The iPod DJ
12.14.06 - 02:37pm
The dance scene used to have DJ’s mixing songs with vinyl and lugging in milk crates filled with records for the nights event. This is fast become a style of the old. The new is taking your equipment in your backpack, on your bicycle - all stuffed into a laptop loaded with MP3’s.
Music is now being mixed via iPods, MP3 players, laptops and with new equipment such as MusicJam. Even hardcore vinylists
such as “DJ Bonus” and Arevalo and Hermilo “Herm” Guzman are switching over. “It’s the next step,” Guzman says, “Certain music programs for computers let you do virtually the same thing as turntables except using digital music.”
Not everyone is sold on the new way of mixing saying that their is no skill and no practice required for DJ’s anymore. Also one used to have to make a commitment spending 1000’s of dollars on records to create a library, this seemed to wipe out all but the ones with a true love for the music. Now as DJ Sugarman, says “”You can take your laptop you use for school, download a program, and you’re a DJ.”
This can be true, as one club in Arizona the “Congress” has a night specifically for new DJ’s called optimist club that allows players to mix music straight from their iPod. Although the term “iPod DJ” has a negative connotation among DJ’s , Billy “Captain Crunk” Laing, 27, said, “A night like Optimist Club can also lower expectations and pressure for those playing music.”
While digital ways of mixing music is on the rise many club owners still prefer to hire DJ’s who mix vinyl. Sandro Gutierrez who manages and books DJs at a club called Heart Five agrees saying, “I personally just think the sound quality is better,” she said. “I think it’s just more exciting.”
Most people agree however that while your laptop can mix your songs for you, it still takes the talent behind it to really rule an audience. “You kind of have to be able to rock the party,” says Billy “Captain Crunk” Laing, adding that solid DJs bring solid sets.
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