Why are some producers so stingy with their dubs?

[badger]

think calling them idols is a bit much but yeah i take your point and agree with ben ufo. its their music they can do whatever they want with it. yeah id love to own all my favourite tunes but its not my right to own it, its the producers right to do whatever they wish with it

[ufo over easy]

That's one thing I can't sympathise with at all. If I'm at a night, I can't help but listen - that's what being in the moment is for me.

[shonky]

If you hate Skream for playing your favorite tunes without releasing them, you should consider Skream as your favorite artist and send out props for the fact that you are privileged to "see" (hear) something special.

I think if you're paying money to go and see an artist and hope they're going to be playing that tune it still essentially reduces it to commodity status though. It's just that the money's better for gigs than records. If you've paid the money, I hardly think it can be described as a privelige. Like I should feel "priveliged" to eat a meal I've paid for in a restaurant.

Any artist obviously has the rights to say whether they wish to release the material to a wider audience but at the same time we are paying their wages when we pay club entrance so I don't think this level of deference and forelock tugging is really in order. If anything dj's and producers should be honoured that people like them enough to pay to go and see them. Fuck idolization and hero worship that's how cults start

[incyde]

It's too bad that this thread has to even exist.

[ufo over easy]

It's too bad that this thread has to even exist.

nah, it could've been interesting, and is starting to be a bit more.

it was just the way the original post was worded..

[incyde]

It's too bad that this thread has to even exist.

nah, it could've been interesting, and is starting to be a bit more.

it was just the way the original post was worded..

true true.

[deadkhid]

...

[batfink]

i hate to admit it, but without dubplate culture undeground music would be boring as. Everyone would be playing the same tunes.

Its much better when its just all the big name DJs playing the same tunes.

Can't figure out whether that's taking the piss or not

it is, but there is an element of seriousness to the post as a whole. I do think dubplate culture can be a good thing, and i love hearing tunes out or on the radio that i don't hear anywhere else.

The internet has alot to answer for - its done alot to make id'ing tunes in dj sets far too easy. I remember going to jungle raves and i would often find edrush/optical, fierce, future forces, loxy etc dropping sets 80/90/100% filled with tunes i'd never heard before. that anonymity made me want to dig through record shops and find those tunes, or at least determine when they might be coming out by talking to the dj's/mc's themselves. half of them would never see the light of day, and well, that was kinda exciting too - dubplate culture as it originally was perhaps, one off tunes for the dance which noone else had. i think dubplate culture, to an extent, helps maintain that feeling of exclusivity, of the bad bad nextlevel tunes that only a handful of dj's are worthy of.

Truth is, it all got a touch silly in DNB as it lurched incoherently towards its downfall, *cough* Dillinja tunes taking years to come out *cough*, and it began to look countrproductive. Big name djs who'd long since forgotten how to mix (or wilfully decided they didnt have to, naming no names) just clanged big tune into big tune and dj joe bloggs had to be content with mixing last years tunes while the current bangers took 12/18 months to come out....

coffee break. discuss.

[starkey]

obviously producers make tunes... then dj's play them out... sometimes they even play them out themselves because they are either a dj or do live pa's. this is a way of gauging which tunes get the best reaction. those are the ones that are usually released.

[shonky]

The internet has alot to answer for - its done alot to make id'ing tunes in dj sets far too easy.

True. I only listen to a few radio shows and rarely download mixes so I can live in blissful ignorance of the existence of some tunes and if I'm at a night I enjoy it there. To be honest most of the forum would be going through serious debt crisis's if everything got released.

I'm happy to get the crumbs from the table, I know my place

[vonboyage]

I'm stingy with my dubs.

[pdomino]

Madness, Its just how it is. Dub culture.

[slothrop]

I think there's something that just generally jars with my socialist principles about this sort of thing - we have, you're not allowed type vibe.

If you don't have elitism as regards DJ's you're going to get much more elitism as regards producers, though. If a DJ can get their hands on all of Coki and Skream's anthems of the moment, how likely are they to start playing new stuff from unheard of local producers? Second-division DJ's with a good ear picking up on second-division producers with good tunes and moving into the premier league on the strength of it is kind of how the music moves forward - iirc, it was pretty much that situation that started people actually recording bands in Jamaica back in the 60's - they couldn't get their hands on American imports like the big DJs could.

Personally I'd quite like to see more exclusivity with dubs. F'rinstance, it'd be quite interesting to see a bit of soundclash culture within dubstep - in a friendly way, obv - so a given DJ's biggest tunes, played in every set, rewound five times, are precisely the ones only he can play rather than the ones everyone else is playing and rewinding too. Which would also make it that much more special and exciting when they did play them.

As to stuff never coming out, meh. If I had as much money as Bill Gates, I could probably still only buy about half the records I want too in any given week. If I worried about all the tunes I love but am never going to own, I'd pull my hair out over the ones I can't afford before I even thought about ones that aren't going to get released...

[shonky]

If a DJ can get their hands on all of Coki and Skream's anthems of the moment, how likely are they to start playing new stuff from unheard of local producers? Second-division DJ's with a good ear picking up on second-division producers with good tunes and moving into the premier league on the strength of it is kind of how the music moves forward

To be honest, and this being a matter of personal taste, and no disrespect to their production or writing skills, I'd rather hear a lot of "second division" producers than most Coki or Skream tunes. Thing is though that if you're producing and trying to get a rep, then sending tunes out to one dj (assuming you don't dj yourself) isn't exactly the best way of getting your tunes out there unless that dj is really repping your stuff hard.

Also is dubstep so homogenous now that with seven years of history (or more) that everyone would just end up playing the same tunes over and over (although some nights it does feel like that)?

[will schiller]

Oh dear

[claw]

go download free claw in the dubs section RITE NOW

/thread.

[dj cal cutta]

[quote="Slothrop"]
If you don't have elitism as regards DJ's you're going to get much more elitism as regards producers, though. If a DJ can get their hands on all of Coki and Skream's anthems of the moment, how likely are they to start playing new stuff from unheard of local producers? Second-division DJ's with a good ear picking up on second-division producers with good tunes and moving into the premier league on the strength of it is kind of how the music moves forward - iirc, it was pretty much that situation that started people actually recording bands in Jamaica back in the 60's - they couldn't get their hands on American imports like the big DJs could.[/quote]

I agree with this. However, I think it shows a bit of a snobbish attitude in this genre, on the whole, to put so much focus on "big name dj's", as it were. Most big-name dj's seem to only get to that position by either their production skills, or their connections. Neither of those specifically=dj skills. I have no qualms w/exclusive dubs and a producers desires to keep them limited so they have a mystery to them(actually, I see this as a wonderful idea), however, I do think this focus on "big-name dj's" definitely creates a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality for those dj's not in that ivory tower.

In essense, I do see the exclusivity of dubs as an almost nose-thumbing from producers, but an enticing one... Makes me want to take production more seriously...

p.s. Go download my mixes!! hehehe

[shtrofuké]

In essense, I do see the exclusivity of dubs as an almost nose-thumbing from producers, but an enticing one... Makes me want to take production more seriously...

Very interesting thread, personally I think that the exclusivity of dubs from producers (known or otherwise) is purely a promotional tool, why would a producer 'give away' their music anyways...
The way I see it is that it creates hype, it gives a certain status to a tune, a certain value that makes labels want to sign it, or people want to buy it.
Just my 2¢

[dopplegangbanger]

i dont give a dub.

lets stop this constant loop of fighting and sucking each other off.

[d man]

my personal view is that dubplates are good for a few reasons

1. so u can check to see how good ur mixdown is (if there ur own tunes that is)

2. so that dj's have an edge over over dj's (basically its about having tunes on dub that all the others dont, which makes your dj set unique, but this doesn't happen in dubstep coz every rave i go too dj's all play the same dubs, so in that respect i dont see the point!!)

3. so dj's who hate cdj's can still smack up a rave without clanging pots and pans and ruining my night haha (this point could explain why dj's have same dubs tho, owe well, lol)

and finally.......

4. dubplates sound beta than any cd on a proper system


but producers have to be tight to some extent coz labels releasing tracks may not want the public to hear them b4 a certain time so that the track can be promoted properly to make sure the demand is there for the release date so people can get paid!!!! the main aim of the game after all

peace



D