beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

[Statto]

tis a weird speed though... youll basically have to appeal to the 138 cru - techno/dubstep/electro djs.

beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

tis a weird speed though... youll basically have to appeal to the 138 cru - techno/dubstep/electro djs.

beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

strange you say that considering its so rare to actually hear it...

oh - and youre wrong anyway.

beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

has been for a while, certainly in dnb's case anyway

beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

has been for a while, certainly in dnb's case anyway

not beatmatching. dj culture and the 'race to the bottom'.

very different things. its not the skill itself but how you use/abuse it that matters.

id like to hear some suggestions as to how a dj should play a whole load of tunes that are all within the same range of speed? perhaps all trainwrecks would work better?

Id like to hear some suggestions as to how a DJ should play a whole load of tunes that are all within the same range of speed? Perhaps all trainwrecks would work better?

Beatmatching is God, therefore everyone makes their tunes to be beatmatched. If you don't, you don't get played out.

As a result, the 'Dj friendly' production format rules and any/all variants on that are excised from the dancefloor experience.

As for playing to the floor without paying much attention to beatmatching? Bring an effects box and a mic.

Or learn some basic scratch moves.

Id like to hear some suggestions as to how a DJ should play a whole load of tunes that are all within the same range of speed? Perhaps all trainwrecks would work better?

Beatmatching is God, therefore everyone makes their tunes to be beatmatched. If you don't, you don't get played out.

As a result, the 'Dj friendly' production format rules and any/all variants on that are excised from the dancefloor experience.

As for playing to the floor without paying much attention to beatmatching? Bring an effects box and a mic.

Or learn some basic scratch moves.

But there's tons of electronic music that isnt made for the DJ and still gets played out. Not by many DJs - but enough.

Just because 90% of DJs are shit doesnt mean the process is shit.

Kinda like saying that 'sequencing' is the bane of electronic music because it results in repetitive dumbed down beats.

Scratching (even good scratching) becomes tiresome pretty quickly as well - and is basically another form of beatmatching anyway - with the added twist of pitching the beat at the same time. 'Basic' scratch moves (I know a few) would maybe get you through 2 records before you need to do something different.

BTW - if beatmatching is 'god' then how come so many big name D+B DJs cant (or couldnt for many years) mix to save their lives? If this was the case they wouldnt have lasted long... has beatmatching become more or less important? DJs were beatmatching when jungle and rave was at its peak, and you could easily argue that 'eclectic' beatmatching across genres has ahad a massively positive effect on the development of dance music. And hopefully will again...

Anyway - we've discussed this at length in the past, and Im sympathetic to the argument (especially in relation to D+B), but a generalisation without caveats that beatmatching is simply bad for electronic music just doesnt swing.

Surely even if you are doing some crazy chopping in between jungle records they need to be somewhat in time for it to work???

it's the Lowest Common Denominator thing again, beathmatching isnt the problem, laziness and unwillingness to work at a mix is...

[Statto]

beatmatching is the bane of electronic dance music

strange you say that considering its so rare to actually hear it...

oh - and youre wrong anyway.

ok, so "beatmatching" is the wrong term. i mean mixing lots of tracks at the same tempo (and often the same rhythm) so that they all run together and it's all just one long track all the same.

i'm sure my main man in this thread would agree with me

it's the lowest common denominator thing again, beathmatching isnt the problem, laziness and unwillingness to work at a mix is...

and the culture (in some genres) today definitely encourages this approach. doesnt meant the process itself is bankrupt.
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ok, so "beatmatching" is the wrong term. I mean mixing lots of tracks at the same tempo (and often the same rhythm) so that they all run together and it's all just one long track all the same.

I'm sure my main man in this thread would agree with me

Im sure he would!

But if done right you can still have progression/different rhythms/discreet 'events'/tempo changes etc in a mix, whilst retaining the suspension of disbelief or the 'grammar' of seamless mixing/beatmatching.

it's the lowest common denominator thing again, beathmatching isnt the problem, laziness and unwillingness to work at a mix is...

and the culture (in some genres) today definitely encourages this approach. doesnt meant the process itself is bankrupt.

there is a whole lot more to mixing that just beat matching....but as a basic principle it is a necessary skill to learn, even if only to ignore it when desired

there is a whole lot more to mixing that just beat matching....but as a basic principle it is a necessary skill to learn, even if only to ignore it when desired

uh huh. its the:

but a generalisation without caveats that beatmatching is simply bad for electronic music just doesnt swing.

I really didn't think that I needed to qualify my agreement with Statto by stating that that the application of the method is of course the problem here? Just as I don't think that guns are inherently evil etc... obviously it's all down to how the tool or method is used or applied.

The problem with the application of beatmatching at this point is that it has become a creative prison for electronic dance music and for dnb in particular. Just as 'loudness' has become the yardstick for measuring the worth of individual tunes, tight beatmatching has become the yardstick for measuring how good a DJ is. So, according to those terms, Andy C playing Mampi Swift tunes must be the best DJ experience one can have in dnb...

Hence in terms of its effect and its usefulness to the genre of dnb, the positives offered by the continued focus on beatmatching are - at this time - outweighed by the negatives. More focus on tighter beatmatching offers dnb nothing right now - only another imaginative cul-de-sac, and further opportunities to flex the techy/macho obsessions of today's dnb culture: the whole 'I'm tighter/louder than you pussies'. But so what? Just as there's always someone bigger and stronger, there's always a Dj tighter-than-you out there.

Further: the beatmatching imperative in this music was largely drug-inspired originally, but only the most clowny and juvenile dnb audiences today are actually drug-fuelled in anything like the traditional Rave sense. And even the dumbest arena dnb tunes are more broken up with bridges and zany stop-starts now than they were a few years back (at least in part due to the rise in coke use IMO).

In short, the majority of audiences who attend dnb nights today are no longer united by E. Today's is a poly-drug audience, and as can be seen by the ridiculous number of rewinds in evidence at nearly all dnb nights, fragmentation is more likely to elicit an excited response from a crowd these days than hours of trancing out to a continuous one-tempo flow.

And your insistence that bugger-all Djs can actually beatmatch accurately is actually incorrect (regardless of how shite some of the biggest names clearly are): in reality, there are shitloads of super-tight mixes uploaded all over the shop on a daily basis - try DOA for a start. Terrible music, tight beatmatching, one tempo.

Tight beatmatching - when the music is good - is great, and inevitably helps its presentation. But it still puts some serious limiters on where a Dj might bring his crowd. Tight 'mixing' on the other hand, shouldn't necessarily need to involve much in the way of beatmatching at all.

Personally, I feel the one-tempo conveyor-belt effect is seriously played out in dance music in general at this stage. It was required - and useful - in order to enhance the unifying effect engendered by mass drug use back in the day, but now it's no more than a habit left-over from other times, and the fact that it's seen as the only way to DJ in certain genres like dnb is seriously blinkering new generations of DJs to the art of making a crowd move any which way you can.

I see the new job is keeping you busy.

And your insistence that bugger-all Djs can actually beatmatch accurately is actually incorrect (regardless of how shite some of the biggest names clearly are): in reality, there are shitloads of super-tight mixes uploaded all over the shop on a daily basis - try DOA for a start. Terrible music, tight beatmatching, one tempo.

How exactly would you know since you never ever download, and almost never listen to mixes? :P

How exactly would you know since you never ever download, and almost never listen to mixes? :P

While I could say that you never go to clubs, dance or even DJ in front of live humans..?

In fact, I preview mixes irregularly on DOA and elsewhere, sometimes out of curiosity for a tune or two, sometimes just to hear if some gimp's boasting about his legendary tightness in the mix is true. Enough myspaz heads point me towards their own mixes too.

Super-tight beatmatching has been perfected by newer generations of DJs, (especially the Yankees - and especially the ones playing the techy/neuro styles). The fact that the Rider and many in his generation never managed to master it is old news.

How exactly would you know since you never ever download, and almost never listen to mixes? :P

While I could say that you never go to clubs, dance or even DJ in front of live humans..?

I do it about as often as you old chap (ie not often). I do however also download a shitload of mixes on a daily basis.

In fact, I preview mixes irregularly on DOA and elsewhere, sometimes out of curiosity for a tune or two, sometimes just to hear if some gimp's boasting about his legendary tightness in the mix is true. Enough myspaz heads point me towards their own mixes too.

Super-tight beatmatching has been perfected by newer generations of DJs, (especially the Yankees - and especially the ones playing the techy/neuro styles). The fact that the Rider and many in his generation never managed to master it is old news.

You'll get far more milage with the claim that 'beatmatching has ruined D+B' than with 'beatmatching is the bane of electronic music', if thats what this argument boils down to - you could however make the point that it was LACK of beatmatching skill on the part of the DJs and producers that caused the dumbing down of the genre... still comes down to crap DJs and not the process itself.

As for tight D+B mixes. Sure, you do get them, but in many ways I dont even consider that mixing as the tunes are all nearly exactly the same tempo/texture/structure anyway... its barely mixing if you only play one tune repeatedly. It takes more skill to put together 2 tunes from 93 than it does to mix a thousand D+B tunes from today. 'Tightness' in a mix is relative to the tunes youre playing - the best tunes are often the hardest to mix - as you well know.

Dubstep + beatmatching shows a huge amount of potential to embrace other forms of music and other styles of DJng, as long as the right balance is there.

Anyway. This is well overdue for a polemic on the blog.

you could however make the point that it was LACK of beatmatching skill on the part of the DJs and producers that caused the dumbing down of the genre... still comes down to crap DJs and not the process itself.

Even the best dnb 12"s rarely sell/sold enough to sustain a production-only career, hence producers had to take up DJing for the money.

Thus the historical fact in dnb is this: the more producers took up DJing - and had to get to grips with the only acceptable approach to playing tunes i.e. 'seamless' beatmatching - the more of them adopted the conservative 2-step rhythmic palette... and the more they changed their own productions to fit the now-standard intro of 1.5 mins->drop/outro etc. template. Shy FX and BLIM are just two certified examples of this unfortunate phenomenon that I've often cited.

The knock-on effects of this process set up everything that dnb music later became: ask any newer dnb producers and they'll inevitably tell you - any time they make a tune that doesn't make beatmatching easy on the DJ, it rarely gets drawn and thus rarely gets heard.

So, you can either wait for all Djs to become great (never gonna happen) or you can throw a spanner in the works and question just how much use this industry-standard approach to DJing really is any more. I mean, without mass E usage and trance-dancing, what's it for exactly anyway?

As for tight D+B mixes. Sure, you do get them, but in many ways I dont even consider that mixing as the tunes are all nearly exactly the same tempo/texture/structure anyway... its barely mixing if you only play one tune repeatedly. It takes more skill to put together 2 tunes from 93 than it does to mix a thousand D+B tunes from today. 'Tightness' in a mix is relative to the tunes youre playing - the best tunes are often the hardest to mix - as you well know.

Sure old skool tunes are usually harder to mix. I just don't really get why that should be relevant to the people on the dancefloor? Why should they care how many times a DJ had to practice a certain beatmatch in order to pull it off? The only thing that matters in that context is the impact it has on them in the there-and-now.

As I've said, I have nothing against tight beatmatching per se. I just think it's (a) over-rated compared to the ability to rock a crowd (and one certainly does not guarantee the other) and (b) somewhat unjustified as the continued be-all and end-all of mixing... certainly in dnb.

Even the best dnb 12"s rarely sell/sold enough to sustain a production-only career, hence producers had to take up DJing for the money.

Thus the historical fact in dnb is this: the more producers took up DJing - and had to get to grips with the only acceptable approach to playing tunes i.e. 'seamless' beatmatching - the more of them adopted the conservative 2-step rhythmic palette... and the more they changed their own productions to fit the now-standard intro of 1.5 mins->drop/outro etc. template. Shy FX and BLIM are just two certified examples of this unfortunate phenomenon that I've often cited.

And theres many others as well. You could point to the lack of imagination, will, or capability to play a LIVE set as a major contributor to this as well. A far more pervasive 'bane' of electronic music...

As I've said, I have nothing against tight beatmatching per se. I just think it's (a) over-rated compared to the ability to rock a crowd (and one certainly does not guarantee the other) and (b) somewhat unjustified as the continued be-all and end-all of mixing... certainly in dnb.

Im with that. And despite the impression (or inference) that I may think tightness is the 'be all and end all', thats not the case. I view at as something that should (in most cases) be invisible. People take it for granted that an actor in a play wont have to ask for a line ever two minutes, and thats how I view the technical aspects of DJng - basic tools that a DJ has to know before than can go on to create a performance.

Beatmatching isnt the end of mixing - its the beginning.

if producers learning beatmatching was really a major pitfall hopefully ableton and other "live" producer-y things could help balance everything out.. though the problem could well be too ingrained I guess. and it seems to me at the moment like laptop sets actually increase peoples capacity for laziness rather than anything else.

I wonder why BLIM started making rubbish nu skool breaks..

Beatmatching isnt the end of mixing - its the beginning.

It was the beginning. We're 30 years down the line now, and beatmatching has - in dnb's case at least - become the end of mixing too.

So, you can either wait for all Djs to become great (never gonna happen) or you can throw a spanner in the works and question just how much use this industry-standard approach to DJing really is any more.

I mean, without mass E usage and trance-dancing, what's it for exactly anyway?

if producers learning beatmatching was really a major pitfall hopefully ableton and other "live" producer-y things could help balance everything out.. though the problem could well be too ingrained I guess. and it seems to me at the moment like laptop sets actually increase peoples capacity for laziness rather than anything else.

I think we need to see some kinda wii/thermin type technology evolve so that a 'DJ' is physically performing in new and innovative ways (would have to be accessible to the raw amateur obviously) before 'DJing' can impact to any degree - culturally - again.

Hiphop battle DJing is so specialised now it's kinda locked off as an exhibition sport, while the music industry's promotion of superclub culture in the late 90s pretty much killed the vitality of the trance-dance as an arena for the DJ to function in.

it's the Lowest Common Denominator thing again, beathmatching isnt the problem, laziness and unwillingness to work at a mix is...

thank you!

So, you can either wait for all Djs to become great (never gonna happen) or you can throw a spanner in the works and question just how much use this industry-standard approach to DJing really is any more.

Or you could accept that 90% of everything is crap anyway and just try and enjoy, encourage and contribute to the 10% thats good...

I enjoy beatmatching still.. I'm certainly not really thinking about that side of things too much when I'm actually doing it though. Kind of happens automatically while I think about other aspects of the set. I agree with droid on that - it's like learning scales when you're starting an instrument. You won't be focusing on them when you're playing but a knowledge of theory and how the whole thing works is invaluable