I used to DJ a lot between 2009 and 2012.
In 2011 I even landed a one-time job at new year’s eve in an amazing place which was excavated through big rocks underground and seemed like an ancient catacomb.
Back then I used to play with a small, cheap Hercules DJ console and VirtualDJ, a very simple, beginner friendly software which did its job: keep the tracks in sync, apply some cool effects and made sure that transitions were smooth.
It was also rock solid, it never crashed once on me.
Fast forward to 2024.
I got the itch to get back to DJing and discovered that now the software available is much more advanced and you can do all kind of incredible things, like live remixing a track, rearranging it and making incredibly complex buildups and transitions that would make any crowd go wild.
So I decided to spend some pretty penny for quite an advanced console, a Pioneer DDJ-Ergo which had an incredible amount of buttons and knobs, cleverly positioned so that you could find your way around easily and have every function at your disposal with just a twist of a knob or a button push.
After doing a lot of research, I decided to give Traktor a go and at the beginning I was quite happy with it: it worked right out of the box with my console, every function mapped properly. Plus I put some extra functions on some unused button because they would come in handy.
My idea of what I wanted to do was clear: I wanted to make full use of the new sampling capabilities to remix on the fly tracks and use them to create anticipation for the next track during the transition.
All of this came crashing and burning within minutes and here I am, writing this blog article after wasting an entire day fighting the software.
Yes, you read that right: I have not been making sick mixes or remixing songs or even honing my (admittedly rusty) DJ skills.
I don’t even know were to start, but probably the thing that made me waste most of the time and eventually give up was that whenever I tried to launch a gated one-shot sample, the sample would not play occasionally, or it would play out of sync, or it would keep playing even if I were not pressing the button anymore.
This made me absolutely fuming.
Technology should be something that aids you achieving something and having fun in the process, not something that adds an immense layer of frustration, leads you to endless Google searches and make you waste time.
If this is all over your head, let’s make an analogy with something simple.
You have to write a document, so you open Word/Notepad/whatever and start typing.
While you write, paragraphs get added randomly or sometimes characters you typed won’t come out or, even worse, extraneous characters get written without a good reason.
Then you have to stop every 2 minutes to go back and fix that paragraph/letter/word and when you save it, it gets corrupted and when you open it all the text formatting is messed up.
This is absolutely unacceptable and unbelievably frustrating in 2024.
While people are investing billions in AI, we still have issues with badly written and half assed software which promises wonders but then falls apart as soon as you try to make use of those advanced features.
Of course, I could just be doing normal DJing, making transitions from track to track like I used to do 13 years ago, but what’s the point of that?
I might as well go back to my small, old Hercules DJ console and VirtualDJ.
And I didn’t want to do that.
I wanted to take my DJing skills to the next level and create something unique and cool.
But you can’t.
The technology won’t allow you.
Instead of assisting you and making it easier, it goes against you and wastes your precious free time.
Could have I found some workarounds?
Of course.
I have a very capable Zoom ST-224 SampleTrak sampler which I could have used to sample the parts of the track I needed and use it to play them, but it would have added a huge layer of complexity, an extra device I had to keep tabs on and a lot of extra hassle I just didn’t want to cope with.
I could have used a drum machine to lay down the drums for the remixes while playing the samples on top of them, I could have done all kind of things, but I didn’t want to because modern software and hardware told me that now it was much easier and everything was integrated in a single software and available at the point of your fingertips.
About the other softwares: VirtualDJ is still great, but very basic.
Serato didn’t want to start on my Macbook, no matter what, I had to go and scour an old version in the Internet Archive, only for the auto-update to mess it up.
Rekordbox was another mess which didn’t work properly with my console (note: Rekordbox is made by Pioneer, the same manufacturer of my console).
Mixxx is like all open source software: an utter and complete mess. Very promising, but lacking lots of functionality and has stability issues.
So, at the end of the day, after all the excitement of getting a new fantastic DJ console made by DJ industry leader Pioneer and one of the most advanced software available, Traktor, I decided to give up.
I didn’t sign up to go back and make small mixes with bland transitions and effects like I did more than 10 years ago.
And I won’t be wasting any more time on this, it really really wore me down.
I think this is the fastest I’ve ever given up on doing something I really wanted to do, but I assure you, I’m absolutely fuming and I can’t take it anymore.
I’ll check back on DJing software in another 10 years I guess, hoping that instead of filling DJ software with AI crap they’ll make an effort to make the advertised features work properly.
And now let’s get back to other activities were software really made huge progress and really helped me enjoying my other hobbies: writing and photography.
