What are DJs doing wrong

[opendoor]

..you won't necessarily know why.

They don't need to anymore, since many pieces are already marked as permitted or forbidden. There are also permitted and despised orchestras. Who even plays Varela these days? Normally, DJs dismiss publications after 1957 without listening, simply because they're told to. Yet many orchestras maintained their style well into the late 1960s. The higher the technical standard and the more extensive the libraries became, the more craftsmanship suffered.

But there's a counter-movement. Maybe I'll start DJing with vinyl someday. Shellac with authentic vintage gear is too much work for me. Vinilos could be a compromise.

 

[itwillhappen]

They don't need to anymore, since many pieces are already marked as permitted or forbidden. There are also permitted and despised orchestras. Who even plays Varela these days?

I haven't heard anything about that. In fact, I played a Varela vals tanda (1961–1973) at the last milonga, and I’m planning a Varela tango tanda for the next one. I’ll let you know if the "tango police" show up.

As a modern AI-assisted DJ, however, I naturally also consulted Gemini - just to be on the safe side:

Yes, Héctor Varela is played at milongas. His orchestra was designed exclusively for dancers. However, because Varela has a very fast, accented, and rhythmic style, his music requires experienced dancers and should be used deliberately on the dance floor (ronda).
Why Varela is perfect for the milonga? As a former arranger and bandoneonist for Juan D’Arienzo, Varela knew exactly what dancers needed. His music features a clear, driving pulse and works beautifully when arranged into tandas (sets) of tangos, milongas, or valses.

 

[itwillhappen]

But you won't necessarily know why.

Indeed. However, there is by no way a guarantee that the DJ actually knew.
It is possible that he made the *right* decision based on a *correct* assessment, but any other combination is conceivable, too.
Even regarding simple questions - such as what kind of music to play when you perceive the audience as *tired* - there are completely conflicting opinions.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

But there's a counter-movement. Maybe I'll start DJing with vinyl someday. Shellac with authentic vintage gear is too much work for me. Vinilos could be a compromise.

I've heard a couple of DJs here do that. They brought a LOT of equipment with them in addition to the LPs. Sound was pretty good but there are a large number of limitations. Interesting experience though.

 

[Eleven!]

I've heard a couple of DJs here do that. They brought a LOT of equipment with them in addition to the LPs. Sound was pretty good but there are a large number of limitations. Interesting experience though.

VinylMania: Warsaw Vinyl Tango Marathon held in March in Warsaw and Krakow Vinyl Tango Marathon de Oro held in November in Krakow - both in Poland - are both vinyl only events. Every DJ plays nothing but vinyl for the whole event. Only exceptions are the pre-party on the Thursday and the after-party late Sunday night where the DJs use digital media for the music. I really enjoy both events and have been multiple times to each.
I have also been to events where one of the DJs played only from vinyl but everyone else was digital. Again, I enjoyed the vinyl sets. Unfortunately I cant remember the events off hand but they were in Europe as well.
One additional fun point - the cortinas were also from vinyl.

 

[TTanguero]

I've experienced vinyl DJs a couple of times, and while I confess I can't see the point, I was impressed by how well it worked.

 

[itwillhappen]

The higher the technical standard and the more extensive the libraries became, the more craftsmanship suffered.

Requirements are constantly changing with technological developments and fashion trends.

But there's a counter-movement. Maybe I'll start DJing with vinyl someday. Shellac with authentic vintage gear is too much work for me. Vinilos could be a compromise.

For a passionate collector who already owns and is intimately familiar with a large number of vinyl records, this might be an option.
However, if viewed as a means to climb the pecking order of a tango hierarchy, it entails high costs and creates new dependencies.

Personally, I do appreciate the visible craftsmanship as a service in its own right, but the repertoire and acoustic quality are inherently limited. Viewed objectively, it appeals more to the eye and the emotions than to the ears.

At present, digital infrastructure is not yet advanced enough to feed qualified feedback from a milonga back to an AI. Consequently, the AI remains reliant on web content shaped by the rules, constraints, and contradictions of DJs out of context. This drastically limits the quality of AI suggestions, even if the rationales always sound highly plausible.

 

[opendoor]

..if viewed as a means to climb the pecking order of a tango hierarchy, it entails high costs and creates new dependencies.

I already have a lot of vinilos but I collect those rare early studio albums, not those widely used compilations and samplers of lousily transferred shellacs that Johnny-DJ always is playing. So I'm a maverick again.

 

[Eleven!]

Personally, I do appreciate the visible craftsmanship as a service in its own right, but the repertoire and acoustic quality are inherently limited. Viewed objectively, it appeals more to the eye and the emotions than to the ears.

I agree that the visible craftsmanship (I like that phrase by the way) adds something but I have to disagree at least in part with the rest of your statement.

The repertoire is indeed limited by what the individual DJ owns, which is not only limited by cost but also by what can be found, in a much more constrained way than digital. But.... I have heard some pieces on vinyl that I cannot find digitally. It must be remembered that for most of Tango music recorded on shellac and later vinyl - there are NO master copies. None - they were destroyed years ago. The only way the record companies could release some of the music on CD was to record from a vinyl record and there aren't good copies remaining of some stuff. Hence the industry built around Japanese audiophiles releasing insanely limited edition CDs recorded from their music collections. Its also why some of the available recordings are so poor. But the point is that there is potentially stuff available on vinyl that is not available digitally.

This leads on to the other point - sometimes the audio quality on vinyl is better than that available on digital. Sometimes its limited by the poor standard of the transfer - especially when someone tried to "improve" the sound by replacing the noise made by dust on the record -this also removes some of the actual music. But also by how well the vinyl that was used in the transfer had been looked after. Its possible to find a better vinyl copy in some cases and so digital isn't automatically better audio quality.

 

[Eleven!]

I don't know the answer to this next point - can sound quality be improved when transferring from shellac or vinyl? Start by getting a good copy of the record then using very expensive kit and a lossless digital file format. That just keeps you slightly worse than the original vinyl. Next - digital processing - this removes the crackle and pop so may or may not be better - I am not an audio engineer and not a talented musician - its outside of my knowledge but I heavily suspect there are inherent limitations. But this may be where AI could genuinely make improvements - or maybe not. Again I'm not an expert but its an interesting concept.

 

[opendoor]

VinylMania: Warsaw Vinyl Tango Marathon held in March in Warsaw and Krakow Vinyl Tango Marathon de Oro held in November... I really enjoy both events and have been multiple times to each..

Unfortunately, the organizers are incredibly arrogant and do not respond to email inquiries. I have given up introducing myself. Warsaw is a closed shop, I am no longer interested.
And this is not an isolated case. It is simply unpleasant how one now has to curry favor with and ingratiate oneself with event organizers.

 

[pianistamediano]

Unfortunately, the organizers are incredibly arrogant and do not respond to email inquiries. I have given up introducing myself. Warsaw is a closed shop, I am no longer interested.
And this is not an isolated case. It is simply unpleasant how one now has to curry favor with and ingratiate oneself with event organizers.

For many marathons — or events going by that name, or closed events in general — yes, that is the case, you need to know the organisers, or dance with the people who dance with the organisers, or have some form of relationship (friends or otherwise) with the DJs... or even just having mutual friends. It's pretty much the same system as an encuentro, come to think of it, just that dance styles aren't as restricted.

 

[pianistamediano]

Personally, my ears are sharper than most people even disregarding the fact that I'm an amateur musician, and while vinyls might have better sound quality, I still struggle to hear the difference plenty of times, even on a good sound system. Maybe I have to be an actual audiophile.

And sound quality, I fear, isn't the best metric to go by; there are times when I've enjoyed playing Chopin on a older model much more compared to a new Steinway grand, simply because the sound and timbre were more to my liking, even though the Steinway objectively had better clarity of sound.

I also don't like that playing only vinyls inherently limits the music being played, because more is available digitally than on vinyls, even if there are vinyl-exclusive music.

 

[Rabbit]

Personally, my ears are sharper than most people even disregarding the fact that I'm an amateur musician, and while vinyls might have better sound quality, I still struggle to hear the difference plenty of times, even on a good sound system. Maybe I have to be an actual audiophile.

It's not possible to tell the difference in a double blind test between direct playback from the original vinyl and a FLAC (or even a 320k MP3)

And sound quality, I fear, isn't the best metric to go by; there are times when I've enjoyed playing Chopin on a older model much more compared to a new Steinway grand, simply because the sound and timbre were more to my liking, even though the Steinway objectively had better clarity of sound.

A bit of a different situation to the tango recordings, as one could argue that modern grands are too bright compared to the instruments Chopin played and composed for (I don't personally have a problem with it but that could be due to acclimatization), and one can find hi-fi recordings on period instruments to compare the sound

The vinyl/shellac noise on old tango recordings is just a distortion, and it's important to remember that the 40s vinyl sound has nothing to do with what the orchestras of the day would have sounded like playing live.

 

[itwillhappen]

Unfortunately, the organizers are incredibly arrogant and do not respond to email inquiries.

Organizers are just dancers, and among dancers, it’s common to simply look away if you’re not interested. So what?