Live Breathe Eat Sleep DJing

Djing from a laptop/ipod - boring? pointless? the future? Where do we stand on the march of new technology?

My point of view: they're all just tools. Give a builder a new, shiny, clever hammer - doesn't mean he's going to build you a better house. I think there's 3 types of DJing. There's Performace or Showcase DJing, where you go to see a technically gifted artist perform new works using decks and technology, there's Party DJing where you just play good tunes and there's Club DJing where you create an experience through music that moves you to the floor.

• Showcase DJing is all about creating something unique, so use whatever technology you can! But make it interesting and worth listening too and going to see. More like an artist performing, this is the show-style DJing you see from turntablists. Or the DJs who turn up with instruments and sequencers and perform new versions of their own productions, or cut up existing ones. I love watching this stuff, but I don't go clubbing to hear it. And I still think that computers will not replace hardware hear. I mean, you can generate the sound of a guitar in a computer and mess with it royally, but you don't see Foo Fighters rocking out on their laptops.


• Party DJing: it doesn't matter if you play off two tape recorders, just play good records. Get people dancing, get people singing, crying, reminiscing. Anyone can be a party DJ, and everyone should try. It's about having great taste in music, an anticipation for what people want, what the need, what they didn't even know they wanted. Read the crowd and atmosphere and lift the room. It's tough! So credit where it's due.


• Club DJing is about taking the party to the dancefloor and creating a symphony. People used to ask me what DJing was about, compared to playing an instrument. And I said that any good tune is made up of great notes and chord sequences. In DJing a great night is made up of great records and musical progressions. It's the same, just using records as the notes. To be a great club DJ use whatever tools you can rely on to get the best from your tunes, and to create passages and movements and an atmosphere. Right now it's CD and vinyl, and a decent mixer that allow a DJ to play records, add some effects, create a loop or two and do some sampling. Sure you can go further, but that just encourages people to apply too much to th records. Someone spent hours and hours making a record for the dancefloor, with similar technology. Let it develop. Sure, I advocate bringing in drum loops or sampled beats from another tune to add extra emphasis, or create new passages, but we've been doing this for years by beat juggling two records. It was a skill that was practised, learned an honed. Not everyone did it, so those who could were delicate and careful with how they applied the effects. Now you can do it with the touch of a button it's too easy and that's not a good thing. Stick to the basucs, learn to be sapring and avoid everything else - you'll end up polluting the music. You have to let the records breathe.

If it's Albeton Live people are using, well now people don't even have to mix! Some say that "frees you to be more creative", but I think that just makes it a studio tool for making mix albums! DJing live and mixing is half the reason DJing is so much fun. If you took the mixing away you might as well just go and dance and leve the computer to do it all for you. And you can bet that night would have no personality. Just because you can endlessly loop the same bar and overlay 10 effects doesn't mean you should.

And how much fun is it to DJ when you have to be careful not to spill your drink on the computer, or drop it, or make sure you are pressing the right keys? Everyone is going on about all of this stuff, but all the DJs I know still love to mix vinyl on a good pair of decks. It's exciting, it's sexy and it looks so amazing, it is something that not everyone can do, and that's what makes DJ alluring. Plus, I'm not so sure that people being able to turn up at a gig with every tune ever made is a good thing. It means that the DJ doesn't think about what to bring, doesn't learn his tunes, doesn't spend those crucial hours carefully selecting the cream of his record box. It means that a DJ has too many tunes that they know intimately, and too much choice. Have you ever made a sandwich with too many ingredients in it? LEss is more. I just urge DJs to stay creative and true to the music, embrace the technology, but not at the expense of the experience, whether that be playing the music or dancing to it. DJs are supposed to have fun too, put the mouse away, press the big green play button or drop the needle, touch your tunes, feel your tunes and rock the house.

Keep playing, keep creating - don't become a robot and lose the interaction.