Literally, for the past 6 months, I haven’t had much of a life. Don’t really go out… well…don’t really do anything apart from preparing for the battle season. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy because of boredom. Nevertheless, I have come near to the end of a long road. I’ve pretty much finished my set for DMC 2008! What’s a little different this time is that, instead of using retail vinyl, I first arranged the set in the computer using Pro Tools, and then practised the techniques and logistics using Serato Scratch Live. After all the fine tuning and mastering, I sent the sound files to the vinyl presser (the Carvery in London) and then booyah!

 

So yea, having learnt to do all the high tech computer things from scratch, I'm happy with the final product. I hope my set will be good this year. I am quite nervous though, but whatever happens, at least I tried.

 

You always hear people say this. But have you ever wondered what does it really mean? Are people saying this for a reason? I mean it can mean A LOT of things, such as: you play the right track (dj); use the right samples (producer/composer); have the right flow and voice (MCs)… etc, etc, etc. But what is right? I guess that is the beauty of music, there is no right or wrong. Whatever your relationship with music is, everybody has a different interpretation of “it’s all about the music”. I don’t really want to waste time talking about areas I know little about and sound like an idiot. So I’ll talk about turntablism explicitly, something I know a little more about.

 

I guess it’s fair to say not a lot of people understand it. In a way, I don’t blame them, because there are so few in Hong Kong and it’s not like you see them performing in public a lot. I think the misunderstanding here is that turntablism mainly focuses on the technical side, i.e. scratching and juggling. Partly true, but that’s not where it stops. To me, turntablism is all about the music, in the following aspects:

 

1. Scratching- To those who don’t scratch or just begun, this probably sounds like noise and gibberish. The concept is just a beat playing on one side and cutting/manipulating the sound on the other side. Doesn’t sound that sexy, does it? But how music (and music theory) applies here is rhythm. The most important thing is to develop a flow and scratch “vocabulary”, which is what all the practising is about. In due time, your understanding of rhythm improves, i.e. difference between off/on beat, single time, double time, triplet time, swing time, etc… All which are equally, if not more important for other arts such as rapping, drumming, beat production, etc. Then when you understand these different rhythms, that is when you can apply it to scratching and develop as a “musician”. Sounds easy, but far from that in reality. That’s why, to me, scratching is a love hate relationship.

 

2. Routine building/battling/juggle- Music in this sense is very different from scratching. In a nutshell, you choose your songs to juggle and apply various juggle/scratching techniques. So a natural assumption will be: stronger + faster = better. Again this is partly true, but misses the point. To build a good routine, you need a few things…

 

Structure- e.g. intro, climax and ending

Consistency in tune- e,g, scales, avoiding major and minor clash

Tempo- ensure single/double time is consistent with original bpm

Bar sense- typically multiplies of 4 bars for Hip Hop and most importantly

Song selection- whatever genre you use

 

These are just some of the considerations of how “all about the music” applies and how a turntablist’s style develops. I mean, that’s why you have a divide in styles that you see in the battle circuit nowadays… French go for the aggressive breakbeat style; Japanese go for the Reggae/DnB/Musical style; USA uses a lot of Hip Hop and disses. This is very broad and subjective, but it is the general trend nowadays nontheless.

 

So yea, if you have some thoughts or ideas to share, leave a message or something. Otherwise, don’t.

 

~M

wawawasup! here's a video of me doing some freestyle scratch using the QFO I bought a while ago. It's like a turntable and mixer in one... as in, there is a crossfader as well as a turntable for happy happy times! um... don't really know what else to say about the video really. The sound is shit, but you get the idea. So yer, that's all folks!

Recorded in one take:

A lot of people have an understandable misconception of what a DJ is/does. I thought I might explain my understanding of the ‘industry’. This is very general and a lot of people may disagree. Then again, no one is forcing you to read it.

In my opinion, there are 3 (really) broad categories of DJs:

1. “Dance music”, “Club”, “Mixtape” DJ

I guess this is probably the most popular conception of a DJ. This type plays in clubs, makes remixes and rocks parties. There can be many styles of music… House, Techno, Trance, DnB, Breakbeat, Breaks, Hip Hop, Funk, bla bla bla. Typically, these DJs are more technology based, i.e. they are very much into their DJ gadgets (like Serato, MP3, effects, video). The beauty of this is that nowadays, everyone can be a DJ. It’s really not hard to download some MP3 and burn it onto CDs and mix them in a club. All you have to do is press some buttons.

However, the thing that separates from shitty ones and the big dogs is the ear for music. By that I mean you play… the right songs at the right time… songs that the particular crowd enjoys…adventurous songs that are rare but good. The list goes on. In terms of practise, it’s all about getting your mixing tight (maybe a little turntablism).

In a way, this is the glitz and glamour of the DJ industry, the part where so-called ‘professional’ DJs make money. In Hong Kong, as you might guess, there are LOADS of club DJs. The ones that I heard that particularly made an impact are DJ Beware (World top 12 in 2001 and 2002) and DJ Tommy (World top 2 in 1996). Beware does a lot a blends that are used by top DJs in the world. Tommy’s club set sounds like a mixtape done live. Respect to both of them. In other countries, there are DJs like Tiesto, Ferry Corsten, and so forth, who mostly are labelled under “dance music” and got famous mainly to do with their production game.

2. Turntablists/ Scratch DJs

This is mainly using turntables as a musical instrument. Two things that people do are Scratch and Beat Juggle. Scratch is when you have 2 turntables and 1 mixer. One of the turntables you play the beat, the other you find a sound and you go back and forth. Beat Juggle is when you have 2 records (commonly two of the same records) and then do a live remix. In other words, if you have the same boom-bap in each record, you can end up with “boom boom bap boom bap boom bap”, by cutting between two records. After you can do both, then you compose your rountines and enter battles like DMC, Vestax Extravaganza, ITF, etc.

This is like the more “underground” part of DJing, where people supposedly keep it real and stick to the roots. What it really is, are sad nerds who stay at home all night just to practise that same scratch pattern. Practise wise, you spend A LOT more time than other types of DJs, scratching, juggling, mixing, etc. As a result, you don’t have a social life, and when your friends call you, you don’t pick up... eventually they give up.

There are loads and loads of awesome scratch DJs around the world. Some go onto club djing after battling and make a killing, some do showcases, some don’t even battle to begin with. Nevertheless for some strange reason, there is a stronger bond between all scratch djs, i.e. they always get along. I guess all scratch djs are working to a common goal and share common insecurities- learn more techniques while incorporating it with different songs/samples according to their own tastes, and hopefully one day you reach a level you are content with. It’s a much harder road to walk in my opinion. But in the end of the day I think self-achievement is always more fruitful than some stupid comment from clubbers with beer-vodka-cigarette-2am-stale breath. What is a DJ if you can’t scratch?

3. DJs who aren’t really DJs

Due to the nature of the DJ industry, it’s quite easy to get by as a “professional” DJ. I don’t really use the words “professional” DJs, because sometimes they are used to describe the following people:

People who don’t stop talking on the radio.

People who only knows how to use a CDJ

People who play “commercial” music and know nothing about other music

People who DJ, but are too high on cocaine so they don’t realise they suck

If you are one of the above, good luck. If you manage to persuade someone to pay you, just by dropping the new Usher track… job very well done!

To be fair, although I divide Djing into categories, sometimes things aren’t that clear. You have LOADS of scratch DJs who rock parties and at the same time you have “dance music” DJs who can scratch and juggle as well. It doesn’t matter if you spend all your time digging records or freestyle scratching all day every day, you advance in your own field and hopefully find a speciality or become all-round awesome.

that's all for now, I should try to post more videos up, but I can't be bothered

      

 

What's up! Here's a video of me playing the drums with one turntable and one mixer. The idea is that on the record I use two sounds: a kick and a snare (you can see by looking at the white sticker on the vinyl). The clicking noise is the crossfader which is an on-off switch. The purpose of this is to cut the sound into finer notes and eliminating unwanted record movement sounds.

The slower drums are basically different combos of transforms and forwards. Slow record hand movements and later adding a bit of crab makes the kick heavier and the snare crisper. When the speed picks up, these are the double time drum patterns. The first one I use transforms and swing flares. The next are forwards and swing flares.

There are mistakes at places and the clicking noise might be too loud. I don't care.

M