Re: tempos !

dj bambi (djbambi@hotmail.com)
Tue, 05 Aug 1997 09:41:12 PDT


I'd have to disagree. A good dj the way I see it is a combination of
good mixing and good selection of music. There is NO good mixing
without beatmatching. It sounds pretty absurd to say that anybody
can beatmatch but not everybody can lay the right records records
back to back. If you want to beatmatch, you'll need more than a
little practice. From then it might take years before you can
actually 'mix' well, and by then if you haven't built a good sense
of what to play when (selection skills), it's most likely because
your tastes are not compatible with most people's.

I'm not saying that you have to mix each and every track for a good
set, especially if you want to change styles/tempos the way lo-ki
discribed it. However way too many people take the excuse of selection
for not mixing and that is bull!

A good set's emphasis should be on the "flow", and nobody is gonna
make me believe that there's flowing without mixing. If they really
do believe so, I'll send them to see the likes of Mark Farina, Miles
Maeda, Derrick Carter, Carl Craig, Laurent Garnier, Darkhorse,
Q-Burn, etc... all people who 'flow', regardless of what style of
music they are spinning that night (and they all go downtempo
sometimes). You know how many so-called djs everywhere don't
even bother to try to mix, don't even bother to adjust tempos but
make themselves look busy with their nice headphones for minutes
when it takes 1 second to cue in the next track?!? pleease!

You know it, I know it, everybody knows it: no good set without good
music selection and good mixing, and no good mixing without
beatmatching.

Take Herbie's RockIt for example, I can name you a dozen track that
will make it so much more intense if you mix RockIt in them than if
you just cue it. That's when you see the hands in the air, not by
just looking stylish behind your decks. Those are wedding djs...

Don't mean to sound rude, but that's a pet pieve of mine. (That and
using a four-track to produce a mix-tape and not labeling it as such).

As far as the Ob-AcidJazz content, well just check out any of Mark
Farina's old Mushroom Jazz tapes and know what I mean.

dj bambi

----Original Message Follows----
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 10:15:18 +0300 (EEST)
From: Pirkka Hartikainen <phartika@niksula.hut.fi>
To: acid-jazz@UCSD.EDU
Subject: Re: tempos !

On Sun, 3 Aug 1997 SEver86645@aol.com wrote:

> If you ask me, there are a lot of DJs who spend too damn long trying
to match
> tempos, rather than concentrating on using the write tunes to maintain
the
> vibe. Most good crowds don't mind the crunching speed shift between
records
> if they are the right records at the time. Just my opinion, but
technique is
> nothing without taste!

This is so true. Working under some BPM fascist rules ain't the way to
go.. Gilles Peterson spun at an event here in Finland a year ago - the
vibe was incredible even though he just put the records back to back
with
no mixing whatsoever (except for the couple of drum & bass tracks).

Anybody can match beats (with a little practice).. Not everybody has the
knack of playing the right record at exactly the right time to uplift
the crowd. And that's what counts.

cheers,
pirkka

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com