I spent the weekend at a festival where most of the people were using laptops only. Deadbeat played one of the most amazing sets of the night (to me), and it was him twiddling knobs on a midi controller hooked upto a laptop. He had energy behind the rig and was pumping out some of the best music I had heard in a long time. I'm not sure if it was Abelton or not (and as far as I know, it was 100% his own material, more a live PA then a DJ set) -- but he knocked me on my ass.

Richie Hawtin a few weeks ago at This Is London had abelton up and running and had a room full of people losing their shit - no one seemed to care or notice that he was flicking around a laptop.

Adam Marshall (a local DJ) played an ableton set not too long that had people gushing at how good it was.

Michael Goodwin, another Toronto DJ - blew my socks off with an Abelton set. It was a local club night in some hole in the wall bar : it wasnt that tricky to get his laptop hooked upto the system. He played a wide range of music, would pepper in samples/effects, had all his music sliced and diced to really play with it in a way that wouldnt be possible on Decks.

Yes, seeing a master on 4 decks rip shit up can be impressive - I've seen Jeff Milligan do shit on 4 decks that have blew my mind.

In some ways, I am agreeing with you - using Software to replace the skill of beatmatching when playing a set and ONLY doing that is pretty lame. I 100% agree with that.

But, when you take that medium and start pushing it and start doing things in live sets that you /cant/ do with Vinyl or CDs -- that is another story. I dont buy 'well, you gotta build up your cred first!' pfft, who cares - I sure the hell dont. 90% of the time I'm lost in my own world dancing not looking at the DJ booth to care what medium that they are using, aslong as its getting my ass dancing.

Also, it isnt that hard to get your rig running in a club setting - I have seen many DJs bring in their own laptop and hook it up to whatever the club currently has and do their own thing - and thats just local DJs. Yes, you will need to bring your own gear along with you - but so what. You carry around a laptop and your controllers instead of a bag full of records.

So, DJ means Disk Jockey - so what. Gay used to mean happy, words change as the world evolves. DJ at its most 'basic' simply meant playing records - no mixing, no beatmatching, just simply tossing one record on after another while at a radio station. It has since evolved since that day - and will continue to do so.

And yes, Sasha and others started out with Vinyl - but thats because thats all that was available to them at the time. Now we have new tools available that allow you to explore and play music in new and interesting ways - why limit yourself 'just to build cred?'

Abelton allows for tighter mixing, smoother transitions and the ability to layer effects/tracks/loops/clips and toss in your own touch in ways that are not possible with Vinyl.

Matching beats is one small aspect of DJing - any monkey with a bit of time and patience can learn to beatmatch. There is alot more to putting together a good, interesting and creative set then worrying about synching up two songs -- and if a software program does it automatically for you and allows you to focus on other elements : great, why not.

But, as I said before: If someone is /just/ using the software to beatmatch and not doing anything beyond that - thats weak, a hack, and they have no place calling themself a DJ. If all they are doing is click-dragging a song, hitting 'synch' and spending the rest of the time waving their hands in the air - they need a firm smack up side the head.

I've heard enough quality Abelton sets (or sets made with other mixing software) that have blown me away that I give them the respect that I think they deserve.

Some examples of killer Abelton sets.

Tampopo @ Vprat

Complex, layer, beautiful music, with samples, loops, effects, his own tracks/productions mixed in - I dont care if he used Vinyl or not before, I dont care if he couldn't beatmatch his way out of a paper bag - this set is fucken stellar, and if I had heard this out live I would have lost my shit to it.

Adam Marshall - Maximal - another great mix done with abelton.

anywho, I just think that if you use the technology to its fullest and simply not as a 'stand in' for Vinyls - it allows you more creative freedom to play around with music in ways that were not previously possible.

Personally, I dont DJ, and dont have any real interest in mixing/DJing/etc. However, if I /was/ to start going at it seriously, I'd look at things like Abelton - not because I'm lazy and looking for an easy way out, but because I see it as an exciting new technology that offers alot of possibilities and tools to play with that were not previously available. I get more excited looking into the future of music then I do holding onto the past.

And to me, things like Abelton, Traktor/Final Scratch, etc are just the tips of the iceburg and the start of some amazing things : I'd rather be pushing myself on the forefront of new technologies and trying new things.