Can someone explain what EDM means?

[momatt]

"The only button you and people like you are interested in pushing is a nuke for the Palestinians."

I think he's confusing EDM DJs with being the Prime Minister of Israel.

We've all done it, to be fair.

[jobotic]

"The only button you and people like you are interested in pushing is a nuke for the Palestinians."

What an odd thing to say.

You'd think it would be the main (hot) take from what he said there, rather than the rat head fuck bit.

What is he on about? Is that Dead mouse fella Jewish? If so...

[Captain Z]

It's a bit of an incoherent ramble, Deadmau5 is nothing like he described. He was a nerdy kid with a PC who happened to be exceptionally good at the technical aspects of music production, and stumbled upon a particular pattern that suddenly everyone copied. Current EDM makes Deadmau5 sound like Jean Michelle Jarre, and while he greatly influenced the EDM explosion in the US I don't particularly hold anything against him.

[buzby]

I do wonder if the 'EDM' tag caught on over there as it has enough separation from the connections to music of black and hispanic origin that House and Techno have.

You'd think it would be the main (hot) take from what he said there, rather than the rat head fuck bit.

What is he on about? Is that Dead mouse fella Jewish? If so...

Joel Zimmerman (a.k.a. Deadmouse, not using his stupid name) says he isn't Jewish, but some Israeli media like The Jerusalem Post beg to differ.

Regardless of his ancestry, he's a chancer who puts out formulaic shite.

It's a bit of an incoherent ramble, Deadmau5 is nothing like he described. He was a nerdy kid with a PC who happened to be exceptionally good at the technical aspects of music production, and stumbled upon a particular pattern that suddenly everyone copied. Current EDM makes Deadmau5 sound like Jean Michelle Jarre, and while he greatly influenced the EDM explosion in the US I don't particularly hold anything against him.

Gerald's remarks were in response to an article where Zimmerman admitted that he and other 'EDM' artists basically just push buttons on PCs or iPods to play back MP3s of their tracks with a bit of beat matching at the gigs thay they get paid exhorbitant sums for. He just said he was better at it than anyone else.

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's a bit of an incoherent ramble, Deadmau5 is nothing like he described. He was a nerdy kid with a PC who happened to be exceptionally good at the technical aspects of music production, and stumbled upon a particular pattern that suddenly everyone copied. Current EDM makes Deadmau5 sound like Jean Michelle Jarre, and while he greatly influenced the EDM explosion in the US I don't particularly hold anything against him.

Yeah but Gerald made Voodoo Ray and Black Secret Technology so nerrr.

[momatt]

What an odd thing to say.

It's a bit of an incoherent ramble

What is he on about?

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD

Zimmerman admitted that he and other 'EDM' artists basically just push buttons on PCs or iPods to play back MP3s of their tracks with a bit of beat matching at the gigs thay they get paid exhorbitant sums for.

That's just the essence of DJing though isn't it.
They'e mostly over-paid and over-hyped jukeboxes.  Zimmerman is cool for being honest about it.
He's got a few good tunes too.

[buzby]

That's just the essence of DJing though isn't it.
They'e mostly over-paid and over-hyped jukeboxes.  Zimmerman is cool for being honest about it.
He's got a few good tunes too.

Are they are supposed to be musicians or DJs? Gerald takes his gear out with him for concerts and runs it live, that's the point he was making. Zimmerman's just taking the easy way out and getting a load of money for it.
Soulwax are very good at making this distinction - for live shows they are billed as Soulwax, with the full band (including 3 drummers) and nowadays a massive synth setup. When they are DJing they appear as 2ManyDJs.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Are they are supposed to be musicians or DJs? Gerald takes his gear out with him for concerts and runs it live, that's the point he was making. Zimmerman's just taking the easy way out and getting a load of money for it.
Soulwax are very good at making this distinction - for live shows they are billed as Soulwax, with the full band (including 3 drummers) and nowadays a massive synth setup. When they are DJing they appear as 2ManyDJs.

Well quite, Real music is played by real musicians on Real Instruments.

[ToneLa]

Well quite, Real music is played by real musicians on Real Instruments.

Damn right, Real8 is a good guitar synth!

[momatt]

Are they are supposed to be musicians or DJs? Gerald takes his gear out with him for concerts and runs it live, that's the point he was making. Zimmerman's just taking the easy way out and getting a load of money for it.
Soulwax are very good at making this distinction - for live shows they are billed as Soulwax, with the full band (including 3 drummers) and nowadays a massive synth setup. When they are DJing they appear as 2ManyDJs.

With electronic music in general it can be a bit of a blurred line though can't it.
Sometimes you get people who claim to be doing a live set, but they're actually just playing a DAT and twiddling knobs.
Then you get dudes like KiNK who do a totally live amazing improvised techno set, but also play vinyl records as part of that.

I'd rather see a good DJ set than a fake live show.
But it's not like one style is intrinsically better or more valid than the other.  As long as it's honest.
Though live is way more fun in my opinion, based on the few times I've done it.

[ToneLa]

Surely in the post analogue, reels of tape age ALL music is electronic?

/LeeMavers

[momatt]

Gigs would certainly be much quieter if they were all acoustic.

[the]

Sometimes you get people who claim to be doing a live set, but they're actually just playing a DAT and twiddling knobs.

^{Psst, if you're going to regurgitate clichés, it might be less glaring if you periodically update the technological references therein}

[Sebastian Cobb]

^{Psst, if you're going to regurgitate clichés, it might be less glaring if you periodically update the technological references therein}

Love how in the Sleaford Mods documentary there's a bit where it pans round the guy that isn't Jason and he's blatantly got foobar2000 fullscreened playing tracks.

[the]

Love how in the Sleaford Mods documentary there's a bit where it pans round the guy that isn't Jason and he's blatantly got foobar2000 fullscreened playing tracks.

Is it not meant to be obvious that they just play their tracks off

I don't like them, but that's what I assumed was the idea/joke/conceit/insert gimmick.

^{Ignoring the fact that in hip hop, you'd usually have the DJ playing-in the instrumental track off a record anyway.}

[Twed]

I think he's confusing EDM DJs with being the Prime Minister of Israel.

EDM/IDF, easy mistake to make

[hummingofevil]

My mate was asked to do the afternoon 6 hour slot in an Italo all dayer in Berlin a couple of years ago. He 'DJed' with Tracktor for the first hour then got bored so just put his ipod on and read the Viz. No-one really noticed or cared. Unless you playing live live then it's all just pushing buttons innit.

Though saying that I do really want one of these.

[momatt]

^{Psst, if you're going to regurgitate clichés, it might be less glaring if you periodically update the technological references therein}

Ha, I thought that as I typed it.  Finding working DAT machines might be a struggle now.
But you know what I mean - the definition of live is highly variable. 
Plus it's much easier to mime when the set-ups can vary so much and 90% of the crowd don't know/care what they're doing anyway.

That rotary mixer looks beautiful!  Not sure what the advantages of those are, but they look bloody cool.

[buzby]

That rotary mixer looks beautiful!  Not sure what the advantages of those are, but they look bloody cool.

There's not really any advantages to rotary knobs over faders, it's just an retro looks thing, and a bit of audiophile-style 'smoke and mirrors' snobbery.
https://www.djbroadcast.net/article/127035/the-rotary-mixer-behind-the-hype
Rotary knobs never really went away on PA mixers (as opposed to DJ ones), as using them instead of faders meant you could either make the whole mixer smaller or you could use the extra panel space to put more EQ bands in.

[the]

Somebody said once on the difference between pots and sliders is that you can't do a smooth sweep on a pot without dislocating your wrist. Although this was in reference to knobs v. sliders on synths - a control that you might wish to do big sweeps with - rather than faders on a mixer, where you'd usually only be making small adjustments anyway.

Rotary fader knobs usually cropped up on mini 'pad' style mixers, where being compact was of importance (as buzby alluded to).

I do like those large rotary controls you get on modern DJ mixers, where left-of-centre descends into a low-pass filter, and right-of-centre reaches up into a high-pass one. Very handy.

[the]

But you know what I mean - the definition of live is highly variable. 
Plus it's much easier to mime when the set-ups can vary so much and 90% of the crowd don't know/care what they're doing anyway.

I've said it before, but live performance of pre-recorded music can be as 'automatic' or 'manual' as you want it to be, it's about how you want to set it up and prepare it. Thanks to the technology there's now enormous flexibility available.

[ToneLa]

Live sport = it's on a telly
Live music = you kick off if it's on a telly

[Huxleys Babkins]

I think he's confusing EDM DJs with being the Prime Minister of Israel.

We've all done it, to be fair.

Stop talking about Mark Ronson, Lynn, you're never going to meet him.

[Sebastian Cobb]

^{Ignoring the fact that in hip hop, you'd usually have the DJ playing-in the instrumental track off a record anyway.}

Traditionally a dj would be beat juggling to form an instrumental, or at the least scratching stuff in rather than simply playing a backing track.

[the]

^{Ignoring the fact that in hip hop, you'd usually have the DJ playing-in the instrumental track off a record anyway.}

Traditionally a dj would be beat juggling to form an instrumental, or at the least scratching stuff in rather than simply playing a backing track.

Thanks for educating me on the history of hip hop O wise one

I very obviously was talking a recorded-and-released act doing a live PA. And I didn't even suggest that they 'simply play a backing track', did I.

[momatt]

Traditionally a dj would be beat juggling to form an instrumental, or at the least scratching stuff in rather than simply playing a backing track.

Sure at the beginnings of hip hop they would, before hip hop on vinyl existed it was the only way.  Run DMC Live at the Fun House - so good!
This is amazingly cool when done well, but I can understand if DJs can't be bothered.
Then there are people like Edan and J-Live who beat-juggle and rap at the same time.  Which is just ridiculous!

[Better Midlands]

Rotary knobs encourage a different style of mixing than faders, smoother and less choppy - as Buzby mentions there's an audiophile element too. But also all the original 70's/80's NY & Chicago, disco & house DJ's used them so they're seen as more "authentic".

[Sebastian Cobb]

Was it the loft where you could only fade a single source up and down one at a time and couldn't mix them?

[Better Midlands]

Was it the loft where you could only fade a single source up and down one at a time and couldn't mix them?

Even more than that, David Mancuso was very much the audiophile and only used one turntable at The Loft - IIRC the turntable went directly into the amp to keep the line pure, he also played all the records from the beginning to the end.

Edit, he did use two turntables and also a mixer for a short period

In the beginning there was no mixer so he merely switched turntables by using the "phono 1" and "phono 2" switch on the McIntosh preamplifier. Later he rigged two Shure phono preamps with a level control to fade between them. This eventually gave way to a custom built mixer around 1973. Apparently long overlays were never part of the equation as the mixer merely served as a means to segue from one record to the other or allow Mancuso to stitch together two copies of the same song to create a longer version. In due time however, Mancuso realized that he and his guests weren't hearing the full potential of the vinyl record or stereo system. He explains,

Getting into high end audio I realized how much nuance there was in the record and also that the record should stand on its own. I don't want to interfere with what the artist intended or the integrity of the recording cause that's the artist's message so I play the record from the beginning to the very end. Occasionally, if I had one of those DJ friendly records where it starts off going boom-boom-boom for thirty seconds or more I would time it to begin a little later... In order to get Class-A sound, you had to get rid of the mixer. So what happens is you find a way to keep the flow going so there's no space unless you intended it to be that way.

[popcorn]

Then there are people like Edan and J-Live who beat-juggle and rap at the same time.  Which is just ridiculous!

I can, for the record, do anything and rap at the same time. I'm rapping as I type this post.