Henrik Berggren

books, bits, code & lolcats

The physicalites of a dj set

Posted on | September 26, 2008 |

I guess everyone has seen this video by now? If not, it features superstar dj Richie Hawtin explaining his current setup of tools when playing a gig at a club or festival. And there are some really interesting things about it. First of all, the fact that he leaves all the beatmatching up to the computer is quite unorthodox, a lot of people still thing dj-ing is about playing two records in sync. Hopefully now some more people can understand that loops, effects and all other possibilities that comes with digital dj sets are really powerful.

What I find most interesting in this video though is not his double macros or the off-time loops but the fact that he brings up the entertainment side of his performance. Around 09:25 in the video Richie says that he has basically two ways of doing everything and that is because the people watching him (and himself) think it’s really boring to see him stand on one spot pushing the same four buttons an entire night. This is really big, I’ve never heard a dj talk about the actual performance and how important that is for the gig. I think this is something that is going to be more and more important over the next coming years, there is a huge opportunity building new interfaces that gives richer feedback not only to the performer but also for a possible audience.

It’s time to think of other ways of interacting that moving sliders, pushing buttons and flipping switches. There are sensors, there is knowledge and with my project Physical Interaction Lab we will try to present something new in this area before the end of this year. Richie, if you want to try, just give me a call, we all think you are the best!


Richie Hawtin 2008 DJ Setup from Dean Koch on Vimeo.

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Comments

One Response to “The physicalites of a dj set”

  1. Bertrand
    September 26th, 2008 @ 17:11

    Performance questions have been discussed for ages within the performing arts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performing_arts. And especially within Dance http://dancetech.ning.com/ DJs are so conservative http://www.conservapedia.com/DJ :)

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