What the "service providers" often overlook is that dj'ing is an entertainment art and whilst you can teach art technique you cant teach the bit that makes it art if you see what I mean. That comes from experience and intuitive inspiration
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What the "service providers" often overlook is that dj'ing is an entertainment art and whilst you can teach art technique you cant teach the bit that makes it art if you see what I mean. That comes from experience and intuitive inspiration
We've got cars that can drive themselves detecting obsticles in a way far in advance of what humans can and doing it effortlessly without tiring. If the same level of investment was put into making a DJ robot I'd be very surprised if it wasn't better at DJing than I am. Maybe it's uncomprehendable right now but even art can be created by machines more impressively and effecintly after all, the machine just needs to learn the variables of what makes art good and then repeat.
What will keep us going and thriving is the fact that people like people! Otherwise, bands would be long gone already.
What these companies don't tell you is that right now, those autonomous systems draw so much power (and cooling) to process all of the imagery in real time that they drop the vehicles efficiency from 45 mpg to 25mpg (or in the case of battery vehicles, they almost half the vehicles range!!) Not exactly effortless :D
This tech really isn't even close to being ready for mainstream use yet, we've got a couple of generations of sensor, code, microprocessor and battery development to go.
Take a listen to Kiss when they're doing one of their non-prime time "mix blocks" (Kisstory between 11am and mid-day, 5 O'clock mix block, early evening on Fridays/Saturdays and on Bank Holidays). These are now machine mixed and I'd be embarrassed if I played some of them out on an evening, some of the transitions are beat matched, but a complete mess and horrible to listen to! Totally automatic computer based music selection/mixing still has a LONG way to go.
Yup, time to sharpen up those Mic skills :D
Julian
And a source for that?
I can assure you that Kisstory isn't mixed automatically by a computer. Pre-mixed yes, but by a human.
Whilst you may find it predictable, it's proven time and time again that this works.
Oddly, the smaller the playlist (ie, the quicker the same songs come round), the longer people listen to the station on average...
Oddly, when I got out of bar & club DJing I was tired of being asked to play the same tunes by the same people at about the same time every week. Some people are already brain dead IMHO. Yes, I'd really be so cruel.
I like variety & prefer crowds who crave something less predictable. If they want 'generic playlist A' material I'd prefer it if they book someone else.
Whenever I get a request that I've got cued up ready to play (which happens with almost frightening regularity) I often wonder if it's because I've got so good at reading the crowd or if I've inadvertently become just another cliched DJ.
If the majority of customers really want the ssme old tired crap every time I may as well quit!
That's not inherently true - my wife's work ball had a DJ who played nothing but what I like to call low hanging fruit. The dancefloor was absolutely packed but there was no spontaneity, the set was bland and any "floor fillers" Spotify or Youtube playlist on shuffle would have covered probably everything he played, but - as I said, the dancefloor was packed so technically, even though a monkey with an ipad could have produced a similar result (the guy did next to no talking or interacting with the audience) he did a great job without any hint of passion or above average musical knowledge.
As an aside, when not being a superstar DJ, I literally am a teacher and to an extent it and DJing and anything else can be taught however what you can't teach is experience and gumption which, to my mind, is what differentiates the excellent teachers (and DJs) from those that do a decent job but aren't exceptional.
Just my 2 bob.