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THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL DJING follow suit and make their programs compatible with Scratch Live.
This could see the roles of DJ and producer combine in a way never
The ability to set cue points, loop and manipulate samples with seen before.
digital DJing tools is already changing the way DJs play their sets.
But according to Zach and Chad at Rane, this is just the start. The Given the enormous range of possibilities offered by digital DJ tools,
software can also handle video files, allowing DJs to cut and blend not to mention the convenience they offer, it seems inevitable that
video as if it was music. they will grow more and more central to modern DJing. According
to Fu, it’s only a matter of time before digital DJing gets integrated
“People are doing some very cool things with their video mixes,” into club systems. He envisages clubs with computers permanently
says Chad. “You can blend the two together, cut back and forth. installed, where DJs simply turn up to gigs with their tracks on a
Every trick you would pull with audio, you can do to the video. It’s memory stick.
another way to customise your performance and push the artistic
boundaries.” But what does this mean for the humble vinyl, which has been a
mainstay of the drum & bass scene ever since the birth of dance music
Though scratching with videos is pretty rare in drum & bass, Chad in the late 1980s? According to Zach, the medium will live on.
says that “in genres like hip hop, it’s huge.” Tools such as Scratch Live
could help bring the new techniques to the D&B scene, encouraging “I don’t think vinyl will ever die. There will always be the die-hard
DJs to explore visual performances as well as musical ones. collectors and people who prefer using it,” he says. “That said, I
think going digital is great for the producer and the DJ. There isn’t as
Zach says that the possibilities offered by digital DJing tools will evolve much of a need for record labels to act as the middle man just to get
to change the very nature of DJing: “The possibilities are endless. I music out there. Producers can take care of that aspect of things fairly
foresee the DJ, video programmer and producer combining into easily as long as they’re making sellable tracks. This puts the money
one to make the ultimate performer.” directly into the producers’ pockets and also brings down the overall
price for the buyer. Record labels still provide a good service, but a
He cites a collaboration between the Serato team and the makers of money-motivated producer no longer needs to rely on labels to get
production software Ableton Live as a “huge” development. If the their stuff distributed. The internet is a beautiful thing.”
project is a success, it is likely that other software manufacturers will
www.kmag.co.uk
K72-73_DigitalDJ.indd 73 29/4/09 13:27:55
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