you have to produce!

i belong to another music forum, one for dj's. somebody started a thread and basically the majority of the users think that if you want to be a popular dj you have to produce your own tracks as well. i think that's bullshit,

thoughts??

I don't make hip electronic music nor do I want to, so I don't throw my tracks into my sets when I know they wouldn't fit....

I know people that feel a musician should include their own tracks and it is a way to get in good with other producers....

Depends on what you kind of music you dj/make....

The more experimental scenes are more forgiving in the 'not putting your own music in you dj sets' way of thought...

The wonk hop/dubstep/techno scenes are not, you should throw in you own tracks to show how you are not just a fan of music, but that you make it as well...

The more sceney a scene, the more ego, thus the more you have to prove to others that you are worthy of being blogged about...

my thinking is as long as your playing interesting music, also stuff that people don't know, it doesn't matter if you put your own stuff in there cause they won't know if it's yours or someone elses...

i don't have a lot of respect for strictly dj people... that's not very creative, taking other people's hard work and mixing it

i'm not saying it doesn't require a type of talent all its own, but i don't care for dj sets or mixtapes much... make music

the best dj's are the ones who take other peoples tunes and make them sound completely their own, which is quite difficult to do if you dont have your own personally produced sound aesthetic to throw into the mix.

Im sure it helps.

Jeff Mills is awesome.

I have very little interest in DJs that don't produce unless they're doing some form of turntablism.

That's so narrowminded people! DJ's playing live, doing mixtapes, can be a great way to discover new music, see music in a new setting can give it new meaning, and so on.. A good DJ is a good selector more than just a technical master in turntabelism, to me anyway. I'd much rather go to a club where the DJ plays great and interesting music, than listen to a great turntablist all night, although that can be great at times as well.

Back to the question that DJ's should produce.. I don't think they should unless they feel like they have something what want to do, or need to get out. Nobody should produce music, just to produce music. You need to have a driving force, and feel like you have something to contribute. So many DJ's today produce just to get hits, so they can get more gigs, and it's killing the art of djing just as much as it's killing music.

Drix, I feel that mindset applies more to the days before digital DJ'ing and the internet. Technology has made the art of standard song mixing irrelevant (not turntablism). Nowadays anyone can pirate a plethora of genre tunes, use software to auto beatmatch & auto keymatch, and spin them flawlessly, often without even using a headphone cue or anything resembling a turntable. With things like Youtube & Soundcloud, anything that's out there in some form can be listened to instantly & repeatedly if the listener so desires. These days, literally anyone can be a dance music DJ within a few hours of research and piracy. (again not a scratch DJ/turntablist)

Thus, personally, I'm most likely to hear something new & interesting that I like is if I go see a producer I like spinning tracks, because they'll have unreleased dubs & collaborations in their bag, instead of thinking "Oh, cool now I can go hear THIS guy spin that Doctor P and see if the track is still as shitty as when the guy last week spun it." Also, I'm happy to show my favorite producers my support, knowing first hand how much more lucrative DJing is than producing & selling tunes. (Kind of wack that a DJ should get a few hundred $ a night performing while the producers who made all the tracks they spin get that amount of money for the lifetime sales of their songs in that DJs set) The most interesting non-producer DJs are ones who sucked off somebody at a big label and get all the Hotflush or Planet Mu or DMZ dubs months before they get to the mainstream public (if they do at all), but those people tend to be huge pricks I don't want to support anyway.

Not saying I wouldn't enjoy sets by people who are exclusively DJs, as I often do, but I'm not chomping at the bit to go see them headlining every time they play...and they probably won't be headlining anyway.

Audiences have changed in the last two to three hundred years. Around the Bach, Mozart, Beethoven time the audience all had musical understanding. They knew how to play instruments, read music, and in some cases compose their own music. There appreciation therefore was on so many more levels then modern music, whose only education comes from listening.

A DJ who doesn't know how to produce has about the same appreciation for the music as the people he's playing it for.

I'd also like to add that in my above post I'm referring to club/venue DJs. Radio DJs are a different beast entirely as it's essentially their job to introduce people to new sounds. (unless they work for Clearchannel)

  On 9/29/2010 at 5:06 PM, acid1 said:

Audiences have changed in the last two to three hundred years. Around the Bach, Mozart, Beethoven time the audience all had musical understanding. They knew how to play instruments, read music, and in some cases compose their own music. There appreciation therefore was on so many more levels then modern music, whose only education comes from listening.

 

A DJ who doesn't know how to produce has about the same appreciation for the music as the people he's playing it for.

as somebody who doesn't produce or even DJ for that matter I'm almost offended by this statement. are you saying somebody like me can't appreciate music on the level of somebody else? :/

  On 9/28/2010 at 8:04 PM, tht tne said:

i don't have a lot of respect for strictly dj people... that's not very creative, taking other people's hard work and mixing it

i'm not saying it doesn't require a type of talent all its own, but i don't care for dj sets or mixtapes much... make music

I have to disagree... Apples to oranges here...

Autopilot tracks are cool and he has dj'd some artists I didn't know before hand...otherwise I don't have any respect for any of you fuckers for not showing me any new music!!!

And if you are making music, make decent music or quit trying!

Kidding, keep working at it....

  On 9/28/2010 at 5:56 AM, yek said:

i belong to another music forum, one for dj's. somebody started a thread and basically the majority of the users think that if you want to be a popular dj you have to produce your own tracks as well. i think that's bullshit,

thoughts??

ironically a mate of mine has tried to becoming a DJ (or Lap Jockey) just as a way to get his stuff out there

on the other hand if you have a hit single or more importantly a name people recognise then the sheep will flock however this doesn't mean a big name means having any actual skill at being a DJ especially with some of the appalling dubstep DJ's I've witnessed recently and for those who think there is no skill being a DJ in then you need to get outdoors more

the likes of Rob Hall and Surgeon are the kind of DJ's I would like to get mashed too these days, the golden oldies have all gone a bit stale imho

The way I interpreted the first post was, for a budding dj wanting to play out in clubs and stuff it would be in their interest to make tunes - make a tune that does well and you'll have people wanting to book you for a club.

I know a few (non producing)djs who are very good at it but they struggle to get booked for gigs, and they tend to moan at the fact that some people who produce their own tunes do get booked for gigs but they aren't very good at dj-ing.

I also know a few producers (making fairly decent tunes) but they don't get booked to dj much, and they like to have a moan about djs playing out and getting all the credit for tunes they didn't make.

The world is far from perfect.

A disc jockey is someone who plays other peoples stuff, so no