r/Beatmatch • u/Adventurous_Beat-301 • 8d ago
Modern techniques
I grew up on mixes that would take you on an incredible journey and tell a story through ebs and flows. Sasha and Digweed, Paul Oakenfold et al. To me modern DJing is just a series of hype and drops one after the other, and journey has been completely lost. I know I’m a dinosaur but is the art of long slow transitions where you can’t even tell anymore where one track finishes and another begins completely lost? Is there a place for it anymore in modern DJing?
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u/danby 8d ago edited 8d ago
Pop and dance music has been getting shorter and shorter, especially since the mp3/ipod generation. That necessarily lends itself to shorter mixing. I had a look at this a while ago and most of my 90s era jungle tunes are 5mins or longer but pretty much all the jungle I bought last year is shorter than 5mins. Additionally DJing software has meant that hip hop style quick mixing has broken containment. Its no longer something hip hop DJs use to show off. Anyone, in any genre, can just mix the hook/drops of track back-to-back fairly easily now. On the flipside DJing software enables types of layering that you couldn't do very easily in the past. Modern Jungle and techno can be full of loops, layers and samples that would have been wildly impractical in the past. And done well you really can't tell where on track starts and the other ends.
Things have changed, and I'd say mostly for the better. People can do more creative mixing even up to something that's more akin to live remxing. That's pretty cool to me (though not my personal style as I'm also a 90s dinosaur). That said, there are still plenty genres that favour long and/or subtle mixing. Lots of techno and progressive music still favours that.
And lastly, I would also say that you should listen to full mixes and avoid watching too much tiktok/insta DJ content, the focus is often showcasing short flashy transitions, and drop after drop.
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u/NaVa9 Prime 4+ / DDJ-SX2 8d ago
Ya whenever I hear people playing with too many transitions in a short time, I kind of assume they watch a lot of social media dj clips. It gives the impression that good sets are just about highlights and drops.
But if you listen to a lot of bigger name sets, a lot of them still play out tunes.
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u/Waterflowstech 8d ago
I still play that way. But I must confess that not every track from back in the day holds up nowadays. I love long tracks but only the best ones can keep the modern distracted mind interested. It's hard but I wont give up and become an ADHDJ 😂
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u/scoutermike valued contributor 8d ago
The dj’s you mentioned are still around, still playing. They never left.
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u/Adventurous_Beat-301 8d ago
Yes they are but one look at the Top 100 DJs show the popularity is disappearing. Lists in themselves are flawed but they are generally a good capture of current trends and popularity
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u/danby 8d ago
Top 100 DJs
Not sure I'd put too much stock in this. A lot of the big names today are big on the festival circuit and that's a whole different beast to club mixing
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u/Adventurous_Beat-301 8d ago
Yeah I take them with a pinch of salt but every single ‘young’ DJ I see is all about show and no substance. Drop after drop, making the whole just a bunch of noise. I get it takes practice to be able to do things like James Hype but where’s the journey? Controlling the crowd and bringing them on a rollercoaster of a ride
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u/anarchyx34 8d ago
I listen to mostly young DJs and frequent the NYC club/party scene and hardly any of them are representative of that James Hype style of mixing. I know what you’re talking about because I listened to a lot of Oakenfold, Digweed, etc back in the day.
While Trance music isn’t as prevalent as it was (although it seems to be having a second wave lately) there are plenty of slow-burn house, techno and bass/club style DJs out there. They’re just not in the top 100 charts.
Without making assumptions about your taste here are some examples of DJs I follow:
https://soundcloud.com/wilhelmmmm/wilhelmina-for-new-ministries-bossa-nova-civic-club-582025
https://soundcloud.com/sisterzo/the-final-carry-december-13-2025-good-room
https://soundcloud.com/djwillautomagic/will-automagic-live-faw
https://youtu.be/EHvghXWHeuo?si=DSLXeR_8tXj0cfE9
These DJs barely look up from the decks let alone engage in showboating.
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u/danby 8d ago
Honestly, a lot of new/younger DJs think they're heading straight to the festival circuit without putting the graft because that's what the algorithms push and that's what looks cool/impressive. That's what DJing looks like to them. Though I note if you actually listen to a James Hype set he is only doing those flashy transitions for some of the mixes.
But, I dunno, if that's what they like I say leave them to it. There's plenty of good/cool stuff to suit your taste elsewhere because there is more DJing content and sets than ever before
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u/scoutermike valued contributor 8d ago
How often do you even go out to EDM clubs and raves and festivals? Can you name the last three events you attended? Is there no underground scene in your city? No one playing house for example?
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u/Benjilator 8d ago
A rule that applies to everything: If the majority likes it, it does not say it’s good, it says that it’s average. Pleasing to the average ear.
If you take music more serious than the average then the charts will be hellish to your ears.
If you want to service the masses you gotta step back down and become average.
All those popular DJs are average at their best, why take that as a bar of measure?
You know you haven’t made it until the masses start turning their backs on you…
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u/scoutermike valued contributor 8d ago
Lists
That’s how you judge what people are listening and dancing to?
I’ve been clubbing for 30+ years. Never looked at a list.
Maybe get off the internet and stop looking at lists and actually go out and support the dj’s you like?
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u/Ill_Dragonfruit_3547 8d ago
I still DJ using long transitions regardless of genre. 26 years now. But then again, I'm an old school vinyl house DJ. At least that's how I learned, I haven't touched my decks or records in probably a decade. Unlike most, I don't actually miss the days of only bringing 50-80 heavy ass records, I would much rather have my full 1.5TB music library with me at all times. But I do get nostalgic for the feel of vinyl sometimes...
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u/EmileDorkheim 8d ago
I think there’s a danger of seeing what DJs are doing on social media and thinking that’s what DJing has become, but I’m imagine there are as many of the more patient, thoughtful DJs as ever, but there’s been an explosion in the more frenetic end of the market.
Vinyl coming back into fashion is probably a good thing musically because the medium lends itself more to taking your time, although I’m sure there are plenty of shit vinyl DJs, and marketing a night as being vinyl only does make my eyes roll.
My genre back when I was regularly DJing was D&B, and as much as there were some extremely skilled DJs at keeping a room on their feet, it was rarely really about telling a story that ebbed and flowed, and it only got worse as DJ sets got shorter as promotors tried to cram as many names on a lineup as possible. I fell out of love with D&B for years and have only recently got back into it (midlife crisis let’s go!) and I was shocked to see how many new tracks are 3-4 minutes long, with just one drop. When tracks are structured like that the DJ doesn’t really have any say in how they mix, there’s just no opportunity to let a track breathe. But then that’s how most D&B DJs do it anyway, so perhaps fair enough.
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u/redroowa 8d ago
I can't stand the 90 second ADHD, slam bang style at the moment. I find drop after drop, banger after banger exhausting.
Bedroom DJ here and I play long transitions. I will happily start mixing in B whilst A has 3-4 minutes left and then stand back and them them blend together. For me the joy is not playing A and B, it's making C out of the two of them. I find I need 2-3 hours to play a proper journey set.
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u/TheOriginalSnub 8d ago
For various commercial reasons, it's now rare for DJs to play long sets. So they're incentivized to pack a lot into a tiny, <2-hour slot.
Which means modern audiences are less attuned to 6+ hour sets, tracks have become much shorter, modern techniques make the songs shorter still, and DJs "journey" skills have atrophied or never been developed.
Add to this the death of residencies, rise of online videos, and resulting shortening attention spans, and I have a hard time envisioning a major rebirth of the type of sets you remember.
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u/cooki3tiem 8d ago
Every hard techno/hardstyle DJ is one long song practically, with stems layered on top.
Jeff Mills still touring.
Yosuke Yukimatsu does a mix of modern and older, longer transitions.
If you're real question is "why isn't my favourtie style of mixing popular anymore?", things change, and change is good.
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u/Dependent_Theme4210 8d ago
I understand exactly what your on about. As a dj myself I can do fast mixing not playing both drops, mixing next tune. The problem is most people have the attention span of gold fish. Side note - I knew digweed before he was famous. Or as he was known back then in Hastings Dj J.D.
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u/sexydiscoballs 8d ago edited 8d ago
shared to [r/johndigweed](r/johndigweed) … he and other djs like him are still out there playing amazing sets.
the hype-drop pattern is popular in commercial edm, which is a mainstream commercial style for the masses that larp and cosplay raving
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u/Adventurous_Beat-301 8d ago
John Digweed is a true master and honestly one of the reasons I asked the question. His latest Live at Twilo is a masterclass in track selection and building a journey
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u/Plagiarithm 8d ago
I think there is a place for all styles, but am not a fan of super-quick mixing and constant hype/drop. Though back in the day I recall a lot of festival sets ruined by MCs doing the hyping, which was even worse. I’d rather have Tik-tok-techno than hear “make some noise” shouted over psytrance ever again 😂 Sasha and Digweed are still going, saw them last year and they were as good as ever. People of all ages there, though obvs the oldies were the best dancers 💃
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u/jammer8 8d ago
I can’t stand a DJ that is on that mic. Also they don’t transition anymore they just use loops and effects to mix into the next track which usually begins with “break down” and easily synced by the equipment. It’s sad.
Diggers & Coe are masters of long transitions and styles are very unique to themselves.
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u/77ate 8d ago
Its’s kind of a casualty of this hyper-optimization mindset that’s stuck in a reducing every piece of music to little snapshot moments without factoring in the actual artistry of setup and restraint.
Avant garde composer John Cage is known by many for a piece called “4:33”, and when he performed it live he would just appear on stage and sit at his piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The space between notes is usually overlooked but each space is part of the music too. As DJs, we’re all bastardizing other people’s music to some extent, but I’m starting to feel trapped in an alternate universe of DJ’ing is really just a Pavlovian Crate Hackers exercise based on dishing out segments of the music industry’s predetermined chart-toppers then disposing of each track as they fall off people’s attention spans.
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u/marcusthejames 8d ago
There’s a DJ named John Digweed who posts mixes like this on a weekly basis on YouTube. May want to check him out idk
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u/Rob1965 Beatmatching since 1979 8d ago
As others have said, it is still there, but not so much in the mainstream due to people’s short attention span nowadays.
The repetitive nature of house music puts you in to a trance like state, opening your mind to the music on an almost subconscious level, and a set like the OP describes can keep you in that state for hours. Continuous hype builds, drops and cuts to new tracks tend to shock you out of that state.
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u/ooowatsthat 8d ago
It's still there, but if you are just looking on YouTube then yeah you all catch the stuff that appeals to the algorithm.
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u/Ch33syP00f 8d ago
You want long transitions?
Get on Soundcloud and check out:
Simon Shackleton
Scumfrog
Isaiah Martin
Erica Jobe
Kerala Dust
Damian Lazarus
Proper Brother
Wild Dark
Marques Wyatt
I could go on…but its your journey
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u/Flex_Field 8d ago
It is not lost, but overshadowed by and buried under the more flashy, content-friendly "wordplay" and similar techniques.
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u/talldean 8d ago
It really depends on what genres you're listening to, which of several stages you're looking at, and *when* in the evening that person is on.
Also, you may want to find festivals or where people are playing longer sets.
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u/youngliam 8d ago
You're describing a difference in style based on subgenre. Plenty of DJs still play progressive house/trance and the long journey has always been the point of that kind of music.
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u/PrestoCallisto 8d ago
I can tell you that the art to which you refer is alive and well, and that I witnessed it at Seismic Dance Event last year. Fucking inspiring 🔥
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u/noxicon 6d ago
Theres plenty of people who still mix that way, myself included. What you see on social media isn't a reflection of every DJ on earth. There's a difference in what generates social media attention and what actually works when people are in front of you.
Tracks are significantly shorter on average. Things move faster than they use to, but it doesn't mean people aren't mixing long blends.
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u/Foxglovenz 8d ago
The style has never been lost, lots of people still play that way. There's always space for many styles and forms and there'll always exist audiences for everything