I've used traktor live, for smaller parties, and it's fun. It's easy to use. It's not vinyl, but it's neat, it sometimes mixies things in ways you wouldn't expect things to go together as well. I have friends that use it a LOT more than me, and I have no qualms about folks using it. I think it's great to mix whatever mediums you can for a performance...mp3's, CDs, Vinyl, live gear, "traditional" electric and acoustic instruments, ADATs of sound captures, VCRs, homemade experimental insturments (WWWAAAAYYYY COOOOOL)whatever, as long as it fits in the context of the presentation, and helps convey the feelings the performers are trying to express. Fuck it, why not? DJ ego cuz it's not purely on vinyl?? Whatever, folks, it's all just tools to get the message out there. Make art out of science, not science out of art.
On a quick tangent, my muhfukka, dissonance let me check out this turtablist conference video, and it was absolutely dope watchin Q-bert and D-styles swappin eights of just "the fresh" and "the ahh" over some fat little electro groove, but at the same time, in explaining the history of turntablism, they were totally caught up in technical tricks, almost like finger and crossfader olympics, and although talked a little about notatating things, they seemed to not have too much theoretical knowledge about the rymic concepts and approaches they had to their note placement and phrasing in their performances, and it kinda irked me, like it was Important Art, and although they were breaking ground, without a doubt, they were also just using a lot of theoretical knowledge applied in new ways that has been around a long time, and has been applied elsewhere. I'd like to see more turntablists with "traditional" music education in their backgrounds as well, so that they get less lost in the instrument and techniques, and more into exactly what they are doing musically. Watchin those cats swappin eights was definately the highlight of the tape for me, as it should a real Jazz ethic of improv and call and response thru manipulating samples in a really artistic way, so I can see where some pride is taken in turntablism, but if you're just pulling together a program of music, and matching a couple beats, and maybe cutting the bass of one track, whille mixing and cutting the next one in, and maybe backspinning or braking out of the first one, I don't know what DJ's have to be incensed about, by folks using a digital medium and integrating it into a showcase of recorded music, and besides, if it's your own music to boot, fuck them, that's the shit right there. I have a few records out now, and I take no shame in dropping most of a set of just my own records, burns of tunes, and mp3's and working them in ways I hadn't before. If you're doing it with traktor, or interspersing things that aren't pressed, or you can't find, but still want to get out there, by all means go on with at least my blessings and hopefully others' as well.
Ape
Ape