[HN Gopher] The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)
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The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)
Author : easyThrowaway
Score : 51 points
Date : 2025-03-28 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (it.ra.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (it.ra.co)
| nosmokewhereiam wrote:
| Well written, tech heavy, and one of the best writeups I've seen
| on ripping vinyl to USB high speed SD cards.
|
| * And those were mentioned almost in passing, entirely not the
| point of the article, but so great to see!
|
| I want to also tell the world about Techno-club.net. There's a
| ton of UR-related artists still making true-spirit techno.
| Fantastic selektors!
| eminence32 wrote:
| A few months on Hacker News there was a post about Mixxx[1], an
| open-source DJ software. It prompted me to download it and play
| around. It's very cool. Despite being a complete novice, I
| learned a few things after a dozen hours of playing around:
|
| * I don't have a physical controller, but I can understand why
| people always use them. Keyboard and mouse are not fully
| sufficient.
|
| * The built-in key and beat detection is really quite good for
| house music, and it gets you most of the way there in terms of
| managing song transitions (but not all the way there)
|
| * A side effect of consuming 99% of all of my music from youtube
| and spotify means I have no local library to feed into Mixxx (I
| ended up yt-dlp'ing a bunch of stuff)
|
| * There is a true art in song selection, and I don't possess this
| skill.
|
| [1] https://mixxx.org/
| comprev wrote:
| Your last point is the most important skill a DJ needs to
| learn. Song selection is everything.
| ErneX wrote:
| I could not get it to work, there was a dialog window popping
| up that I couldn't click to dismiss. Tried many times and went
| back to Serato.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I'm playing with the djay app which can source from Apple
| Music..
| dylan604 wrote:
| Song selection comes from hours of listening to music in the
| style you will be playing. Eventually, you will hear a riff
| from one song and it will make you think of another song. Those
| will be interesting to mix together. You might hear one song
| with a bass line that you really like with a melody line that
| is on the lighter side. You might then come across a song with
| a strong melody, but a bass line that could be punched up.
| Combine the two with some appropriate EQing, and make your own
| mix. After mixing for awhile, you will learn to listen in a
| different way than just someone listening to music.
|
| Using a tool to beat match has always been considered
| "cheating", but it is obvious why it is a tool. Beat matching
| is probably the most technically challenging aspect.
| Eventually, you'll even get a feel for songs that are close in
| tempo--most music in a genre will be pretty close by default.
| Learning to ride this bike with training wheels is just an
| option I did not have. Being able to manually adjust the
| pitch/tempo (depending on equipment) without the auto tools
| becomes quite satisfying.
|
| Some DJs talk about knowing what key a song is in, and if it
| will mix into another song. If you then have to adjust the
| pitch for beat matching, how does that affect the key of the
| song and how it now mixes? I've never claimed to do this, but
| after playing in school band I can at least hear the wahwahwah
| from something being out of tune (or was that the nitrous??).
| Maybe if you're mixing some prog-trance with sustained chords
| you might hear that, but I'd suggest finding a different place
| in the track to be mixing.
|
| The physical controller is precisely why I love vinyl.
| jrowen wrote:
| _Using a tool to beat match has always been considered
| "cheating", but it is obvious why it is a tool._
|
| I guess in the same way that using a higher-level language
| than Assembly is "cheating." I'm not sure if you're referring
| specifically to the Sync feature (which is still largely
| frowned upon) or more generally analyzed beatgrids, BPM
| readouts and Master Tempo (which keeps the pitch in tune when
| you change the tempo), but the vast majority of practicing
| DJs today are not needing/using the old school vinyl
| beatmatching techniques.
|
| Call it whatever you want but you're going to be incredibly
| hard-pressed to find anyone that can mix as smoothly on vinyl
| as someone decent with CDJs. Sure it's a cool dying art and
| analog and all that but at this point virtually anyone trying
| to play vinyl out is sacrificing the listener's experience
| for cool points (including the physical issues with
| reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic
| environment).
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Call it whatever you want but you're going to be
| incredibly hard-pressed to find anyone that can mix as
| smoothly on vinyl as someone decent with CDJs. Sure it's a
| cool dying art and analog and all that but at this point
| virtually anyone trying to play vinyl out is sacrificing
| the listening experience for cool points
|
| That's a sad commentary on today's DJs then. Yes, there
| were some very bad vinyl DJs that loved the shoes in the
| dryer mixes and could not advance past that. They love the
| "beatmatch" magic. Doesn't mean that those that could are
| less of a DJ which is what you're trying to say?
|
| My perfect setup would be vinyl controllers of a digital
| player which is very much a thing. Of course, hearing a DJ
| mix vinyl that is older with all of the snap crackle pops
| of a burning log is not pleasant, but that does not
| diminish the vinyl as a controller being superior to a tiny
| plastic spin wheel on a digital controller.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| I agree that the beat sync tools feel like cheating for
| the old school DJs, but the newer generation are using it
| to get more creative.
|
| Without spending half the time beat matching, they now
| have time to interact with the tracks more - play with
| stems, loops, filters, fx, scratching etc.
|
| It's becoming more of a live performance
| dylan604 wrote:
| Becoming?
|
| May I introduce you to the DMC World Championships
|
| https://www.dmcdjchamps.com/
|
| edit: Also, I take offense to the insinuation that "old
| skool" DJs are not using new things to be more
| "creative". Old skool DJs are not old dawgs that can't
| learn new tricks.
| jrowen wrote:
| _That 's a sad commentary on today's DJs then._
|
| Not really, you just have a lot more information and
| tools at your disposal. It's going to be a better
| performance. In no other area of endeavor is anyone
| expected to limit themselves to decades-old technology,
| that would just be madness.
|
| _but that does not diminish the vinyl as a controller
| being superior to a tiny plastic spin wheel on a digital
| controller._
|
| How is it superior? We've just covered so many ways it's
| inferior. I have a number of friends that are really into
| vinyl, I've never cared much for it, there's no argument
| other than this kind of nostalgic fetish (which I'm not
| saying is for nothing, but I usually just want to use
| whatever technology I can to create the best experience
| for the listener).
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Ha fun to see this on HN! Love the approach she outlined here,
| though I've tried doing similarly but don't have the time or
| incentive to invest in it just to play on my decks in my living
| room once a month haha.
| GEBBL wrote:
| Avalon Emerson is such a great dj and producer. I'd love to see
| them live sometime - I've a great set from 2017 of theirs on
| SoundCloud that's really eclectic. Love the style.
| djdeutschebahn wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I also saw her live djing in 2019, such a
| great and exceptional artist.
| aqme28 wrote:
| I've seen her three times now. One of my favorites. Was
| surprised to see her on the front page of HN of all places!
| inigoalonso wrote:
| I met her briefly in 2014 through common friends in Berlin, and
| then saw her live in some early (before midnight) session in a
| semi empty small club in Kreuzberg. Some other friend and I
| then tried our luck at Berghain. We didn't make it. The San
| Francisco group did. Fun times nonetheless.
| et-al wrote:
| Oh gosh reading this I thought we waited in line together.
|
| My experience, _from 2015_ , was that we left Vogelchen in
| Kreuzberg, went back to her spot where she played records for
| a bit, then at 5am folks decided to go to go to Berghain. She
| waited in line with the rest of us commoners.
| peterldowns wrote:
| Seen her twice at Making Time and once on her album tour in
| Philly, definitely go out of your way --- she does an amazing
| live show!
| gizajob wrote:
| The art of USB-Jing
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2019) English link: https://ra.co/features/3392
|
| Why them, when you could pick...
|
| Jeff Mills https://ra.co/features/3436
|
| Fabio https://ra.co/features/3631
|
| or even like Louie Vega https://ra.co/features/3338
| augzodia wrote:
| Do you have a problem with the linked article? As someone who
| djs occasionally I found it to be an insightful and technical
| look into Avalon's process, and left me with some ideas for my
| own workflow.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| I think Avalon's is most interesting from a pure technology
| perspective so suits here! They are all great though
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