Can you make it as a dubstep dj without exclusives / dubs ?

[forensix (mcr)]

If Mala and Loefah play a whole set of released tunes at the next DMZ, I'd still go away buzzing!

x 2

[dj skeeze]

i would venture so far as to say that exclusive tunes are sometimes an excuse for crap mixing.

I'd rather hear new tunes mixed by a dyslexik monkey than perfect mixes of old tunes, still each to their own.

Why wouldnt you bang new bits tho, there aint exactlly a producer drought on

its about followin ur instincts innit . . . if ur feelin it one way, play all xcloos, if ur goin another play abit of both, if its a fresh crowd and u wanna test the waters bang classix all night.

new tune s need to b heard gets boring otherwise and its making da scene bigger by playing new stuff from up an coming producers big up doomstep and all da aussie gang!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[doctorkinetic]

The way I see it, unless you got access to top quality material that (next to) no-one else does, you're never gonna get regular bookings coz you just won't build a big enough name for yourself even if you are the shit when it comes to mixing. The only real way to get hold of the REALLY big stuff is through having something to offer yourself i.e. you need to have some decent beats that people are queing up to get their hands on...

As for not playing anything other than brand new material, I disagree. Are people really saying that hearing a tune dropped that they thought was phat 6 months ago doesn't still bring a smile to their face? Plus some tunes take time to grow on you.

Hearing good tunes mixed badly annoys me and makes me think the DJ should step down and let me into his record bag.

Time to stop.

[elgato]

yeh man, i was in fact gonna say that one of the ways someone can stand out without having dubs/exclusives is by playing a broad selection from across the years. when i saw dmz recently da wrath vip was one of the biggest tunes that night and thats been around for absolutely ages now

and all the early tempa and big apple mixed with newer and less new etc would definately make a dj stand out to me

[broken silence]

Tronman hit the nail on the head then took its mama out for a nice seafood lunch then NEVER called her again.

Being a dj myself i am stuck with having to bash out numbers i can grab from the shops, tho every now and then i can blag a CDR of some of the local lads. Not as exciting as having unheard of stuff but i feel it makes you dig abit deeper into the crates sometimes, rather than hit for the anthems.
Plus Doomsteps right, with dubstep the way it is now, people can be looking to their local scene for new blood, and so we "push things fwd".
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[rogue star]

Its never soley about the exclusives you play cos the fact is you could ave the most sought after dubs in the world but if you cant mix a drink why should any1 book you? and if they do its not because of what you can do, understand?

Dj 'ing in essence is about skill, competency, good tunes then exclusives. Remeber when we all started in our bedrooms? its part of the natural progression. You start missing out the fundementals and your craft will suffer, simple.

I know of people that could batter top dj's with vinyl because they take time to know their tunes and play the right tunes. Its not bout what you got but how u put it down and this can include playin beats from 3 years ago.

Dnt get caught in the hype, know your craft then master it.

[djshiva]

Its never soley about the exclusives you play cos the fact is you could ave the most sought after dubs in the world but if you cant mix a drink why should any1 book you? and if they do its not because of what you can do, understand?

Dj 'ing in essence is about skill, competency, good tunes then exclusives. Remeber when we all started in our bedrooms? its part of the natural progression. You start missing out the fundementals and your craft will suffer, simple.

I know of people that could batter top dj's with vinyl because they take time to know their tunes and play the right tunes. Its not bout what you got but how u put it down and this can include playin beats from 3 years ago.

Dnt get caught in the hype, know your craft then master it.

ch' ching!

i love hearing the dubs just like everyone else, but i gotta say that the exclusivity of a dubplate based scene annoys the piss outta me. it's neat, sure, but throughout 11 years of DJing i have seen big name cats with dubs SUCK GOAT BALLS on the decks, and i have seen complete unknowns blow them away with released cuts. frankly, the only people who care about whether it's a plate or not are the other DJs and the serious heads. the average punter could give a rat's ass. and as a dj in a genre (techno) that has gotten so up its arse it's lost the average crowd, it's nice playing for the heads, but it's sure nice playing to a big crowd goin' off their head too.

DJing has always been about the right tune at the right time, but it's also about not hearing the sound of a bunch of drunken horses (or as we like to call it "shoes in a dryer") coming out the speakers. bum mixes kill the flow, no matter how many plates you got.

besides, you give 10 different DJs the same 10 records and let em go, they will all do something different with them. i always felt DJing was about injecting your own style and skills and making something entirely new in the mix. but then, i am an anal retentive DJ nerd, so...who knows...

tunes+skills...now THAT'S a combo i can hang with.

[novabass]

For me it's mostly about track SELECTION and SEQUENCING. I don't really care if a track is new or old, an exclusive dub or a wide release, as long as it's GOOD.

The DJ and the mixing style are important - but are incidental to the actual tracks being played IMO.

And sometimes a well worn track that everybody's familiar with, when dropped at the right moment, can be absolute magic...

[kozee]

yes especially outside of london.

but i have to say i stopped downloading mixes by people who strictly play stuff thats been released.really listening to those mixes is tiring...the fact that most bigger tunes get rinsed out for ages, is a problem.

but yeah in the states, 99% of the people are oblivious to this sound.

aahhhhhemmmm no, not that much... ok well maybe.

[distinction]

This is an interesting topic. Basically if you wanna progress as a DJ in this scene you need to have passion and drive.

Basically this is how I see it, every DJ starts off with nothing. You get some decks then start getting down your local record shop or buying tunes online. You can either go down to your local record shop once a week and not really chat with the staff just buy a few beats then leave or you can go online once every week have a quick browse to see if there is anything you like. The other scenario is you can be down your local shop everyday chatting with the staff grafting for any promos they may have under the counter and just generally creating a good relationship with the shop so they look after you or you can be online everyday checking out every shop and learning what label promos go where first and also going to extents of ringing around the shops to see if they have any stuff not on the site available to grab.

You can mix forever in your bedroom and occasionally mix at your cousins house party. The other scenario is you can be emailing every promoter you know and fire CDs at the record shops and ask them if they will give them to their customers etc etc.

If you choose the second scenario for each of these you are bound to start picking up some bookings. If you start picking up nice bookings and are playing to big audiences then you approach some producers quite easily through PM or MSN or even at events and get chatting, tell them what your on and that you wanna start pushing their music coz you love it but dont just bred any producer you can stay true to yourself and be genuine to the style of music you like. Once you get a few producers pushing you beats more will follow as long as you continue the graft and people see you working hard. Thats all it is in the music graft. Thats what its all about.

I think its a natural thing for a DJ to start recieving dubs once they progress as a DJ its what happens. Even if you dont approach producers and you are doing alot of movement and making a name for yourself producers will come to you wanting to give you tunes and your hardly going to turn them away and say "sorry I just want to play released music".

[whitebait]

Depends who your audience is as to whether you can get by without the most upfront tunes. In most cases I'd say yeah as most everyone still doesn't know what dubstep is, who the main players are or whats the anthems. I'm doing my first DJ set next week and gonna warm things up by playing ol skool vocal garage for an hour or so. Kinda shitting myself actually cos I can't mix to save myself and don't know the tunes well enough, so just hoping there's stuff all people around.

[starkey]

to answer the question back a little bit.....

Yes you can play regular vinyl with Serato. There is a passive link that connects through the Serato box to the phono ins of the mixer. Your lines come from the computer and your phono ins are your regular vinyl.
[/quote]

[david_m]

Well, I'm late and almost everything I think has been said yet, but...

When you make a selection of old released tunes, it's not necessary a selection of hundred-times-played tunes. there's a lot of good released stuff that dubstep-star dj's don't pay attention to.

Also, a good dj should be able to mix 2 tunes you've heard a hundred of times, and still make you experience a feeling you had never felt.

And for me, most aspects on dubplate culture sucks, if dubstep continues to get more into that it'll make me lose interest in it, like drum'n'bass did.

But once more I've never been to the UK, so probably I could change my mind if I lived there...

[d man]

dam!!! i no im gonna get on 1 now so hear goes!!!!!

its not all bout havin the most dubz or the freshest releases to be a good or 'big name dj'.

there are to many people that get away wit playin an ok set and every1 sayin how heavy it woz just coz it woz all dubs, it more than just puttin 2 tunes on the dek and mixing, its also about creatin ur own vibe and style (like walsh said) but also takin the raver on a journey!!!!!

the way u construct ur set is just as important as the tunes u play, even way bk wen wen it woz all el-b and zed bias, and all them tunes, i used to feel i could do a beta vinyl set than sum djs who just played dubplates, JUST COZ ITS EXCLUSIVE AND A DUB DOESNT MEAN ITS A GOOD TUNE!!!! which is why half the tunes dont cum out!!!

it really annoys me wen people stop playin tunes once they come out aswell, example bein tunes like neverland, such a bad f-ing tune but u neva really hear any1 but dmz play it in raves now its released

at times i think tunes should be battered more once there released so that this scene can have anthems that are accessable to every1 which in turn means more units beenin sold, more people willin to risk startin labels and the music gettin even bigga and more diverse! not just a dubplate anthem that gets released and the 4goten about

personally i love hearin a tune in a rave that i aint heard 4 time, makes u shock out as if it woz a brand nu tune

and u gotta remember every1 on here no's the tunes but to nu ravers a tune that maybe 3 yrs old is nu to them!!!!!! THINK ABOUT IT


nu i'd ramble on

BUT I DO LOVE MY DUBPLATES

[crazydave]

dunno about dubstep, but in the dnb scene nowadays, you can't make it as a dj unless you're a producer (or a dmc champion - which is rare).

the moment you get something on wax that has international distro, people jump all on your dick and assume you're a great dj so you get bookings. granted, you definately have dubplates and exclusives and such, but that's another thing. i also know kids who would be tight with lots of producers and get dubs and such and STILL not get booked or get up because they have no releases out on a label. the moment they get a plate out tho, the calls/emails/hype starts rolling in and they get booked.

This is what has got me bloody confused, when clubbing in Brighton...


Why am I paying premium rate (a tenner to get in, often) to see a D&B artist DJ?
wtf are they gonna do, spin their own tracks?


This is what makes so much sense in Hip Hop. To be a DJ is a skill in its own right...

[crazydave]

at times i think tunes should be battered more once there released so that this scene can have anthems that are accessable to every1 which in turn means more units beenin sold, more people willin to risk startin labels and the music gettin even bigga and more diverse! not just a dubplate anthem that gets released and the 4goten about

seconded. ridiculous high turnover / exclusive-grabbing can keep the scene insular.


I know we've got to keep the hedz happy, but anthems brought me here
(midnight request line, anti war dub) and anthems will bring more.

[doctorkinetic]

This thread has wandered onto what people think should make a top Dj rather than what actually does. Bottom line is, it doesn't matter how good a Dj you actually are in this sort of scene (of course, you need to actually be able to mix, but can't most of us?), the only way that you are going to 'Make It as a Dubstep Dj' (original point of this thread) i.e. get regular bookings/ exposure is whether you have something in terms of material that others don't. That is what promoters are booking you for, an artist who has got something above the rest.
This is of course only my (slightly cynical) view of things but i think its pretty accurate.

(If any promoters out there are reading this and disagree, and really would book a decent DJ with access only to material that is available to jo public, then get in touch- i'll send you a mix over )

[forensix (mcr)]

(If any promoters out there are reading this and disagree, and really would book a decent DJ with access only to material that is available to jo public, then get in touch- i'll send you a mix over )

youve got bare exclusives boss

[corpsey]

This thread has wandered onto what people think should make a top Dj rather than what actually does.

Exactly what I was going to say. Don't know about dubstep really but in dnb at least (at the top level especially) it's all about upfront selection- doesn't matter if you play the best tunes from whenever, you've got to play the newest stuff. I think this fuels some throwaway music though, stuff that is hot for about a month and then disappears from memory.

[adruu]

what does "making it" mean?