The case for keeping it old school

0:00 Jonathan here, the DJ Tutor, aka Ellaskins

Alright, Jonathan here, the DJ Tutor, aka Ellaskins. So let's go back to the 80s. If you were very lucky, you had a couple of turntables. If you were really lucky, you would have had the Technics SL-1200s Mark IIs or the SL-1210 Mark IIs. The only difference, 1200s were silver, 1210s were black. Now, if you were very clever at what you did, you could mix in time, in phrase and in key. And you'd have to be very clever. Also, if you wanted to record your set, you would either do two 30-minute sets, two 45, or if you wanted to really tread carefully but not many people did, you would do an hour's set and record that. First of all, why? You would buy cassettes, you would record it onto a cassette and you'd buy a C60 which was 30 minutes either side of the cassette. So you do a 30 minute mix, give or take, you know more likely it was 29 minutes or so and you'd always be watching the cassette before it finished because you'd be thinking I need to just get them in, oh it's too late, snap, the cassette, the tape's finished and you're halfway through your last mix, never mind.

Doesn't really matter, that was the old school. 90 minutes is of course 45 minutes aside. Very rarely would you do a C120 which was an hour aside because more often than not, because of the tension and the length of the tape, those tapes would break. And the last thing you wanted is to put that tape into a cassette player only to find that it's just been chewed up and eaten. We used to record our mixes many, many moons ago. But also then when you did a mix and you were halfway through, you didn't really have the option to go, oh dear, it's wrong and just start it again and start recording again straight away. You'd have to rewind the tape and spend the next 10 years trying to master it again. And it was just a nightmare. But think about it.

2:20 This in depth

Anyone who was able to record a 45-minute mix was very clever. You had to be clever many, many years ago. But also, let's look at this in depth. Let's just pull apart what was going on. There were mistakes. There would have been slight clashes. There would have been parts in the mix where maybe the beat went off very slightly and got back in again. What it was, it was organic. It was real. Now when you made a mix on a cassette unless you were hyper rich and you did your mix in a studio on a huge big reel-to-reel where they're able to chop it up or you had some form of sample years ago that probably people could only dream about, you would have done the mix Full stop. Now, there wasn't any ifs or buts about it being done on a computer or a controller because A, there weren't really computers then and if there were they were very expensive, very bulky and probably couldn't even record, maybe, I don't know. But you weren't able to record anything and chop it up. There weren't any, well of course you're able to record, but there weren't any controllers.

There weren't any laptops with the squiggly lines to show you if you're in time. There was nothing saying that's 120 BPM and that's 120 BPM, mix them in because it's going to match. We didn't have any of that. All we had was our ears. But so where's this video going before I bore you to tears? It's about making your mix organic and real. Now this video is for beginners, intermediates. And for advanced DJs. Now, I would like you to ponder on what I'm about to explain. I'd like you to think about it. After this video, don't comment yet. Don't give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Just think about it. You've got two people. You've got DJ A and DJ B. They live wherever and they have kit. The one of them has a controller.

4:48 The other one has vinyl turntables

The other one has vinyl turntables. They have the same music, exactly the same tracks. The one on the controller hits sync and lets pretty much the controller do everything. And they mess around with the effects, whereas the one on the vinyl doesn't have sync, doesn't have a controller. But they still do the same mix. They bring the tracks in at the same time, they take the tracks out at the same time. Now, I am not saying that the DJ on the vinyl turntables will not be as good as the one on the controller because they've both got the same skill levels. But what I will say is that it is definite, beyond shadow of a doubt, that the DJ using the vinyl turntables, their mix will have a bit more soul to it. A good ear will be able to hear and go, do you know what?

That was not done on a controller with sync. Now, this video is about going backwards in time, not forwards, because today's technology has given the DJ the potential to do these seamless mixes within seconds of opening the box. Just become these club standard DJs where transitions are seamless, everything's in time, in phrase, the effects are there. But what a lot of people are missing now is the whole soul of a mix, what it used to be like. And also there is this, I don't know whether it's true or not... But this vibe, this chit-chat going around the web where people are now making mistakes to show that they're actually doing the job and not the controller. Now I believe in that. I think you should. I think if you're trying to get your mix as seamless as possible and if you are a perfectionist and you need 100%, I think you need to look at yourself. Have a look in the mirror right now. Go on. That's enough. Not too much.

7:14 Yourself and think, hold on, perfection

Your hair's out of place, go and have another look. No, I need you to look at yourself and think, hold on, perfection is not good enough because perfection is wrong. You have to go back to the old school and add some soul to it. Make it go slightly off beat a little bit but bring it back in. Make it so a vocals is just a little bit over another vocals. Make it so the baseline on one track is just a tiny bit on the baseline of the other, but then bring it out. So what you're doing, you're becoming less of a machine and more of a person when you do that mix. Because when management and club owners are looking for potential new DJs who work, they want to work in their nightclubs. They do not want to hear something anymore that is just this machine-made kind of fodder, because it is. They want to hear a mix that has energy and soul. It needs to have that footprint of I did it, me, not Serato Traktor or rekordbox or VirtualDJ. They don't want that. They want something with energy. Right, so...

9:41 DJ tutorial by Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

Eddie Amador, Lord Hear Our Prayer. Now, this is a good way of practicing first. To do something like this, you get the same track and you just slowly mix it in. Now, most of the time when you do a mix or some kind of transition, you're always waiting for the one, bring it in on the one and take it out on the one. Sometimes it's good to bring it in on the two, the three or the four, the five. So maybe redefine how you do your mix. Don't try and be a perfectionist. Try and be someone whose perfection is in their mind about the energy they're putting into their mix. Make perfection an organic perfection. Does that make sense? I hope so. Alright, so all I'm going to do now... DJ tutorial by Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor.

11:40 By default, in a way, they're very good at what they do

...even more offbeat and more and more while the transition goes on. That's a DJ who can't get it in beat. They don't understand what they need to do. On the other hand, have you thought about this? When there's a mix that's offbeat and you can hear it's offbeat but then it's snapped back into beat. That is not a DJ who cannot mix. That's a DJ who knows what's happening, has understood it's going off... And he snapped it back in beat. Now that to me is someone who knows and understands the whole concept of beatmatching, and they can hear it's off. So by default, in a way, they're very good at what they do. Alright, so, play that, let it play. I'm going to go maybe to the middle of the same track. Random play. Video isn't bad.

This is the new all seeing eye, this flat screen and we are concentrating too much on a flat screen. That's what we're doing. Wherever we go, we're looking at flat screens. We're forgetting about nature around us. You look at a tree. Is a tree flat? No. A tree points in all directions and is three-dimensional. But then if you have a close look at a tree, you can see branches. If you have a closer look, you can see smaller branches attached to those branches. And you can see even tinier ones, but do you know what? This time of the year in autumn when pretty much all the leaves have disappeared, you look at a tree and you look at the end. You look at the end of each branch and you will see tiny clusters of these green things. What are they? That's the new growth for next year. So why don't you have a look at yourself and what you've got inside of you because guess what? There is new growth that can come out on here.

On your system, on your kit and let that new growth be organic. Alright? Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.