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Mr. Scruff Setup


djdiggla

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Guest Symatic

yeah its pretty sweet. funny you posted this now cos i was just talking to my mate who does lots of stage and sound work and has done Mr Scruff shows a few times, he was telling me about all the concrete and isolation stuff he uses because those grado carts are so sensitive, but once youve isolated them properly you get a really nice clean sound.

 

badass stuff

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He's a good night out, i will give him that, but honestly, all that shit on the turntables, most of it is complete bullshit, and most of his 12hr set at o2 was fucking digital anyway.

I swear these monkeys like to make out like they are something special for the sake of it, the guy cant mix that well either, it is mostly deck stops and long fades, very little beat mixing, like i said, good night out, something special, my arse !

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I'm guessing MK stands will do the job now... No more broken back with carrying all this concrete and steel table... I actually never had a real person feedback on those... Everyone on the web is just sayin' it annihilates the wobbling. Anyone has an experience with these over feet ? (this might be another thread sorry).

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I swear these monkeys like to make out like they are something special for the sake of it

hehehe...if that isn't true sig worthy material right there, then I really don't know what is.

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Guest rasteri

It's like he googled "stop turntable feedback" then said "fuck it, let's just do them all".

 

TBH at least he puts some thought into his show prep, even if it's largely placebos. Most DJs of his stature charge twice as much to play a drunken 90min sync button set.

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Guest It'sPhilFromThursdays

^ Phew, i though "am i being a dick? He must know what he's doing", when i thought, "hmmm, from my knowledge that seems like really unnecassarily excessive isolation you're doing there"

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I understand all this fuss about anti-wobbling tables but this guy is just making such a big deal of it. Got my turntables on a plain wooden table and the needle skips rather seldom. Mr Scruff or whatever he is called is a bit oversenetive I'd say.

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To be fair that vid is 7 years old... So it was probably more justified.

 

I've always enjoyed his sets... although I once lost a fresh bag of MDMA at one and everyone was pissed off at me the whole night lol.

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He's a good night out, i will give him that, but honestly, all that shit on the turntables, most of it is complete bullshit, and most of his 12hr set at o2 was fucking digital anyway.

I swear these monkeys like to make out like they are something special for the sake of it, the guy cant mix that well either, it is mostly deck stops and long fades, very little beat mixing, like i said, good night out, something special, my arse !

Yeah he doesn't mix much if at all. IDK if you can even back cue with those needles. But that's ok for me because I like what he plays. It's like a lot of beat diggers or David Rodigan... one of those DJs that kinda gets a pass for their musical knowledge and what you get to hear.

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Guest Symatic

i love going out on a saturday with my mates to analyze the DJ's beat-matching skills, we all take notes and have a points system, and we collate the information at the end of the night and hand it in to the performers in a little presentation folder. it's pretty gangster, actually.

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He's a good night out, i will give him that, but honestly, all that shit on the turntables, most of it is complete bullshit, and most of his 12hr set at o2 was fucking digital anyway.

I swear these monkeys like to make out like they are something special for the sake of it, the guy cant mix that well either, it is mostly deck stops and long fades, very little beat mixing, like i said, good night out, something special, my arse !

Yeah he doesn't mix much if at all. IDK if you can even back cue with those needles. But that's ok for me because I like what he plays. It's like a lot of beat diggers or David Rodigan... one of those DJs that kinda gets a pass for their musical knowledge and what you get to hear.

 

 

 

I dunno it is all a bit pretentious after the first couple of times, his music barely changes gig to gig, and tea and slippers in the corridors, maybe i am just old, and yes beat matching does matter to me, but then i went out and DJed a lot in the rave era, a DJ who couldn't beat match simply got no work at all, and while some may think that worrying about a DJs beat matching skills is silly, when a venue of 10'000 is headfucked and stomping, dropping a beat is like punching a hole in their heart, it stops people dancing dead, the HipHop club with 500 heads who want to act gangster and rarely dance is massively different because beat matching is not very important.

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He's a good night out, i will give him that, but honestly, all that shit on the turntables, most of it is complete bullshit, and most of his 12hr set at o2 was fucking digital anyway.

I swear these monkeys like to make out like they are something special for the sake of it, the guy cant mix that well either, it is mostly deck stops and long fades, very little beat mixing, like i said, good night out, something special, my arse !

Yeah he doesn't mix much if at all. IDK if you can even back cue with those needles. But that's ok for me because I like what he plays. It's like a lot of beat diggers or David Rodigan... one of those DJs that kinda gets a pass for their musical knowledge and what you get to hear.

 

 

 

I dunno it is all a bit pretentious after the first couple of times, his music barely changes gig to gig, and tea and slippers in the corridors, maybe i am just old, and yes beat matching does matter to me, but then i went out and DJed a lot in the rave era, a DJ who couldn't beat match simply got no work at all, and while some may think that worrying about a DJs beat matching skills is silly, when a venue of 10'000 is headfucked and stomping, dropping a beat is like punching a hole in their heart, it stops people dancing dead, the HipHop club with 500 heads who want to act gangster and rarely dance is massively different because beat matching is not very important.

 

 

 

I'm not being funny but Mr Scruff plays a lot of different music at different tempos. I imagine a lot of rave music you were playing was at a similar tempo no? (like most "dance" music). I'm not saying you can't string tracks together if you're playing lots of music, but sometimes you can tell a better story if you're not constrained by BPM. I think that's what Mr Scruff is going for and why people go to watch him. Also, 5 hours is a pretty long time, it's not like he can cut and chop like Jazzy Jeff or DJ Numark through the whole thing is it?

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I don't get the anti-Scruff chatter at all...

 

You have to remember he approaches DJing from the perspective of a digger and lover of collecting/discovering music. His whole attitude is about presenting the music he loves in the absolute best way possible. Hence the Rega arms, Grado carts, master EQ for balancing the sound balance of older and newer music. He's publically stated he's not interested in the technical side of DJing many times and that he likes to play a song in its entirety whenever possible - on a personal note, I love mixing and scratching on some genres of music, but on a lot of old music it just makes everything sound like fucking Jive Bunny and there's nothing I want to hear less.

 

As for playing off CDJs? If that's the way he has music, so be it. It's not about what it's played on, just how good the music is.

 

For the whole sound quality debate, there are plenty of venues where you'd be pushed to hear the difference but there are still plenty where you can hear it. Again I get the whole idea of discovering music you love and wanting to present it in the best way possible. To a degree that explains the concrete blocks and foam extremity... but also, if you're playing quiet old 45s on Vestax decks (even with his custom foam lagging) at a venue with a massive sound system and a poorly isolated stage, that's what you need to avoid a volume limiting bass feedback loop. Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of sound system culture can tell you all about concrete slabs on foam.

 

Beyond the technical stuff, even if his thing's not for you, I think all DJs should respect one thing about him - he's one of very few DJs in the world these days who actually gets celebrated and has people go to his gigs to hear music they DON'T know already. Seriously, how many DJs these days at least have to intersperse deep crates choices with a few tracks the dance floor already know? People go to Scruff gigs to place their trust in the DJ and let him introduce them to great music they've never heard before.

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Fine words both, D00ban and Rock Well. I've seen Mr Scruff DJ a few times and each time he completely rocked it - great tunes, great programming and it flowed together so well that it felt like he was mixing everything (and I would argue that he was) even though he didn't beatmatch everything. I remember him putting together that Amerie track One Thing with Roots Manuva's Witness over the top and it was fantastic.

 

For me, beatmatching is one of a number of techniques to mix records together rather than the only one and if you don't agree, check out that Jazzy Jeff Boiler Room London mix and see how seemless it feels even though he probably beatmatched about a third of it. The rest were really nice segues featuring well-timed delays, echoes and other effects.

 

I'm not saying that being able to beatmatch isn't important and it is definitely more important in some genres than others, but Mr Scruff is probably the wrong target because he is a really, really good dj whether he is beatmatching or not.

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No they're very different entities...

 

Firstly, Mr Scruff never tangled with Uncle Phil.

 

Secondly, Jeff played in Hastings three weeks ago and about a third of his set was classic hip hop and the other two thirds was trap, modern R&B and hip hop and even a bit of semi-mumble rap. A few older heads were grumbling but they overlooked that most of the audience were young and Jeff (ever the professional) read the crowd, knew what was required of him and played them what they knew/wanted. Conversely, when Scruff played the same venue a few years back, he brought all his kit, did the whole night himself and played a set that was full of tracks the dancefloor hadn't heard before.

 

It's not that anybody's really comparing the two, just stating that Scruff has his strengths that I do personally admire and it's interesting that even when compared to a great like Jeff, his own little niche still stands up for what it is.

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Scruff gets huge crowds, Jeff played here in Exeter a few months back to 200 people, in terms of skillsets, one is a DJ in the best sense of the word, the other is Disco Keith and his saturday night "Now music" selection, who would i rather watch, Jeff, who would i rather go to a night of, Scruff, but that really means nothing, I go to download every year, and i fucking despise Metal ;)

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check out that Jazzy Jeff Boiler Room London mix and see how seemless it feels even though he probably beatmatched about a third of it. The rest were really nice segues featuring well-timed delays, echoes and other effects.

That's prolly my favorite Boiler Room set, plus he's my 2nd favorite DJ right behind MMM. I like various methods of mixing, from slamming to seamless, which both DJs execute pretty well. Variety is usually in order. Jazzy Jeff really has it all down, not to mention super clean. That dude is such a pro. Music selection is tits, too.

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