Crate Diggers to Digital DJs: The Impact of Technology in DJing and Production
As a Victoria, BC based DJ, Promoter, Producer and overall music connoisseur, Matt ‘Sinesthetix’ Saunders has weathered numerous technological advances to his musical trade and yet still managed to triumph in his crafts.
“I was on the tail end of the era of dial up internet, before music sharing, and at that time the only time to get access to the music that you wanted to hear was by going to the shows or buying the records,” Saunders says of looking for music in his early days as a local DJ and Producer.
Within the last 15 years, the process for listening, buying, playing and absorbing music had vastly changed. Prior to 2000, the standard for most DJs was to find their music through physically searches (or digs) for vinyl records at the local record shop in.
“I used to show up an hour before the store even opened and be the first person through the door just so I could sort through the tunes first,” Saunders says as he jokes about his old vinyl digging days. “I was living off of records and ramen noodles!”
But as digitalization was becoming more prominent, traditional styles of DJing were declining. Vinyl sales were slowing and longstanding standard DJ tools (such as like antiquated turntables like the Technics SL-1200) were increasingly being replaced with digital alternatives — such as CDJs and MP3s.
“Where you were able to essentially do the same thing by having digital tunes and, you ended up being able to use the hard drive on your computer to store music and then you could have 2000 songs with you. It was easy to organize and it made a big difference technologically,” Saunders comments.
“The internet was a game changer! Suddenly you didn’t have to carry stacks of heavy crates filled with records, you could have it all digitized on your laptop,” Asia ‘Smasha’ Longphee says as she reflected on the rise of digital DJing. “It made a huge difference in how I shared and searched for music,” She continued.
A veteran who has been DJing in clubs in Victoria and Calgary, Longphee has seen the ebbs and flows in Djing technology. As a university student, Longphee would spend hours in front of her turntables practicing by ear without the use of digital wave forms.
“After I made the jump,it allowed me to expand as an artist. I was able to analyze my songs and pre-set the beats per minute (BPM) or key — which not easy to do with vinyl. Plus, I didn’t have to spend all my time travelling to record stores to find music — I could dig at home.”
During its peak Napster, the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing internet service, had over 20 million users and allowed them to share digital audio files in MP3 formats. As broadband internet and Napster became more prevalent, it allowed people to share electronic music in ways that physical sharing of records never could.
In addition, the introduction of the internet had started to move communities and networks from physical to online environments. “This caused things to change because people could become a little bit more passionate about specific types of music” Saunders commented.
This rise of P2P file sharing, coupled with the influx of available music and increase in technological options for making and production music has shifted the landscape for artists. Suddenly, inexpensive software programs like Traktor, Serato DJ and Scratch Live have become easily accessible and at a much more affordable rate.
“It made DJing a lot more accessible,” Saunders commented. “Instead of having to buy $3000 to $5000 set up in order to play, you started to see cheaper, little, all-in-one controllers where for $200 (if you have a laptop already), you could be a DJ too.”
In a world where technological advances are constantly moving, keeping up to the new gadgets for DJs can be one of the hardest aspects of remaining relevant. The competition between brands can mean quarterly or even monthly costs to upgrade software or tools that are no longer being supported by the company which made them — costs that detract from music purchases.
But when frustration hits, Saunders recommends one thing: “Remember why you go involved in the first place or was it finding the perfect song? Or hearing that music on a big system? If that is what you focus on, as opposed to whatever changes you have a hard time adapting to, that is what will keep you driven and keep you involved.
