D&S

My goodness, it is amazing to see that people are still posting the same rants against digital that I was reading 10 years ago. The fact is that if you practice an art that people value, they will pay to see you; if people don't value your particular skills and craft they won't pay to see you. I think all the anger (and yes, my friend, you do sound very angry and bitter) is really more about the listeners who don't distinguish one form of the art from another.

If you want to "own" the title DJ, because you spin the round things and therefore are, in fact, a DISC jockey: fine. Everyone else is a selector. But you must be aware that in the world at large, where people go out to drink and dance and flirt while music plays, they are still going to say "DJ" even if the music is coming from a computer, because for the most part, they don't really have a dog in your fight. If you want to get THEM and the venue-owners who want them for customers to stop calling digital selectors "DJs" I think you are in for a long and useless fight.

You used the metaphor of the woodworker and the skills and quality of the one who "deserves" to be called a craftsman. It's a good analogy. And those woodworking craftsmen still exist and they sell their work to a discerning group of people who appreciate it enough to pay what it is worth. But 90% of people are buying their furniture from IKEA or some outlet that sells factory made stuff, because they just want a chair, dresser and bed at an affordable price, and don't look for or care about artistic expression and fine craft.

In the end, I think it's your commercial survival that is at issue here -- and no one could possibly blame you for being concerned that venues would hire "punks with laptops who just hit a sync button" to provide music, rather than pay top dollar for an experienced craftsman who works with vinyl ... but if the patrons of the venue don't actually *care* about the difference, then that's what is going to happen a lot of the time. And you have a right to be concerned about that, and your concern could properly take the form of educating people. Unfortunately, a rant is less educational than you might suppose ... and there are probably not that many venue-owners on the forum to read it anyway.

I'm not your competition, BTW -- I've never played in a club and have no desire to ever do so. I've been making "personal radio" mixtapes since the 60s mostly because I don't appreciate commercial radio. If it weren't for the internet and the music-streaming platforms that have come into being over the past 10 years, we would never have encountered one another, because I'm not on your turf. Digital DJs who are your competition can mount their own defense of their work (why not send Richie Hawtin a link to this forum and see what he has to say in his own defense? That should be interesting.) I'm only replying to you because this is an old old rant, and unless everyone throws away the computer tomorrow and vinyl production ramps back up to the levels of the 70s and 80s, I'd say the argument is really over by now: The market has room for more than just a vinyl DJ.

One last thing: MixMeister is a great tool, but there's no way it makes a mix on its own with the single push of a button. There's work required, and while it may not be the kind of work you do, it is by no means "automatic". If there are people who try to use it that way at a paying job, I'm pretty sure they would never get invited back for a second show.

Peace, brother

MmeFLY