KVR Audio

AnX · Post by **AnX** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 2:19 pm

Having been a DJ, and seen many skilled DJ's work, i can safely say they are not musicians. Playing (mostly) other ppls songs/remixes etc is great. Ppl dance and drink and have a ball, but its the music they love, not the DJ. They may like a DJ for the music he plays, but thats all he does... plays songs and mixes them them into a seamless set...

Im not saying they are crap, i just dont think any DJ is a god.... ymmv, mine doesnt.

DJ Warmonger · Post by **DJ Warmonger** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 2:33 pm

Having been a DJ, and seen many skilled DJ's work, i can safely say they are not musicians.

I don't think they were supposed to be (though being musican helps being good DJ, of course). DJing is a form of art on its own - it requires both technical skills and artistic creativity.

just dont think any DJ is a god

I don't think either. Just top DJs are indeed marketed as a god and many wannabe DJs want to get godlike status as well. Suprisingly it takes more than just to launch other people's tracks to be respected or even noticed.

ras.s · Post by **ras.s** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 2:53 pm

I think it also has to do with music genres.

I pretty much only deal with reggae music and in that context, DJ either means a person who plays records or a person who sings in what's called the DJ style, which is kind of rap, but not really. The person who plays records and is called a DJ is still different from a person who is called a selector -- the difference being that the selector plays records on a sound system owned by him and/or his associates while the DJ plays records on any given club PA. The selector doesn't only play records, he also plays the sound system as if it was a instrument (and has the means to do it). Furthermore the selector isn't necessarily but often is a soundman or a sound operator, meaning he owns the sound system and knows how to string it up and set it up. The best dances (music events) are the ones in which you have to carry the sound boxes to the location.

In the sense of singing in DJ style, the disk jockey rides the riddim (instrumental rhythm track). He probably doesn't have anything to do with playing the records, except perhaps telling the selector/DJ which track to play next so that he can sing on it (and singing in the DJ style is called toasting). I think a good record playing DJ still should do at least some vocal action to keep the music interesting, even if it doesn't mean singing entire songs.

As for the producer aspect, pretty much everyone who runs a sound (system) also produces their own music to play on it. More often record playing DJs don't do that. It serves to differentiate one from other sounds and to promote selling records. Owning that sound system is a way of getting to play your own music, otherwise it would be a huge effort just to play someone else's music. DJs too do have what are called dub plates which are special cuts of some songs, often paid for to have some famous singer to version their songs and promote the DJ (or sound system).

I'm not a big fan of beatmixing or juggling (quickly changing records or switching between versions -- there can be literally dozens of vocal versions of any given riddim track). If a track is worth playing, it should be worth playing from the beginning to the end and it should be able to stand on its own. I prefer it that there's only one music source (whether that's a vinyl record player, a CD player, a computer or some digital source doesn't really matter to me) as that forces the person choosing the records to actually do something between record changes. And somewhat important being that that something is also visible/audible to the people attending the dance. The momentary break also gives the dancer a moment to cool down as the music isn't constantly pumping. The last time I played on a sound I used a iPod Touch with the built-in music player. ;-)

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 5:58 pm

DJ Warmonger wrote:I'm trying to find the point of this thread, if there is one

There isn't one. It was broken off from another thread where I made a joke about women DJs and hotness. The first response was the top post in this thread. My comment was a joke, but KVR can't let a DJ joke go by without pointing out how superior musicians are.

Basically, this thread is pointless.

T-CM11 · Post by **T-CM11** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 6:01 pm

ghettosynth wrote:I can't go by without pointing out how superior I am.

Obviously.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 6:27 pm

T-CM11 wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:I can't go by without pointing out how superior I am.
Obviously I'm a pedant

T-CM11 · Post by **T-CM11** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 6:42 pm

thecontrolcentre wrote:
T-CM11 wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:I can't go by without pointing out how superior I am.
Obviously I'm a pedant

I'm a pretty necklace? Ow that's so sweet!

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Fri Dec 25, 2015 7:05 pm

T-CM11 wrote:
thecontrolcentre wrote:
T-CM11 wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:I can't go by without pointing out how superior I am.
Obviously I'm a pedant

I'm a pretty necklace? Ow that's so sweet!

I'm glad sombody around here still has a sense of humour

Jace-BeOS · Post by **Jace-BeOS** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 3:46 am

That would be "pendant".

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 2:42 pm

Jace-BeOS wrote:That would be "pendant".

ras.s · Post by **ras.s** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 3:19 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
DJ Warmonger wrote:I'm trying to find the point of this thread, if there is one :shrug:
There isn't one. It was broken off from another thread where I made a joke about women DJs and hotness. The first response was the top post in this thread. My comment was a joke, but KVR can't let a DJ joke go by without pointing out how superior musicians are.

Basically, this thread is pointless.

I don't think it's entirely pointless. I find the kind of thinking as in the OP that "I still don't get the need to confuse Disk Jockey with Producer/Composer/Musician" to be surprisingly common.

And I mean that .. More people should consider that if they're at the point they can call themselves musicians, composers, arrangers, recording and mixing engineers -- all of those are things we have to deal with as we do music on our own -- more people should consider adding being a DJ to the list.

And I mean that in the most liberal sense possible. It doesn't have to mean mixing stuff together to make new stuff or picking a even better song after a really good one. To get back to the semantics, I guess I mean it's more useful as a verb than a noun. To DJ is the best way to get one's music across, really. There's a lot of threads here about whatever Soundcloud is a good place to put one's music on, or Bandcamp or Youtube, or should one have a Facebook artist profile, but there's rarely any thread about that if one wants people to hear their music, the best bet is to go and play it to them. That's what mixing the concepts of producer and DJ is about and it should be discussed more openly than just from the old "DJs aren't musicians" line of thinking.

Of course a lot of people think that they're making music because they like to do it and there isn't much more to it. Nothing wrong with that, I'm pretty much in that camp myself, but people who do think they can convey some sort of message or emotion or booty-shaking or whatever through their music and wish that more people would hear it, they have to start thinking about how they can make their music into a live act. Being a DJ and DJing is worthy to consider. It's less of a hassle than controlling all sorts of gear simultaneously (synthesizers, sequencers, drumboxes, samplers, mixers, effects) but still flexible enough to also mean all or some of those as well.

My point being, one should embrace their inner DJ if they wish to spread their creations. Sticking with the "DJs aren't musicians" line of thinking is useless.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 4:28 pm

ghettosynth wrote:
DJ Warmonger wrote:I'm trying to find the point of this thread, if there is one
There isn't one. It was broken off from another thread where I made a joke about women DJs and hotness. The first response was the top post in this thread.

The posts didn't belong in the original thread, but deserved to have a place to continue. Even what starts as silly banter can lead to worthwhile discussion. And if it doesn't, well, pointfulness isn't a requirement for every thread.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:19 pm

Meffy wrote:
ghettosynth wrote:
DJ Warmonger wrote:I'm trying to find the point of this thread, if there is one
There isn't one. It was broken off from another thread where I made a joke about women DJs and hotness. The first response was the top post in this thread.
The posts didn't belong in the original thread, but deserved to have a place to continue. Even what starts as silly banter can lead to worthwhile discussion. And if it doesn't, well, pointfulness isn't a requirement for every thread.

No disagreement man, I'm not complaining at all about the thread being broken off, even though it sounds a bit like that's what I was saying. I was just explaining where the thread came from. My statement regarding the thread being pointless is clearly "post discussion" as at one point I naively imagined that there might be some point to trying to have the discussion.

The comments triggered my gut response the minute I started talking about the subject seriously. I knew better and should have heeded my gut and just made another joke. KVR is not the place to have intelligent conversations about this sort of thing.

At any rate, thanks again for moving the post.

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:25 pm

ghettosynth wrote:No disagreement man, I'm not complaining at all about the thread being broken off, even though it sounds a bit like that's what I was saying. I was just explaining where the thread came from.

No trouble. That's how I took it.

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Sat Dec 26, 2015 7:26 pm

Is this sort of a break up thread, DJ's splitting from their women ?

DJs, disk jockeys, etc [split from Women in the music industry]