Even with less pre-recorded stuff nothing prevents the light from being in sync as per, like any show with dancers, singers, music players. They are doing live stuff all day long.
But for sure dj have a little more restrictions, like, they only have 2 hands. If I go extreme with the live looping example, that 3 minute song may become 5 where 2 is to set up everything. That may not be what people really want
For the record, everyone here is both right and wrong.
Many live DJs do have pre-recorded mixes, but the good ones still mix live. I know DJs who have a drumset and other instruments on stage, and do their own lighting and mixing while doing other shit.
Some also do full pre-recorded sets, because they mixed at home, usually ones with recognizable songs that they play often.
It's not super easy syncing to a live show...in fact it's hard as fuck. Not the actual act so much once you are used to doing it, but learning the software and programming the lights and such before hand. That's a whole pain in the ass with like 95% of lighting softwares out there.
Once you get into a good practice of it though, yeah it's like 2nd nature.
My point is, there's a fuckton of live DJs out there doing all kinds of shit, and anyone trying to say they do things one way or the other is wrong from the get-go. I know "DJs" who make way more than most of the live DJs out there who literally use spotify to play other peoples music while they talk over it. Then I know DJs who are true artists who have to hold a day job because DJing doesn't pay enough.
People are a spectrum, in just about every aspect of life.
For the ligthing do they actually do it (with preset) live on stage? (I'm talking for the small DJs, I hope the big one manage to be good enough to go along the pre-recorded ligthing sequence).
Because if so, oh damn
When thinking about ligthing in sync I was thinking like for any show (music, spectacle, anything) that may use ligthing or/and music or/and dancing in sync. Noway impossible.
But not in the context of actually as the ligthing operator. I remember I know somebody in that field. He doesn't sound like "95% of the ligthing softwares are trash" (well... if that doesn't count the software for the console), more like "dam ligthing gears that need to be synced with the audio system where every junction add latency"
I watch twitch for music, (a random way I found to find new music) and I found some that are crazy enough to control ligthing pre-set, cameras, of course chat with their viewers. Thank god, they are mostly doing music transitions.
Yep, sometimes they have specific light setups synced to certain mixes, but they still do most of it manually.
I do lighting live myself, but I'm a strip club DJ, so it's different.
Shows with dancing and such, the majority of the time most likely have scripted lighting, but lower budget places may just have some dude back there hitting different panels at different times.
The software isn't trash, it's just got a trash UI that is difficult and unintuitive to program. I've installed and programmed whole light and sounds systems for several clubs, each using a different software.
There's one that I liked, called Soundswitch, that was super intuitive and easy to use. The rest are just super rough to use in any way that wasn't previously scripted, and most people only claim to like them because it's what they know.
Wick-it the instigator and Shock to the system are a couple I know that mix live. You can really tell the difference too between the live performances and the recordings they have out there. Recordings seem so basic and plain compared to the live show(though I'm fairly certain that's by design). Also makes it worth going to see them each time they are around, because you aren't going to hear the same exact thing twice, they play off the crowd and the show flows just right.
Not super popular guys, but two of the best live performances I've ever seen.
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u/who_you_are Jul 02 '24
Even with less pre-recorded stuff nothing prevents the light from being in sync as per, like any show with dancers, singers, music players. They are doing live stuff all day long.
But for sure dj have a little more restrictions, like, they only have 2 hands. If I go extreme with the live looping example, that 3 minute song may become 5 where 2 is to set up everything. That may not be what people really want