation. I don’t know how to find you outside of Disqus though. Maybe we should fix that.
I’ve been commercial DJing full time for about 14 years now and a few mates have won DMC comps and yet can’t get anywhere near the money I do. I think one part of it that is cultural thing with technical DJs as they (generally) don’t want to move to new technology because it in some ways makes 5-10 years of their practice irrelevant for future comps. It’s going to be a dark day when DMC comps die. I hope they can change with technology before then.
Look at what Vekked and Brace are doing, and then tell me again how them experimenting with technology and incorporating it into their routines makes their turntablist skills in any way obsolete or irrelevant. I’ll wait.
But that’s beside the point. I’m not saying turntablists should move away from being turntablists – not in this, or any other article. Just look at what else is going on out there, and stop walling themselves off against it.
we literally said the same thing.
What are you goin on about man? The bulk of modern turntablists have not only brought controllerism into their routines, but have taken it to another level. Things like Ableton Link, Traktor Link, and Maschine timing all came out of turntablism.
yeah and they’re making more money off youtube clips or promotions rather than entering DMC comps
The only turntables making a real income from it is James Zabelia. ; )
Discuss….
Would it be fair to say that only Qbert can make a solid living from pure turntablism alone?
What about the X-Cutioners?
I don’t know, Rob Swift has blocked me on Twitter. “You can’t HANDLE the truth!” personified :)
What Rob understands is that “you should never mud-wrestle with a pig. The pig likes it, and you just get dirty”
Like the Piklz, those guys are playing more regular DJ gigs than pure turntablist showcases.
Is he still playing regularly in clubs? I’ve not seen him in years to be honest. Wonderful turntablist (obvs!).
Oh yeah. He was in my neck of the woods, Wisconsin of all places, earlier this year.
Superb article, could not agree more. I am not a turntablist, but a more traditional DJ. I have always tried to incorporate new technology into my set up, see what works, what makes the flow and groove better and use it as best I can. This has led to vinyl DJs using the #realDJing, they cannot (or will not) see the worth of pushing the boundaries.
The author’s statement about the invention of scratching sums up the whole situation for all types of DJing. Every new technology has changed DJing, but we’re still here trying to play the best music known to man and that’s the bit that will never change, regardless of presentation.
If I may add something to this too. I absolutely agree with embracing all that is good in digital DJing and performing and having battles across all the styles and genres that you can imagine. Bring it on — diversity and pushing forwards via experimentation is what DJing should be all about.
But we seem to have very quickly forgotten where battling came from. To illustrate this, go back and watch a battle set from over a decade ago, where computers weren’t used, and cue burned stickered records bought in digging sessions were swapped over every 30 seconds. It’s amazing to me how quickly this looks weird and old, but is a whole different layer of skills inherent to the origins of turntablism that we seem all to happy to look past. We have all to quickly adopted modern technology, and for me lost some of the principles and skills of turntablism.
To be clear — I’m not advocating one over the other. I’d just like for it all to be represented in modern battling, in the same way that I want to see a pure focussed technical scratching champion alongside a Red Bull party rocking winner too.
Kentaro was the nearest to what you ask for and back in the days but I remember some controversy to make jugglings with techno and house…
I think that a lot of turntablists / ‘#realDJing’ – propagandists are offended by the DJ Mag Top 100. That list is not about being the best DJ but being the most popular. Two completely different things.
i didnt know DJ Mag still existed, i havent read any of them since the late 90s.
I probably would only know 10% of the DJs in that list, i think the majority of people couldn’t care less about DJs anymore, the days that a DJ was considered a god are over.
Although i still appreciate those who put more tecgnical effort into it than just a club DJ.
A few thoughts I´d like to add as someone who´s organizing turntablism related events (on a small scale though) and as someone who has experience in concerts/shows for a little more than a decade: it´s a general experience that the more crazy people go on their instruments the less people are attending these shows. It´s basically the same for every genre… Outside the box thinking doesn´t attract a big audience and the main problem I see for turntablism events is that the scene is scattered all around a state/country/continent which makes it hard to get enough people to attend such an event, be it as an artists or as a (paying) guest. There´s not enough “outside folks” who are interested in turntablism who would finance such an event so you don´t end up with a big loss at the end of the day. In my oppinion that is for two reasons:
1. People are more into music and less into technicality, you already mentioned that. As interesting as it might be in the beginning for outsiders to attend such an event they won´t be able to get through a whole night of hardcore scratching/juggling if they´re not a turntablist themselves. I´ve been organizing open turntable scratch battles in southern Germany for about 6 years now and I´ve seen many people come and go for the exact reason. I´m still spinning ideas on how to keep it interesting for both the nerds and the outsiders without compromising too much. So far I didn´t succeed.
2. As you mentioned as well we are forced into a bubble in the online world. The promotion game has changed dramatically over the last decade (meaning that now promotion takes place online for about 60-70%) and when you´re stuck in your tuntablism bubble with people all around the world that obviously won´t all be able to attend a show/battle (but would all be needed to reach a break even point financially) how do you reach the people who might be interested in such an event but have never heard of something like that yet? You can pay for exposure on Facebook for example but I haven´t really seen any positive effects from that since the venue where I work at does it for certain shows but still doesn´t attract enough people.
The best results we had for our sessions so far besides booking a big name like Kid Koala or Q-Bert was when we were part of a bigger event/festival. When we were part of the local annual Jazz festival and where mentioned in their program we had people visiting with their kids who watched us cutting it up and wanted to try it themselves. We would have never reached those people if it wasn´t for the Jazz festival… Same for the annual castle festival that attracts around 10.000 people on one night so even if we have a small room for our session there´s always a crowd guaranteed since there´s just a big bunch of people walking around to check out what´s happening during that night.
So from own experience I can say that it works a lot better if you colaborate with outside people. There´s enough nerdism around in other music genres and joining forces for events will benefit everyone and might even broad one´s horizon at the same time. Win-win.
Thanks for the comment. How can I get in touch with you? We may have met IRL without realizing it – I’ve spent ~5 years studying in Munich.
I’m not that far south, I’m located in Mannheim so we haven’t met ;) I’ll drop you a message on fb
I agree with the idea of broadening the scope of battles. That being said, the whole “I’m victimized by #realDJing” is not doing anybody any favors. Think about it. Its hard to earn respect in a battle by complaining about how unfair everything is. You earn respect by being dope. Its skills that make or break you. Case in point, I was at Skratchpad in DC a few months back and a guy set up with his controller and straight killed the room, which was FULL of scratch djs. Nobody was crossing their arms, calling him a “button pusher”, saying he wasn’t a “real DJ”, etc. Most battle DJs respect skill when they see it and this guy had skills, period, so there was nothing but love for that guy in the room.
Personally, I would love to see more DJs with unconventional setups flipping peoples wigs at battles. Here’s the rub though, I don’t think DJs can rely on technology alone to get them there. Technology is great but you have a lot of DJs trying to define themselves by their technology and, in my experience, the great DJs transcend that. The greats will excel no matter what gear they have at their disposal. You see a lot of cats these days trying to play the whole “look at this new cool thing I’m doing, I’m a ‘#portamidicontrollerist’ I’m so different and cool, click on my video!” Very rarely do these guys touting their gear get that guttural reaction from me like when I see a guy with crazy skills dominating his setup. It’s cool to see new takes on technology but in the end it takes skills to push beyond being a gimmick. In other words, the technology becomes a crutch for lack of raw skill and talent and I think that’s where a lot of the push-back comes from. Battle DJs sense the weakness in a DJ using technology for crutch and will circle like wolves.
If you break all of this down to its essence, the whole foundation of where this battle DJ culture came from is skills. Those with skills tend to bend the technology to their will instead of using it as a crutch. The dope ones tend to rise to the top regardless.
I love battles and love Shiftee but as a DJ I notice that if another DJ gets technical it usually clears the dance floor. Hip hop gets people dancing for sure but scratching more than a 30second burst doesn’t work 99% of the time. If the crowd are hard core battle lovers then they will show their appreciation with some movement to the beat but not what I would call dancing to the extent that playing a hip hop record straight through without the scratching would.
Talking about taking the commercial capacity out of an event – why do the DMC’s insist on only using Technics turntables? Whilst Technics are back now, for many years 1200’s weren’t even in production – which stopped other brands getting involved. Now that they’re back, their focus is on anything but DJ’s. Strange way for a scratch institution like DMC’s to garner support from current-day manufacturers. There are only really three products used in a scratch comp. You can choose your own mixer and carts as a DMC contestant, but no, the decks (1/3 of all visible merchandise) are locked to a company that doesn’t want anything to do with the community…
If you’ve seen this year’s DMC finals, Tony Prince was very vocal about Rane bringing some new tech. This was obviously referring to the upcoming Twelve decks which they had on display as well. I’m curious about the adoption rate – doubt they’ll become a true 1210 replacement, especially as they’re locked to Serato by default.
I mean, if I get my hands on them, I’ll surely find a way to use them in Traktor, but anything designed with one platform in mind will have a damn tough time becoming a standard. If they had been equipped with internal storage you could slap your own timecode on (or custom scratch samples), that would’ve been another story – but they don’t seem to have thought about that. Design-wise, I can tell you off the top of my head how they could’ve been made true powerhouse scratch instruments since I’ve had a unit like that drafted years ago – but as it stands, they’re just Reloop RP8000s without a tonearm. I hope the design will change before release.
I didn’t see the DMC finals, no. But I’m not talking about the Twelve specifically. Why not allow turntables from Technics, Numark, Reloop, Denon DJ, Stanton and Rane? If you can use cue/loops buttons on a mixer, does it matter if some turntables have added features, such as these very same performance buttons etc?
This was a great written article. However I agree to disagree with some of the post . What is a real dj or djing is a hot button topic controller vs laptop or turntable vs scratching or non scratching to rock the crowd at this point in my life and my career as a dj I just love the music to me is putting the Time Practice Money and Energy as the article states is the investment in the amount of time one dedicates is priceless. I like to consider myself a technical battle dj but being a quote on quote technical dj will not pay the bills and there is a very small market for that. I however believe if one can be technical and rock a crowd like dj puff in the picture above in the article I will say one has mastered the craft or art of djing. A lot of dj’s are terrible and if you are a not putting in effort or time and your heart in your performance then you my friend are not a real dj. I have seen dj’s rock a party on laptops and blends on a ipad and had a crowd rock. But they put the time and thoughts into there music and has one guy said the majority of people like to dance and not hear the record scratch I like to give a little of both on my set’s check me out at http://www.djrday.com djrodneyday on youtube.