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As well as being the first man on Mars, running aeroplane fleets, blogging about trains, owning banks and probably even encouraging his children to make a bit on the side by coldly eBaying their childhood toys, Richard Branson now has a new business venture — Dubstep DJ.
The hairy entrepreneur was given a short induction into the world of WUB-WUB-CHING-BOOF dubstep music by notable star of the genre Skrillex, who pretended to be quite impressed by Branson’s enthusiastic bouncing, vaguely rhythmic head nodding and very occasional pressing of a button.
A button that probably wasn’t even wired up to anything, but still. Even Skrillex understands that occasionally humouring the boss is what you have to do to get on in the world. [YouTube via Mashable]
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This is rich of Skrillex, seeing as he couldn’t be bothered to even use CDJs until recently.
Also it’s not dubstep.
or even proper vinyl decks that require some skill. since vinyl got killed off DJing requires no skill any more. especially now with all the auto-cue, auto BPM and auto harmonics.
Fuck off.
Espy… eloquent.
i take it you are one of the people that just tells traktor etc what to play? i would love to hear what you use.
Traktor with an S4. Djing is about the music and the vibe. Not being able to successfully transition from 128bpm to 140bpm all on your own while scratching like hell and doing other such things that people hate hearing, but apparently equates to “skill.” But I’m a producer, not a DJ.
“S4″
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Excuse me…
“Not being able to successfully transition from 128bpm to 140bpm all on your own while scratching like hell and doing other such things that people hate hearing, but apparently equates to “skill.””
DMC would like a word with you. Also my sides are currently in orbit.
ah, so i was right then
no, you arent a producer. when i was producing i was sat in Cubase or Nuendo (sequencers) writing my own tunes using keyboards and drum pads and a whole range of synths and plugins. programming my own drums from scratch, creating melodies on the synths etc. actually creating music from scratch.
quite a bit different from just sampling other people’s stuff and auto mixing it with looped samples.
http://soundcloud.com/electricjoyride
Excuse me? Not a producer?
Are you saying that the skill set to be a DJ before digital mixing was so immense? Don’t – most DJs are failed drummers for a reason. DJing has always been about the vibe and not the technology, yet entering the digital world the whole practice has opened up to be as easy or as hard as you want to push it, the limits in style and practice are only limited by imagination. Sure, it may be easier to do a few automated things, but you forget the chain of professional effects that are getting twitched from midi controllers and virtual instruments played in real time – that glass ain’t half empty.
DJs were mixers, they are now creative artists with a much deeper skill set, or should I say Skrill set.
“most DJs are failed drummers for a reason” – That’s an interesting statistic, do you have a source?
It’s just an old DJ joke, he couldn’t play the drums some he become a DJ – as one is easy to learn and the other is hard.
But I wouldn’t consider Skrillex to be a DJ, from what I’ve seen of his practice he appears to be a producer of music, and not a mixer – which was regarding my point about the extended digital skill set.
im not saying being a decent digital dj is easy. but actually mixing 2 tunes now requires 1% of the skill that it used to, thats all. no bouncing carts. badly quantised music. scratched records. anyone can stick traktor on and mix 2 mp3s with no skill. it all auto quantises for you. auto loops etc (not manual like we used to)
i also think ‘dance’ (hate that phrase) has declined steadily since the 90s. i would, however, love to get my hands on some of the NI kit available now though. shame i dont have enough time any more to play.
i did some 3 deck mixing in the 90s with vinyl and it was loads of fun. now i could do 8 with just a couple of laptops and a mixer. how cool! samplers were also much more basic than they are now. a lot of Djs just seem to mix in and out of a loop these days.
i know a lot of djing is more producing on the fly but i tend to prefer older mixing with better tunes. personal preference i guess but you cant argue that mixing is anywhere near as hard as it used to be.
I agree. Ableton involved near 0% skills to do a simple mix, it’s harder to do a bad mix with that software.
But I do think most people using Ableton do so because it isn’t just a mixing setup, it is a music production setup. That a couple of hundred quids worth of controllers is a good entry for anyone – £1000 including laptop, software and controllers.
I’m personally don’t mix, I do sometimes but it is my own productions I mix. But you should get yourself setup, some amazing things knocking around today, have you seen that QuNeo 3D controller, get it for around £150 on eBay – amazing, I’m getting that this week – for myself it seems to be the best technology to come out this year so far.
Dude, I think you’ll be happy to hear there’s a discontent youth out there still mixing on vinyl, or at least still hanging on to it via Traktor or Serato timecoded vinyl. I am one of the Traktor Scratch bretheren, it’s nice, but doesn’t compare to vinyl by any stretch. That sync buttons stays well the fuck off though (I’m not even sure if that’s proper English). Sure does beat bringing a casket full of vinyl to each show though
Believe me, a quarter of shows I have a problem with needles jumping, it’s a pain in the ass but club owners are ditching their 1210s for a shiney pair of Pioneers or leaving their Technics to neglect, it’s just not kosha
fair play, good to hear that… i still have a garage half full of vinyl. it was also stupidly expensive. i remember paying upto £16 for a single tune at times.
jumping needles were a pain, but it was part of the fun to correct it. we used to do back to back mixing all the time finding the hardest tracks to mix over each other to make it hard for the person next up.
jake:
agreed. decent music doesnt need stupid fx to sound good, the tune should sound good in the first place
i think that the current gen of DJs need the FX as the music is bland, boring and uninspired.
Entirely depends upon what genre you are listening to.
You’ll find that all the ‘dubstep’ faggots (I say this because 98% of dubstep is no longer dubstep, with the exception of people like Compa for example) use laptops and controllers to mix, usually Ableton or the like.
Where as the deep house scene at the minute, you go out and to a night and you’ll see a lot of people using strictly vinyl or Serato/Traktor timecode.
Personally, I RESPECT a DJ more for spinning on wax, I don’t give a shit what anyone says but ultimately it DOES require a lot more skill and constant attention to get your mixes completely locked than CD’s or the dreaded auto-cue. You can still be creative even without a slew of shit sounding, digital effects.
I thought all the jokes about being stupid were ABOUT drummers ie, how do you know when the drummers stool is level? When the drool runs out of both sides of his mouth.
I like that one. That is where it probably came from, those pesky drummers probably targeted DJs as wannabe drummers to take the heat off themselves.
My favourite drummer joke was that John Lennon one-liner, when asked is Ringo the best drummer in the world he replied, Ringo isn’t the best drummer in The Beatles – likely not a joke.
what do you call the annoying guy who hangs around with the band… the drummer etc.
and the famous quote ‘ringo, best drummer in the world? he isnt even the best in the band’
Branson FTMFW!
Was that it?