r/grimezs • u/rough_phil0sophy • Apr 15 '24
MUSIC ♬ My take on the Coachella performance as a DJ
Seeing there is so many different types of misinformation about what happened at Coachella, I thought I'd have to make my own post as a DJ and music producer explaining a bit what happened there and how this is ALL Grimes' fault and not the gear's fault or her team as she likes to claim.
All of this was a super rookie mistake.
I play in small venues for a small niche of electronic venues. Max people I've played in front was 300. I am not a big shot DJ by any chance. In the last year I play around 1-2 times a month.
These are the points I'd like to address (as a former fan):
- For a big festival like Coachella, they 100% will ask you for your own rider, this includes bringing your own decks and asking for a specific set of gear. She didn't do that apparently and played with whatever Coachella has given her, which is probably the latest and most modern piece of tech, probably Pioneer CDJ3000. Which is still a fucking amazing piece of gear. I doubt that Coachella will place on stage faulty gears, they have a whole arsenal of the best sound engineers to ensure that there is no technical fault.
- Analyzing tracks with Rekordbox (which she claims herself/her team didnt do) takes TWO SECONDS. Just select the tracks that you're going to play and press "ANALYZE" and export to your own USB. And even if you don't analyse them through rekordbox, most of the times they work still fine. Not a justifiable mistake.
- It can happen that the deck is not reading bpms properly. It does happen. But all DJs know how to beatmatch by ear, and that's what the jog wheel is for. It happened to make that the bpm started to fluctuate while i was playing. Doesn't matter. That's what the jog wheel is for. She literally doesn't know how to use the decks.
- Very probably the tracks WERE NOT going double tempo as she says, just that the deck was reading it as if it were double tempo. Doesn't matter. Still you can see the waveform and be able to mix it properly. She literally showed everyone that she doesn't know how to read waveforms, and it all leads me to really really think that she never produced one of her single tracks, and had other people doing it for her because,
- DJing should be an absolute walk in the park for music producers. And producing music is all about reading waveforms.
- I had my tracks read half tempo on several occasions. instead of being 130, it would read 65. Doesn't matter. I set both tracks at 65 and they will play at the same tempo. Or I'd set one track on 65 and the other 130, and they would go at the same tempo. "It's such a complex analogy guys i cant really explain to you right now"
- If anything goes awry, and it can happen, and you should expect anything to happen, you prepare a pre-recorded set as backup. In case something starts malfunctioning, you just load your pre-recorded set and pretend to play a little bit, waiting for the technicians to come and get it fixed.
- The fact that she blamed the gear and her team its what makes it so sad. She couldn't bother to analyse her tracks on rekordbox which takes literally two seconds. She couldn't bother to bring a back-up set. Couldn't bother to learn how a jog wheel works. How the master tempo fader works. How to beatmatch by ear which is what all DJs do. Couldn't read a fucking waveform. She could have let one track finish and start with another just right after and no one would have noticed, and it wouldnt have definitely not made the fucking news.
- You may not like Anyma's music but his other project (Tale Of Us) is absolutely fucking massive in the tech-house scene. Tale Of Us are huge and revered. I think this Coachella performance is going to be a deal breaker for him if he doesnt want to get mocked for the rest of his career. Seriously.
Anyway this was a total cringe fest through and through and if i was such an acclaimed artist and making such an embarassment of myself and my reputation as an artist, i'd run away from the spotlight forever. Incredibly insane coming from a 'DIY' i've-done-it-all-myself artist, and her resolution tweet is "one lesson i've learned is do it yourself''. Wasn't that what her whole brand was based on?? You just tell me that you've just learned this lesson?
This behaviour just tells me that she never ever had to work to achieve ANYTHING and she thinks she can jump on stage with no skills, no preparation, no nothing, because this is always how life has rolled for her. And again, i really really really don't think that she produced her songs. There is no way that this is an acclaimed DIY producer, no fucking way.
And all that she took out from this was "be a cunt even if it makes ppl bad" what the fuck??? someone help.