5 ms·

The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)

92 points by easyThrowaway 2y ago

nosmokewhereiam 2y ago
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!
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
eminence32 2y ago
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/ https://mixxx.org/
- ErneX 2y ago
  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.
- comprev 2y ago
  Your last point is the most important skill a DJ needs to learn. Song selection is everything.
- browningstreet 2y ago
  I'm playing with the djay app which can source from Apple Music..
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dylan604 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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).
- nisa 2y ago
  > I don't have a physical controller There are a lot of really cheap USB based controllers on the second hand market - I've got an old Vestax USB 1.1 based controller that was state of the art in 2007 and was used by some famous DJs back in the day for 50€ and it's working perfectly fine - it's only midi - you can dump the hex values using midi tools in Linux when you turn the nobs. Surprisingly for me latency and interactivity are no problem. Eq'ing, pitch, jogwheel feels like analog. However I'm not a professional but I didn't recognize any noticable delay. You can even scratch using the jog. I'm sure there is a reason for the price difference to modern hardware but from a haptics and sound perspective it's perfectly fine. Mixxx is doing all the hard work. Mixxx has a really long list of supported devices: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility You probably need another soundcard for headphones, there also exist lots of cheap old USB soundcards for that - there are also controllers with an audio interface like Vestax VCI-300. Then it's up to you to practice. I'm also struggling to get better but it's really all you need to DJ. I'm also yt-dlp'ing my collection which feels strange but is budget friendly :) I've used to DJ as a hobbyist using vinyl ages ago and I'm not missing anything. You can ignore the sync button, hide the bpm on the screen and mix only using your ears like you'd do with vinyl only. Matching the beat using pitch fader and gently pushing the jogwheel is very similar to like you'd do it with the platter on a turntable. Of course it's not the same but for me it's close enough. Maybe don't tell your vinyl snob friends or other fundamentalists but it's lots of fun for little money.
tomduncalf 2y ago
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.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
GEBBL 2y ago
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.
- peterldowns 2y ago
  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!
- djdeutschebahn 2y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I also saw her live djing in 2019, such a great and exceptional artist.
- aqme28 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    Oh gosh reading this I thought we waited in line together. My experience, from 2015, was that we left Vögelchen 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.
- username4567 2y ago
  I got to see her play in SF in January. So much fun. I'd love to experience one of her longer sets.
gizajob 2y ago
The art of USB-Jing
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
(2019) English link: https://ra.co/features/3392 https://ra.co/features/3392 Why them, when you could pick... Jeff Mills https://ra.co/features/3436 https://ra.co/features/3436 Fabio https://ra.co/features/3631 https://ra.co/features/3631 or even like Louie Vega https://ra.co/features/3338 https://ra.co/features/3338
- augzodia 2y ago
  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 2y ago
  I think Avalon’s is most interesting from a pure technology perspective so suits here! They are all great though
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
brcmthrowaway 2y ago
I always get cinfused between Avalon Emerson and Aurora Halal
curtisszmania 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

92 points by easyThrowaway 2y ago

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!

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eminence32 2y ago

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/ https://mixxx.org/

ErneX 2y ago
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.
comprev 2y ago
Your last point is the most important skill a DJ needs to learn. Song selection is everything.
browningstreet 2y ago
I'm playing with the djay app which can source from Apple Music..
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dylan604 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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).
nisa 2y ago
> I don't have a physical controller There are a lot of really cheap USB based controllers on the second hand market - I've got an old Vestax USB 1.1 based controller that was state of the art in 2007 and was used by some famous DJs back in the day for 50€ and it's working perfectly fine - it's only midi - you can dump the hex values using midi tools in Linux when you turn the nobs. Surprisingly for me latency and interactivity are no problem. Eq'ing, pitch, jogwheel feels like analog. However I'm not a professional but I didn't recognize any noticable delay. You can even scratch using the jog. I'm sure there is a reason for the price difference to modern hardware but from a haptics and sound perspective it's perfectly fine. Mixxx is doing all the hard work. Mixxx has a really long list of supported devices: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility You probably need another soundcard for headphones, there also exist lots of cheap old USB soundcards for that - there are also controllers with an audio interface like Vestax VCI-300. Then it's up to you to practice. I'm also struggling to get better but it's really all you need to DJ. I'm also yt-dlp'ing my collection which feels strange but is budget friendly :) I've used to DJ as a hobbyist using vinyl ages ago and I'm not missing anything. You can ignore the sync button, hide the bpm on the screen and mix only using your ears like you'd do with vinyl only. Matching the beat using pitch fader and gently pushing the jogwheel is very similar to like you'd do it with the platter on a turntable. Of course it's not the same but for me it's close enough. Maybe don't tell your vinyl snob friends or other fundamentalists but it's lots of fun for little money.

tomduncalf 2y ago

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.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

GEBBL 2y ago

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.

peterldowns 2y ago
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!
djdeutschebahn 2y ago
Couldn't agree more. I also saw her live djing in 2019, such a great and exceptional artist.
aqme28 2y ago
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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  Oh gosh reading this I thought we waited in line together. My experience, from 2015, was that we left Vögelchen 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.
username4567 2y ago
I got to see her play in SF in January. So much fun. I'd love to experience one of her longer sets.

gizajob 2y ago

The art of USB-Jing

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

(2019) English link: https://ra.co/features/3392 https://ra.co/features/3392 Why them, when you could pick... Jeff Mills https://ra.co/features/3436 https://ra.co/features/3436 Fabio https://ra.co/features/3631 https://ra.co/features/3631 or even like Louie Vega https://ra.co/features/3338 https://ra.co/features/3338

augzodia 2y ago
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 2y ago
I think Avalon’s is most interesting from a pure technology perspective so suits here! They are all great though

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

brcmthrowaway 2y ago

I always get cinfused between Avalon Emerson and Aurora Halal

curtisszmania 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]