Thursday, October 22, 2015

What's Fake Anymore?

While I was greatly enjoying the DJ Zedd (D) concert last weekend in Tampa, it occurred to me that his entire show was prerecorded and he was just standing up there, raising his arms, jumping around, sometimes twisting a few knobs.  And we all stood there enjoying it immensely .  You knew that it was prerecorded because songs moved flawlessly from one to the next with his incredible graphics package moving flawlessly right along with it.  And while the spots and lasers were likely operated from the lighting booth, the music and video had to be just a matter of pressing PLAY.  But no one cared. Many DJ's nowadays bring their entire show on a laptop or thumb drive!  


What is acceptable today is a far cry though from what used to be acceptable.  If you were around in the late 80's, you'll remember duo Milli Vanilli (D) and the scandal that broke out when the public found out that the two individuals Rob & Fab we saw on their videos were just lip-synching and really weren't the voices we heard singing!  It even led to a Grammy award being withdrawn. I don't think anyone would care today.  Enjoy #1 hit, "Girl You Know It's True".

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know a Mannequins DJ who did that!! no names will be told.

Mike Peek said...

The problem is that it doesn't take any talent to be a musician anymore. Any idiot who can use a computer program knows that beats are all synced to a time signature/metronome and that it's easy to make a melody. To be fair, some rhythms take a bit of creativity to be original, but so much of this EDM stuff is just recycled melodies.

It makes it hard to be a musician these days. I'm just glad that I, with my band, can still fill a dance floor playing live music and can actually interact with the crowd to determine what to play next or how to play a certain song to best fit our audience.

Anonymous said...

Eh, I'll just point out that ALL Mannequins DJ's mixed live...

MANY of them would put a pre-mix cd on early in the night, but when it was busy EVERY DJ would mix songs live. Including those using the computer programs to do the mix, it was still them beat matching.

That pretty much goes for EVERY DJ on the island, granted, they would use a playlist, and sometimes repeat songs in the same order... but, there was plenty of live mixing going on. Take some of the BET DJ's, all live mixing, all night, and very damn good / fast mixes too.



Anonymous said...

OH no I saw this DJ in mannequins out of the DJ booth as the music was changing! in the mid to late night.

even when they did MIX LIVE they would play the ones they know how to mix

Anonymous said...

Unless you were actually standing there in the booth at Mannequins watching this happen, you can't really speak to what was going on.

It could have been any number of things such as a mix CD to cover for a quick bathroom break, an Ultimix or X-Mix medley, etc..

Anonymous said...

Or, one of the nightly light show/dancers mix.

Anonymous said...

Oh come on I know how the songs go look up few times no DJ in booth! See DJ at bar chatting yeah no cd mix

Anonymous said...

Yes, probably an Ultimix or X-mix. I used them all the time for a quick break (bathroom or to BS with someone) DJ's need a break too!

KingBob said...

Thanks for the discussion, folks. PI closed 7 years ago and in that short time the technology has changed. While DJ's working off laptops was in early stages then, I never saw any laptop use in any of the PI clubs. Certainly no thumb drive / memory stick use. I doubt any of the boards in PI clubs had a port for a thumb drive. The only capability for pre-mixing would have been with a pre-recorded CD. And yeah, there would have been some of that. But from what I witnessed, almost all live mixing in those booths!