Okay, so i've been thinking about this alot recently.
So, what's a DJ, and what's dance music?
A DJ is a guy that mixes songs in order, right?
I'm thinking that that is no longer necessarily the case.
With the new software coming out, sure, you can still do that. In fact, you can do it even easier than you can with using vinyl. But why should you when you can seriously advance dance music forward.
I'm just going to talk about trance, because that's what I know.
A typical trance record is about 6-9 minutes long. It has an intro, breakdown, melody, breakdown, outro... or something like that.
Why? Is that the ideal way to construct dance music? Or the right way to play a set, repeating the same structure over and over and over again? Of course not.
The reason why has to do with economics. You have to sell music on pieces of plastic. Vinyl only has the ability to play one 'track' at a time. Playing more than 2 records at a time is an unusual skill and playing more than 3 is damn near impossible for most djs.
So 'dance music' as sold now is largely designed to be 'complete' -- a full song in length, but also in uh... depth, i guess is the word i want to use-- it has all the parts needed for a full musical experience, from percussion to vocals to melodies. Only the intro's and outros are intentionally designed to be 'mixed'.
Fast Laptops and new software allow you to change all that.
Just as an example--- If you're playing trance, why should every record have a different bass kick? Say you have one that you really like and you just want to ride it out for 30 or 40 minutes... You can't really do that with vinyl. You can play around with EQ's but really, there's only so much you can do.
If all of your tracks are broken down into components and loops though, you can do that with software easily. Throw on a drum loop, add an acid line, add a melody... you can do everything in real time... with software synths and midi keyboards you can do even more.
And if you network a few laptops together, you can 'tagteam' with a few other guys and really do some elaborate stuff...
I think it's going to start with people just copying their records to their laptops and gradually adding their own new productions and sharing loops with other guys doing the same thing, but eventually, DJs and producers are going to see a market for it and start selling cds full of loops and synth patches so you can really deconstruct and rebuild their songs.
Does anyone else see things going the same way?
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Originally Posted by Catalyst
