Fynn's House and Audio Tech Notes

Whether you are a fan of Deadmau5 or not, his success and high profile mean that people to tend to take notice when he says something, particularly if that something may be seen as courting a bit of controversy.

Deadmau5’s recent comment in his united we fail blog post regarding big name EDM djs and producers not really doing much more than hitting play for their live sets led to a flurry of opinions on Twitter, followed up with plenty of articles and blog posts. Here’s mine.

First and foremost, as I’ve said in a couple of previous blog posts (here and here) all I care about is the music; if all you do is press play, I’m not really going to complain, just keep the good tunes coming. As a solo EDM producer, my live sets in the past have been based on triggering pre-programmed clips in Ableton Live using a Livid Block controller, bringing pre-made kick loops, basslines etc. in and out. I did start to get a bit more sophisticated when I got my Machinedrum and then my Monomachine, but, for me at least, trying to program sounds in real-time just slowed the development of the set right down. I’d rather have more pre-made sounds and loops, and keep things moving along.

A lot of the comments on Deadmau5’s blog posts seem to be mixing up live sets and dj sets; I don’t think Deadmau5 was suggesting that djs turn up with a prerecorded 4 hour mix and hit play. However, I do disagree with his comment about beatmatching not being a skill. There is more to it than ‘counting to 4’, although it is a skill that most people can learn quite quickly with practice; take a look at this episode of Faking It (may be geographically restricted).

That being said, I have no problem with people just hitting the ‘sync’ button. I learned on vinyl, but those sync lights are always glowing on my X1. All the modern developments in technology simply change what the digital dj can do with their time; they can remix tracks on the fly and start to blur the line between a live performance and a dj set.

All in all then, what difference does Deadmou5’s blog post make to the world of music? Probably none. While a bunch of people were arguing and debating his comments, they were mostly djs, producers, music magazines or blogs. Will his comments stop people going to his gigs or end the continuing penetrance of David Guetta into the pop charts? I doubt it.