**format wars** vinyl ? mp3 ? cd ? turntables ? ableton ?

Ableton Live opens up so many possibilities that most DJs just can't cope with it. As stated manymany times, it only removes the "challenge" of beatmatching, and you can even simulate that by changing the quantize settings and assigning a controller to the clip scrubbers.

Seriously, I just don't get this idea that Live does everything for you. You still need to have a good track selection, know how to transition the tracks well, how to EQ, etc..

If you're an acid fan, imagine having Bassline params mapped to a MIDI controller. You can have a virtual 303 wailing over 4 tracks all at once. There are no limits beyond imagination, while most vinyl jocks are limited to the house setup of 2 decks and a mixer.

But this is all tired by now. Some people just take longer to come around.

Its all about getting a more intricate hands on approach imo. Limiting one's self to any software for djing (and i suppose live too) is sacrilege. why?

anyway by the end of it all we'll be controlling some form of serato or ableton with oor brains without even having to lift a finger.

cavemen style bongos ftw

Embracing & using new technology is what techno is all about for me & the core principle of this style of music. I'll use any 'format/bit of kit' to push noize onto the dance floor.

I have't read the whole 13 pages so I don't no if the following area has been covered.

The only issue I have with the die off of vinyl is the die off of local record shops that support local scenes. My experience of record shops is that you could find out where the local parties were going on, meet other DJs who were into the same sound as you, put your flyers in there for your night, etc, etc, etc.

With buying tunes online you don't seem to get so much partisipation in the scene & I worry that music scenes will die off as a result of online selling.

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Originally Posted by Igneous

Embracing & using new technology is what techno is all about for me & the core principle of this style of music. I'll use any 'format/bit of kit' to push noize onto the dance floor.

I have't read the whole 13 pages so I don't no if the following area has been covered.

The only issue I have with the die off of vinyl is the die off of local record shops that support local scenes. My experience of record shops is that you could find out where the local parties were going on, meet other DJs who were into the same sound as you, put your flyers in there for your night, etc, etc, etc.

With buying tunes online you don't seem to get so much partisipation in the scene & I worry that music scenes will die off as a result of online selling.

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Yeah, that's a very good point. As we move ever closer to the "futuristic" vision of autonomous, secluded life in our connected homes, we really lose a sense of community. This has definitely happened in dance music, due partly to the death of vinyl shops.

Unfortunately, vinyl by nature is limiting for a DJ. So people who embrace technology will clearly move beyond it. I still have hundreds of records, but some venues don't even have turntables now. I play some gigs where they don't even have CD decks.

Formats like Laserdisc and vinyl were doomed from the start due to the natural progression of technology. Things get smaller and smaller, they don't stay the same size. End of.

The biggest problem was that many MANY artists and labels ignored the coming tide, both mainstream and indie. They had years to get a digital system in place, but chose to march forward with blinders on.

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Originally Posted by the_psychologist

Yeah, that's a very good point. As we move ever closer to the "futuristic" vision of autonomous, secluded life in our connected homes, we really lose a sense of community. This has definitely happened in dance music, due partly to the death of vinyl shops.

Unfortunately, vinyl by nature is limiting for a DJ. So people who embrace technology will clearly move beyond it. I still have hundreds of records, but some venues don't even have turntables now. I play some gigs where they don't even have CD decks.

Formats like Laserdisc and vinyl were doomed from the start due to the natural progression of technology. Things get smaller and smaller, they don't stay the same size. End of.

The biggest problem was that many MANY artists and labels ignored the coming tide, both mainstream and indie. They had years to get a digital system in place, but chose to march forward with blinders on.

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I think you hit the nail on the head here. TECHNO is short for TECHNOLOGICAL. Its essence is its ability to advance with new technology, hence why all electronically created music was called techno back in the day. Personally i love vinyl and i am saddened to think that it might die but the point is that techno should advance with new technology and eventually artists won't be releasing vinyls (due to the limitations). So software like ableton is the way forward. That being said, it doesn't mean that other formats are wrong or bad, they're just outdated. There will come a time where people who still spin vinyls will be refered to as classical djs. I definately agree that theres something special about having a vinyl of your favourite tune in your hands which you cannot recreate with mp3 and I'm gonna keep building my collection, for the sake of having a collection of vinyl.

By the by check out this badboi (for those of you who like to combine cd/mp3 with ableton)-----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izLK7_9X1DA

Also i agree with Igneous about the whole shopping experiance. I hate that shops generally are being consumed by the ever growing internet market. Its such a better experiance to be in a record shop surrounded by fellow music lovers and vinyls.

The thing about digital files is that you can develop the same collector mentality to some degree. My goal with my archived tunes is to have a WAV, FLAC, or 320 lame-encoded MP3 of each, with proper tags, key, BPM, etc., and I will not settle for anything less. Once you finally have that file, it actually does mean a bit more than nothing.

To give you an example, I have been in love with this Microwave Prince tune called "Solar Eclipse" for years, and, when I went digital, I hunted the CD single down, bought it, and ripped the track myself in the best quality. It sounds so much better than old, worn vinyl, and, because it's so clean, it sits comfortably in the mix next to tracks that are much newer.

I personally dream of the day when a single HD can hold all my favorite books, music, films, etc. because then they will always be on hand. As it is now, I have them divided between several locations, and it's rare to get back at them. Technology will lead to great simplification in some areas, one being the organization of our media.

vynyl you can beast and be agressive , cd j you have to be delicate and treat like your wife , abelton well loosers come to mind except for the guys who are using it to play there own stuff , they are exempt

hehe I've come round to ableton, simply because I couldn't lug all my vinyl with me when I left UK. I couldn't take my decks either, so final scratch wasn't an option so all you're left with is traktor or ableton.

Most people aren't using ableton to its potential yet, but then people didn't exactly use turntables to their potential when they first came on the scene. They'd been around for decades before someone had the magic idea of using two of them AT THE SAME TIME. 30 years later people are still pushing it...

There's a lot of lazy abelton djs out there being boring, but I think the tech itsself is great, opened up djing to parts of the world who were never going to get a chance otherwise.

For me thats the best thing about digital - it made music accessible to people who would never have had heard it otherwise. All well and good demanding that people should buy a treasured copy of a limited 500 press of vinyl, but so long as that mentality exists techno is going to be limited to the distribution of the vinyl it comes on.

Telling some kid earning 70 pesos a day he needs to save up for 45 years to buy decks, then spend a months salary buying a few records a month seems a bit dumb, and I'd rather there were people making and playing music on all corners of the planet instead of just the lucky priviledged few...

I recently started dominating Ableton. I like it.

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Originally Posted by DannyBlack

I recently started dominating Ableton. I like it.

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first of all thats my word. get your own.

secondly - i laugh at your backtracking :lol:

how am i backtracking? sure i might not have agreed to ableton at first but seeing as i dont have the cash to splash on tuirnies needs must.

anyway, at least im not a gayer.

besides which, if i want to do a VS set with you (a hero of mine) i kinda have to use ableton.

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Originally Posted by TomFoolery

By the by check out this badboi (for those of you who like to combine cd/mp3 with ableton)-----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izLK7_9X1DA

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word.
looks the shizz.
always preferred the denons to the pioneers anyway.

a lot of people are using ableton because its a cheaper way to dj it may be easy but its great playing your own tunes along side tunes you have bought i loved me vinyl but can t afford to buy vinyl anymore if i get me decks set up again i will get Rane Serato Scratch Live :smile:

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Originally Posted by markandrew

a lot of people are using ableton because its a cheaper way to dj it may be easy but its great playing your own tunes along side tunes you have bought i loved me vinyl but can t afford to buy vinyl anymore if i get me decks set up again i will get Rane Serato Scratch Live :smile:

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the new ableton serato crossover?

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Originally Posted by davethedrummer

the new ableton serato crossover?

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http://www.ableton.com/serato-partnership

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Originally Posted by Patrick DSP

http://www.ableton.com/serato-partnership

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i hope they jel the 2 of them together that would be the dogs :smile:

I don't like watching ableton sets. I've never seen one that hasn't bored me. Ever. And don't be thinking "ah but he's not seen ME play". Chances are I probably have, and I thought it was SH1T. If I actually LIKED anything I'd be giving the artist props, big time. I mean, god give me SOMETHING TO LOVE AGAIN! I don't like coming on here and getting pissed off all the time, I've better things to do with my life... Techno should be a kick up the arse, not just loop after loop. Maybe it's a joy to listen to a seamless ableton mix for some people but I will always prefer vinyl sets and the inherent chaos possible therein.

All this "a dj can only ever play 2 records" hmmmm.... so playing more tunes at once is just immediately BETTER is it ? I don't think so. It's all about creating something new from the sum of the parts, not just sticking your 6 favourite records (sorry, loops) on top of one another and proclaiming yourself lord of techno :-(

I've even seen 'top' artists using ableton to dj FULL TRACKS whilst sending text messages to god knows who. I mean, how ****ing lazy do you want to be ? These people want WORKING ON imo. If this is the template for things to come, no wonder people are so confused.....

Can you scratch with ableton ? NO (or haha maybe there's a plugin now, a real COOL one hmmmm perhaps not)

Then again, most techno dj's can't dj anyway, there's nothing more boring than fade into fade of relentless doof doof doof. "listen to my new mix, it's just as mind numbing as the last one"... It's an alarmingly common thread in the scene "I couldn't play any instruments and I'm not remotely musical so I make dance music" - LOL - that's acceptable is it ? I've ranted about this before though, so no point covering old ground.

Also, people could try and look like they're into what they're doing as opposed to standing around like they're sending an email. Guess that's more the fault of the kind of people this "scene" seems to attract of late (Gimps, much?) but I imagine there MUST be people other than myself who feel this universal boredom when they witness an "ableton live set" - Where are the mavericks these days ? I haven't heard or seen anyone good using this supposed wonder software, maybe it's a blind path ? perhaps ? All I've seen lately is people aping everyone elses sound... (another favourite bugbear of mine) It's like when hip hop got shite, no innovation just a few cuss words over a GENERIC AS HELL beat and BEEF with another artist became enough to sell rekkids. When you have collage based music, you can draw from ANYTHING - so how come it all sounds exactly the same... Not a popular view I appreciate but PFFFT it's all about the trainwrecks - as long as there are MASSIVE CASUALTIES.

With regards to what is viewed as 'techno' these days, I just can't understand when people post releases here and it's like "WOW - FEELING THIS" - well, I ain't, it's usually WOEFUL ;-) Hence the lack of constructive comment inna "if you've nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" stylee ;-) No point in just hating on stuff but it's gotten to the point where there's just so much utilitarian junk kicking around I'm past caring. I've watched people who used to be little kids on the "scene" rise to great heights by FOLLOWING THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Don't rock the boat, now, just do like everyone else and you'll be fine... PFFFFFT I just don't want any part of this, it's not what techno is about. **** - it's not even what MUSIC is about, to be brutally honest. Herein lies the difference between ARTISTS and people who just want to stand on stage thinking they're amazing. I make music cause otherwise I'd be on the streets cutting peoples eyes out of their skulls (or my own). It stops me from going completely INSANE. I'm not out to please anyone with it, it requires no 'recognition' and I'm completely happy with things that way. If someone happens to want to release music of mine then fair play to them, I'm happy for them to do so - but it's NOT the reason I write it. I guess this is a personal thing, but it all seems to be mutual backslapping these days and AGAIN - that's not what techno should be about. "Well done, you've made a sound that is completely STANDARD" ugh.

I can think of so many GREAT djs who have gone the (dis)ableton route and to be honest they've all bored me to SHRIEKS with their 'live' output of late. Maybe I have the wrong idea about what techno is, though having seen it at what I consider to be its best - I DON'T THINK SO. A lot of the 'kids' these days missed the glory days and merely have recent stuff as their yardstick - I honestly pity such people, they've really missed something good. Not that something great and new couldn't flourish, creatively, I just haven't heard it and I'll warrant not many other people have either. It's gotten to the stage where anything remotely off the beaten path is viewed as WIERD unless some DJ says it's okay to like it. BULLSHIT. The people I respect as DJs hardly ever play anywhere, being as they're at the vanguard of sound - there's just no-one else there at the moment to appreciate it, everyone wants STANDARD CRAP.

I find it uproariously amusing that "old school" hip-hop is now viewed as being Tupac and Snoop... LOLOLOLOL that's NEW to me - old school is proper music like Marley Marl, Roxanne Shante, DJ Three D, Newcleus and all them other people who made me want to do nothing but LISTEN TO AWESOME MUSIC way back in the early 80s. It's the same with techno when it first 'appeared' - It was fresh, always unexpected and just generally RAD ! What is considered 'cool' or 'good' these days usually makes me want to stick my face in a blender and dream myself to death as my head is rendered into chunks of floppy flesh and splintered bone. It's all so very, very pointless.

As darkthrone put it "YOU HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON WITH ME, YOU THINK OLD SCHOOL IS 1993" lol... Fair enough they're talking about METAL but then it pretty much applies to most scenes.

Playing good tracks on ableton is all well and good, but don't dress it up like you're doing anything special - it's not, anyone could do it ! Besides, I don't like hearing 'good tracks' over and over, I want to hear the sound of a thousand people having their heads BLOWN TO BITS by a heaving, shambling mass ! These days I'd rather stay at home than go to a techno club, and that's a pretty shit state of affairs being as I once loved this music with a real PASSION. If I do go I spend most of the time chatting with friends and outside smoking. Oh, for the days when I'd be running around like a lunatic on NO DRUGS for 7 odd hours listening to bleeding edge brain wrongs ;-) Then again, this was before the days of TEH INTERNETS (which I reckon has homogenised things to a great extent)

My wee cousin sounds like Chris Liebing on ableton, every bit as 'good', is that a GOOD or a BAD thing ? He doesn't know ANYTHING about techno, he just wanted to fanny around and I fired him a bunch of tracks to piss about with. This surely isn't 'right' is it ? He's 13 LOL ! Y'all just seem to want to sound like everyone else "how do I make this sound from xxxxxx record" etc etc - who cares, it's the journey and the wandering off down side roads that's the main fun. Why strive to sound JUST LIKE SOMEONE ELSE ? We don't need more emulators, what we need are INNOVATORS ! I'd genuinely love to see/hear someone come along and take the hinges off the cage for you :-)

There's a lot of people 'at the top' with a lot to answer for, as far as I'm concerned. SH1T AND CREAM RISES, as they say, but I see little or no evidence of dairy product these days - get what I'm saying ?

I'm not spitting the dummy and P1SS1NG OFF for good, but I've kinda had it with this place - circular argument after circular argument. Loads of talk but no-one says anything. I guess that kinda sums up 'techno' these days though. I've got better things to be getting on with in my life. I appreciate no-one ASKED for my 10p worth of course, and also appreciate I probably won't be missed (most of my posts are silly jokes or rage haha). Given the no doubt massive weight of popular opinion AGAINST such posts as this, it's probably for the best - I shall let you all get on with it eh ;-)

Plus, bear in mind I >am< particularly PISSED OFF at the moment (you'd never tell, huh). However, it's nothing to do with music... Just more disgust at the general state of the world and the people in it - but still I felt the need to get this off my chest, hopefully people will see it for what it is rather than check the BLOCK of text, check the POSTERS NAME and just think "R-SOUL - I ain't reading that" ;-) Give it a little thought before casting it aside..... It IS constructive, believe it or not.....

Sometimes you have to smash things apart just to build something new :-)

PS: I am available for spoken word performances at childrens parties, if anyone is interested. "positive" and "upbeat" are just a few of the words that have never been said about me ;-)

epic lolz

serato and vinyl ftw