DJ stuff, Beatmatching etc.

[Brian Pennington]

Hey Folks,

	I haven't been up to Pittsburgh since Ceremony went 21+ but it sucks  
to hear there are problems. I run a dance night (not a G/I night but  
we occasionally slip some in) here in Morgantown, WV and we certainly  
have to attract the 18-21 crowd at all costs, being a college town,  
or attendance is pretty grim. But attendance isn't grim, it's looking  
good. I think any kind of trends being observed at Ceremony are  
particular to it or if nothing else to the Pittsburgh area. But then  
I hear the Brillo Box packs 'em in and the 80's night never suffered  
for lack of 19-year-olds.

	To the DJs expressing preference of vinyl, have you tried some of  
the solutions like Serato Scratch or Final Scratch? Though expensive  
as hell they seem like a pretty slick solution. I can see the  
advantages of vinyl as a DJ solution over software and CDjs, but the  
learning curve is much rougher for it. Personally I'd rather see more  
people mixing it up with shoddier equipment than a small elite cadre  
of vinyl-savvy DJs. Plus new vinyl is very expensive nowadays, when  
you can even get it.

	I think there are some legitimate problems with beatmatching. If  
you're spinning house or trance or even disco, the music is perfectly  
suited to beatmatching. Nice, long intros and outros, predictable  
changes every so many bars, etc. But I have seen some (very talented)  
DJs beatmatch, for example, a bunch of new wave and synthpop, and  
I've got to say it was annoyingly disconcerting to hear only 2  
minutes of "Blue Monday." Some music is simply not designed for  
beatmatching. If it has a very recognizable intro I leave it alone as  
a rule.

	The other big argument against beatmatching is a subtler one, but I  
have heard people express the opinion that DJs who spend all their  
energy beatmatching can't pay attention to what their audience is  
dancing to and appreciating, and it's easy to lose them. I'm not very  
good yet so it takes me a lot more effort to string songs together  
but I definitely have had times when I looked up and wondered where a  
bunch of people had gone, and wished I'd realized it before I picked  
the song I'd picked, knowing that if I'd just been fading things in  
and out I would have reacted more quickly to this.

	Beatmatching and tricky effects (which no one aside from the full-on  
electronic DJs I know seem to even mess with) are certainly the  
hardest aspects of being a DJ, but track selection is, I think, a  
vastly more important and sometimes underrated skill in the world of  
DJs. Of the two other DJs I spin with, one has absolutely no  
technical ability but a decent ear for what our crowd wants to hear.  
The other is excellent in technical ways but plays things that aren't  
as appealing to folks who come to our night. Who do you think pulls  
in more people to the dancefloor?