Drakenberg, one of Stockholm’s most experienced underground DJs got fed up by people complaining about him DJing with Trakor and recorded that 12 minute set playing Two vinyls and Two CDJs at the same time. It’s all in sync despite a telephone receiver is being used instead of regular headphones.

Laptop Dj software took us by a storm in 2007-2008. Even though the first vinyl emulatior was released by Native Instruments back in 2005, the real wave of Laptop Djing hit the club scene in 2008, with people rapidly switching to Ableton, Serato and Traktor. I clearly remember carefully consulting a dozen DJ friends of what sotfware seemd to be the best before buying Traktor.

Everyone in the scene was fed up with faulty burned CDs, scratched vinyls and jumping needles. The digital age would save us all, with all the mp3s and wavs in one place in beautifully designed waveforms with nicely marked loop and cue points.

Today 5 years lately the Laptop DJing is getting pummeled from all the sides. Some promotion agencies are banning Traktor DJS  claiming that an artist staring into a laptop screen for two hours is nothing but stale and insulting to the crowd and the promoters. Plus that never ending issue of missing cables. Did you really think that lap-top Djing would make things that much easier for you?

Since laptop DJing track-sync functions lowered the level of entrance for aspiring DJs, the veterans are raising angry voices against the newbie generation who play Traktor, bootleg software and in some cases even Spotify.

After all DJing is nothing you can learn in one week. It’s a ongoing process that takes years. Long term it’s about learning to feel what the crowd feels, the 6th sense of reading the energy on the floor and the art of finding the right next track to get the energy back after that instrumental break.

Short term it’s about learning to beat-mix vinyl or cd or finding that sync button on your laptop.