On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Ben Wheeler<[email protected]> wrote:
> 2009/8/7 Nick Guenther <[email protected]>:
>>
>> Something else that would be really useful for the library would be to
>> record the low/mid/hi envelopes of each track, and give column for
>> each so that if the DJ wants is being really dubsteppy they can find
>> bass filled tracks quickly, or if they want to layer something in the
>> high register over top they can do that, or so they can know before
>> they hear it if they need to adjust the EQs.
>
> Just to chip in my opinion. These features sound useful, but I don't
> think they are.
> I wouldn't use them, I doubt any competent DJ would want them, but
> what's worse,
> if anyone uses them while learning to DJ, I think they will interfere
> with the learning
> of important mixing skills. Being able to keep a steady volume across
> the mix is a core
> skill of DJing, and any feature which tries to do part of the job for
> you, or even advise you, simply
> means you're going to struggle more when you play out on a system that
> doesn't have such a feature, which you will someday.
>
> I don't know what you mean by recording the "envelopes" of the
> track... but it's not possible to identify a genre of music from, say,
> a frequency histogram. Again, this is a distraction from the vital
> skill of developing an instinct for which deciding which track to play
> next based on memory, and I think even if it's only narrowing the
> search field a little, it will probably make too many mistakes to be
> useful. You'd have to do sophisticated DSP to identify genres, and
> that still wouldn't tell you whether two tracks go together.

I meant to like, integrate over the lows, mids and highs and record a
heuristic score for each. So if a song is really bassy overall I can
tell that slightly faster. I think it would necessarily be very much
only a guide, obviously, there's lots of cases (say, classical) where
the volume jumps around too much.

But

> DJing is not so hard that we need lots of features to make it easier,
> imo. Every one you add, makes the skills learned on mixxx less
> transferable to other DJing setups.
>
> Just because you have a database, please don't feel like you have to
> fill it with useless data!

Agreed! But if that was so true we'd be using two VLCs going at once
(heh, at least then playlists would work ;)). Mixxx's BPM detector
definitely interfered with me learning to beatmatch, I didn't until my
laptop was broken for four months and all I had were tables. I kind of
think Mixxx should be the best at being Mixxx that it can, not try to
emulate other setups. It *should* be accessible to n00bs as well as
'competent DJs' because DJ worship is lame and if n00bs can spend an
afternoon in their bedroom figuring out Mixxx and then throw a party
with their friends so much the better.

Though of course, stability over features always, and I should shut up
now because I haven't contributed code in a couple months now.

-Nick

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