The Art of DJing: Avalon Emerson (2019)
57 comments
·March 28, 2025eminence32
dylan604
Song selection comes from hours of listening to music in the style you will be playing. Eventually, you will hear a riff from one song and it will make you think of another song. Those will be interesting to mix together. You might hear one song with a bass line that you really like with a melody line that is on the lighter side. You might then come across a song with a strong melody, but a bass line that could be punched up. Combine the two with some appropriate EQing, and make your own mix. After mixing for awhile, you will learn to listen in a different way than just someone listening to music.
Using a tool to beat match has always been considered "cheating", but it is obvious why it is a tool. Beat matching is probably the most technically challenging aspect. Eventually, you'll even get a feel for songs that are close in tempo--most music in a genre will be pretty close by default. Learning to ride this bike with training wheels is just an option I did not have. Being able to manually adjust the pitch/tempo (depending on equipment) without the auto tools becomes quite satisfying.
Some DJs talk about knowing what key a song is in, and if it will mix into another song. If you then have to adjust the pitch for beat matching, how does that affect the key of the song and how it now mixes? I've never claimed to do this, but after playing in school band I can at least hear the wahwahwah from something being out of tune (or was that the nitrous??). Maybe if you're mixing some prog-trance with sustained chords you might hear that, but I'd suggest finding a different place in the track to be mixing.
The physical controller is precisely why I love vinyl.
jrowen
Using a tool to beat match has always been considered "cheating", but it is obvious why it is a tool.
I guess in the same way that using a higher-level language than Assembly is "cheating." I'm not sure if you're referring specifically to the Sync feature (which is still largely frowned upon) or more generally analyzed beatgrids, BPM readouts and Master Tempo (which keeps the pitch in tune when you change the tempo), but the vast majority of practicing DJs today are not needing/using the old school vinyl beatmatching techniques.
Call it whatever you want but you're going to be incredibly hard-pressed to find anyone that can mix as smoothly on vinyl as someone decent with CDJs. Sure it's a cool dying art and analog and all that but at this point virtually anyone trying to play vinyl out is sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment).
dylan604
> Call it whatever you want but you're going to be incredibly hard-pressed to find anyone that can mix as smoothly on vinyl as someone decent with CDJs. Sure it's a cool dying art and analog and all that but at this point virtually anyone trying to play vinyl out is sacrificing the listening experience for cool points
That's a sad commentary on today's DJs then. Yes, there were some very bad vinyl DJs that loved the shoes in the dryer mixes and could not advance past that. They love the "beatmatch" magic. Doesn't mean that those that could are less of a DJ which is what you're trying to say?
My perfect setup would be vinyl controllers of a digital player which is very much a thing. Of course, hearing a DJ mix vinyl that is older with all of the snap crackle pops of a burning log is not pleasant, but that does not diminish the vinyl as a controller being superior to a tiny plastic spin wheel on a digital controller.
hnlmorg
> sacrificing the listener's experience for cool points (including the physical issues with reproducing sound from delicate machinery in a chaotic environment).
I was with you right up until this point.
People care about the music, not about how tight the beats line up. I’ve heard some amazing DJs who were actually shit at beat matching but had unparalleled track selection.
I’ve also heard some technically amazing DJs who were incredibly dull to listen to because their songs and set progression just went nowhere.
I’ve also had far more technical problems, both as a DJ myself and as a clubber, with modern controllers than with vinyl. The fact is there’s less to actually go wrong with vinyl. And I say this as someone who never had any love for Technics 1210s as vinyl turntables.
To give an example of “less to go wrong”, I was at one gig and the turntable stopped working. We opened it up, replaced an internal fuse and it started working again. The whole thing took literally 10 minutes to fix. If a CDJ died like that you’d be looking at replacing it with a whole new unit.
At the end of the day, I never really cared how the music was performed just as long as the music was good. Because of that, I was one of the early adopters of Ableton. But these days I have a family so just DJ vinyl at the occasional house party.
pdntspa
I just threw down a two-hour vinyl mix of drum-and-bass at my local vinyl night (no trainwrecks, thankfully), and amongst the folks of this particular artist collective are several who would meet that description. And we are one of many in a tier-2 metro.
munificent
> After mixing for awhile, you will learn to listen in a different way than just someone listening to music.
There is a whole other side to song selection which is reading the room and figuring out what the audience needs next. That side isn't visible until you happen to start actually playing for an audience but it's ultimately the most important one, I think.
> If you then have to adjust the pitch for beat matching, how does that affect the key of the song and how it now mixes?
Music hardware/software can now do a pretty good job of changing speed and pitch independently. "Time-stretching" is the older term for how those algorithms work and they've gotten pretty good over the years.
I don't know how newer DJ software behaves by default you when change tempo. It's been a long time since I DJed.
But, also, producers making music for dancefloors know what they are doing and anticipate this. Most tracks made for DJs will have a long intro and outro that is mostly drums and other atonal instruments. That way DJs can mix without having to worry about keys clashing as much.
It always feels really good when you find two tracks that harmonize well with each other and you can mix their tonal parts together in the transition.
> The physical controller is precisely why I love vinyl.
100%. Beatmatching vinyl is one of those lovely zen activities, like driving a manual transmission, catching the wind in a sailboat, or hitting balls at a driving range. You're always chasing the perfectly smooth execution and never quite getting there.
shit_game
> The physical controller is precisely why I love vinyl.
It's interesting how djings origins in vinyl led to the controler interfaces we have today. I don't have any aptitude for djing myself, but also having played with mixxx before also, it makes so much intuitive sense why the controller format of turntables and sliders works so well.
nisa
> I don't have a physical controller
There are a lot of really cheap USB based controllers on the second hand market - I've got an old Vestax USB 1.1 based controller that was state of the art in 2007 and was used by some famous DJs back in the day for 50€ and it's working perfectly fine - it's only midi - you can dump the hex values using midi tools in Linux when you turn the nobs.
Surprisingly for me latency and interactivity are no problem. Eq'ing, pitch, jogwheel feels like analog. However I'm not a professional but I didn't recognize any noticable delay.
You can even scratch using the jog. I'm sure there is a reason for the price difference to modern hardware but from a haptics and sound perspective it's perfectly fine. Mixxx is doing all the hard work.
Mixxx has a really long list of supported devices: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Hardware-Compatibility
You probably need another soundcard for headphones, there also exist lots of cheap old USB soundcards for that - there are also controllers with an audio interface like Vestax VCI-300.
Then it's up to you to practice. I'm also struggling to get better but it's really all you need to DJ. I'm also yt-dlp'ing my collection which feels strange but is budget friendly :)
I've used to DJ as a hobbyist using vinyl ages ago and I'm not missing anything. You can ignore the sync button, hide the bpm on the screen and mix only using your ears like you'd do with vinyl only. Matching the beat using pitch fader and gently pushing the jogwheel is very similar to like you'd do it with the platter on a turntable. Of course it's not the same but for me it's close enough.
Maybe don't tell your vinyl snob friends or other fundamentalists but it's lots of fun for little money.
browningstreet
I'm playing with the djay app which can source from Apple Music..
null
comprev
Your last point is the most important skill a DJ needs to learn. Song selection is everything.
ErneX
I could not get it to work, there was a dialog window popping up that I couldn’t click to dismiss. Tried many times and went back to Serato.
nosmokewhereiam
Well written, tech heavy, and one of the best writeups I've seen on ripping vinyl to USB high speed SD cards.
* And those were mentioned almost in passing, entirely not the point of the article, but so great to see!
I want to also tell the world about Techno-club.net. There's a ton of UR-related artists still making true-spirit techno. Fantastic selektors!
GEBBL
Avalon Emerson is such a great dj and producer. I’d love to see them live sometime - I’ve a great set from 2017 of theirs on SoundCloud that’s really eclectic. Love the style.
inigoalonso
I met her briefly in 2014 through common friends in Berlin, and then saw her live in some early (before midnight) session in a semi empty small club in Kreuzberg. Some other friend and I then tried our luck at Berghain. We didn't make it. The San Francisco group did. Fun times nonetheless.
et-al
Oh gosh reading this I thought we waited in line together.
My experience, from 2015, was that we left Vögelchen in Kreuzberg, went back to her spot where she played records for a bit, then at 5am folks decided to go to go to Berghain. She waited in line with the rest of us commoners.
peterldowns
Seen her twice at Making Time and once on her album tour in Philly, definitely go out of your way --- she does an amazing live show!
aqme28
I’ve seen her three times now. One of my favorites. Was surprised to see her on the front page of HN of all places!
username4567
I got to see her play in SF in January. So much fun. I'd love to experience one of her longer sets.
djdeutschebahn
Couldn't agree more. I also saw her live djing in 2019, such a great and exceptional artist.
tomduncalf
Ha fun to see this on HN! Love the approach she outlined here, though I’ve tried doing similarly but don’t have the time or incentive to invest in it just to play on my decks in my living room once a month haha.
null
null
ChrisArchitect
(2019) English link: https://ra.co/features/3392
Why them, when you could pick...
Jeff Mills https://ra.co/features/3436
Fabio https://ra.co/features/3631
or even like Louie Vega https://ra.co/features/3338
augzodia
Do you have a problem with the linked article? As someone who djs occasionally I found it to be an insightful and technical look into Avalon’s process, and left me with some ideas for my own workflow.
tomduncalf
I think Avalon’s is most interesting from a pure technology perspective so suits here! They are all great though
brcmthrowaway
I always get cinfused between Avalon Emerson and Aurora Halal
null
curtisszmania
[dead]
null
gizajob
The art of USB-Jing
A few months on Hacker News there was a post about Mixxx[1], an open-source DJ software. It prompted me to download it and play around. It's very cool. Despite being a complete novice, I learned a few things after a dozen hours of playing around:
* I don't have a physical controller, but I can understand why people always use them. Keyboard and mouse are not fully sufficient.
* The built-in key and beat detection is really quite good for house music, and it gets you most of the way there in terms of managing song transitions (but not all the way there)
* A side effect of consuming 99% of all of my music from youtube and spotify means I have no local library to feed into Mixxx (I ended up yt-dlp'ing a bunch of stuff)
* There is a true art in song selection, and I don't possess this skill.
[1] https://mixxx.org/