DJ's that have almost single-handedly changed a particular genre.


Briggsy

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Are there any DJ's, in your opinion, that have been responsible for having a major impact on a particular genre? For me, the following have had a massive impact on the Trance scene, and I don't think the scene would be what it was if it wasn't for them.

Ferry Corsten: Quite possibly the best Trance producer ever and responsible for some massive tunes. His melodic, 'big riff' sound with lots of synths also started off a trend which quickly caught on, and then Trance seemed to head down that 'bif riff' route throughout 1998-2000 before sadly dying off. Even now though, there are still the odd one or two tunes that remind me of Ferry's old sound - and without Mr Corsten, I wonder what direction Trance would have headed down.

Lange: Good DJ and superb producer that back around 1998-2000 was unbeatable, apart from Ferry, when it came to producing. Everything that he did was superb - his remixes of Lost Witness's Happiness Happening and Red Sun Rising being the two best examples. Again, between him and Ferry, they changed the sound of Trance and took the genre on a new direction. There's no doubt in my mind that Lange would have been a much bigger name than he is, and he'd have been inside the DJ Mag poll top 10 if being a producer back then had as much impact on the top 100 chart as it does now.

Judge Jules: For different reasons, Jules has had a massive impact on the scene. He's been responsible for kick-starting many people's careers over the years such as Paul Masterson, Michael Woods, Fabio Stein, etc. Without Jules's support, its unlikely that we'd have ever got to know about these guys. He's also stuck two fingers up at the 'experts' in the industry by continuing to support tunes that labels have rejected. Fabio Stein's 'Tran 4' had been rejected by lots of labels for "not being good enough" - yet Jules continued to support it saying that it deserved to be signed - and vowed to play it until someone finally took note and signed it - one week later, Jules announced that it had been signed to Maelstrom records. it then became Jules's most played tune that year, Tran-4 went on to become Fabio's most successful release, and Fabio's UK DJ'ing career started with a few appearances for The Gallery. Without Jules's support, Tran-4 would have slipped by without being noticed, and we probably wouldn't have heard much more of Fabio Stein.

Mauro Picotto: Awful now, but back around 1999/2000, he started the deep, raw, but hard Tech-Trance sound - combining hard, Techno basslines, with Trance breakdowns to give us a brand new genre. Nobody else had heard anything even close to his sound. After that, it quickly caught on, and Tech-Trance developed even more. Tech-Trance has changed a lot since then - its become less harder, slowed down a bit too, and barely shows any similarities to Techno - but without Picotto, Tech-Trance may not exist now.

Edited by Briggsy
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Randy Katana: This man has been highly influencial towards the tech trance scene and also his hints of tribal sounds also. I believe Katana was the initial spark for the recent outburst of modern tech trance music and you can often hear his influence shining through in recent productions.

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Randy Katana

Good shout that! He has introduced a very unique style to Tech-Trance with his tribal basslines, and since then, the likes of Abel Ramos, Richard Durand, etc have started to incorporate that sound into some of their productions too.

In fact, he's one DJ i've always wanted to see in a club - but never had the chance to yet (mainly because he's rarely over here apart from the odd occasion he plays at Goodgreef).

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Rhythm Masters; As producers they were magnificent. They were responsible for bringing the filtered, disco type "Funky House" to the mainstream. Many people tried to copy their productions. Jules was a big fan of their sound too. But as DJ's, they were vastly underrated. Saw them a few times and not a dud gig. Their style is just so dancefloor friendly. I'm convinced that Erick Morillo/Subliminal, Harry Choo Choo Romero, Robbie Rivera etc have all been inspired by them. Funky house 1999-2000? They pretty much invented it!

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Eddie Halliwell: Hard Trance / Trance..

He seemed to pick up some real trance belters and was certainly for being a trance dj.

My first exposure to his sound was around his first ever BOSH release for Mixmag. Sublime, and quality and can still be enjoyed today. Eddie's sound was definately trance / hard trance combined. Over the years, IMO, I think, his style has changed in line with the music out there now and as Briggsy mentioned about Corsten, it has changed.

Still technically amazing, and today, even better, this new Eddie DJ Integrated Technology (ED-IT) has just shown us how entertaining he can be, but the trance genre to use this isn't the same...

Edited by Aza
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Eddie Halliwell: My first exposure to his sound was around his first ever BOSH release for Mixmag. Sublime, and quality and can still be enjoyed today.

and that statement is proven by my lovely self who currently has the CD in the stereo for night time listening :)

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Randy Katana: This man has been highly influencial towards the tech trance scene and also his hints of tribal sounds also. I believe Katana was the initial spark for the recent outburst of modern tech trance music and you can often hear his influence shining through in recent productions.

His set @ JS IBiza was amazing and he's a lovely person too!

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The ED-It thing is all just marketting really isn't it? There are so many DJs doing things like that now it's hardly a new thing

Definately agree it is a marketing thing, but a few years back when Eddie mixed a special cd for Mixmag, 'Fire it Up', there were awesome 3 deck edits and a lot of the features came from the DJM909 and I recall the remix he did of Marco V's False Light was immense.

I have not really seen enough of the other dj's to know how widely this has been going on and how far back this began. I remember reading that Pioneer used Eddie to pioneer their new products and I think they sponsor him too.

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Eddie is just using Ableton with a fancy new gizmo that Pioneer are developing. He's not doing anything different to what any other Ableton "DJ" is doing - apart from using a gizmo that nobody else has access too.

I wish he'd stuck to decks to be honest - I respected him far more then. Now he's simply just another Ableton DJ - not that four-deck, scratching DJ that was once my favourite DJ.

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Agree there - had way more appreciation for the decks and even to an extent CDJ. It was more technical then, mechanical and fascinating. Of course it still requires skill to do what he does, but the 'T' in ED-IT does the rest for him :)

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Eddie is just using Ableton with a fancy new gizmo that Pioneer are developing. He's not doing anything different to what any other Ableton "DJ" is doing - apart from using a gizmo that nobody else has access too.

I wish he'd stuck to decks to be honest - I respected him far more then. Now he's simply just another Ableton DJ - not that four-deck, scratching DJ that was once my favourite DJ.

Really i never knew he'd moved onto the Ableton dj'n pity that :(

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If he hadn't passed away, then I truly believe that Barry Connell would have overtaken Eddie. Eddie has a few too many pre-rehearsed set pieces that are too predictable if you see him often - I saw him do the same routine twice last year, and he did the same one on his Essential Mix too - whereas Barry Connell got on with it and did things on the spot.

Bryan Kearney is the DJ for me at the moment - closely followed by Richard Durand still.

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Really i never knew he'd moved onto the Ableton dj'n pity that :(

Yeah, it was back in April when his management hyped up his 'Ed-It' thing and made us believe it was something new and exciting - but then he turned up at Tall Trees armed with Ableton :huh:

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personally, i have got nothing against people using ableton. Some people do some truly wondeful stuff with it. Agreed, the benchmark of a good DJ is still their beatmatching ability (which ableton now does for you), but programming records and cutting them up, well it doesnt do that for you. I used to be dead against using laptops, but it makes things like accapella usage and managing three/four decks so much easier, and to be honest, takes the ballache out of it all and allows you to be more creative. Why just have records beatmixed all night when on the fly edits can be done? I think its just evolving really. I would like to get to know how to use Ableton myself.

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and that statement is proven by my lovely self who currently has the CD in the stereo for night time listening :)

I've been meaning to ask you about this, I was playing BOSH yesterday and I wondered if you'd ever got and played that well advised purchase, I recommended. It seems you did.

Hemstock and Jennings tune, sing along to that in ya garden, I did. I dunno the words, but it was quite amusing for me anyway. :)

Meanwhile I was also gonna say Eddie Halliwell too, but I can't say the name without thinking about him and then I have to say there is no part of Eddie I wouldn't like to sit on! :)

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However I do wanna say Tony De Vit and his 'Hi Energy' definitely brought us Hard house bounce!! And inspired many! I loved him.

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I've been meaning to ask you about this, I was playing BOSH yesterday and I wondered if you'd ever got and played that well advised purchase, I recommended. It seems you did.

Hemstock and Jennings tune, sing along to that in ya garden, I did. I dunno the words, but it was quite amusing for me anyway. :)

Hemstock and Jennings is my favourite track on the CD. I loved the Lange remix on Cream Summer 2006 (could be wrong year) and that woodblock sound that echoes away (hard to describe) is awesome!!! I know what you mean about singing to it haha, I'm not even going to try.

Eddie's transition to the final tune by Tony de Vit is great too. I remember Mr Bailey commenting on this and I can see why it's so impressive now :)

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Hemstock and Jennings is my favourite track on the CD. I loved the Lange remix on Cream Summer 2006 (could be wrong year) and that woodblock sound that echoes away (hard to describe) is awesome!!! I know what you mean about singing to it haha, I'm not even going to try.

Eddie's transition to the final tune by Tony de Vit is great too. I remember Mr Bailey commenting on this and I can see why it's so impressive now :)

Especially when we first heard it all those years ago, it was a bit good!! :) Certainly made me go out and see him live!!

That TDV tune is the nuts too. That CD is easily the best FREE mixmag CD ever!! Many I never unwrapped, but that one, well, as I said, I played it yesterday!

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Yeah - we have discussed BOSH a few times on here, but for me, I wanted to post that set (from my perspective at least) the hard trance scene.

It first gave me exposure to the SHOKK remix of Dave Joy's First Impression and I love how he used the delay effect on there.

The scratching was a sample placed over the top wasn't it?

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Why just have records beatmixed all night when on the fly edits can be done? I think its just evolving really.

The difference with Eddie from a typical DJ is that Eddie could already do amazing things live that very few other DJ's could do - people like me used to watch him on the decks and think "wow, I wish I could do that" - it was fascinating watching how many things he was doing at one time - using effects, scratching, chopping bits in and out, etc - whereas with Ableton, as a spectator and listener, some of the appeal has bene lost now.

If Jules used Ableton and started doing things live with it, then that would be adding something to his sets that he can't already do. For Eddie, its just a different way of doing things - but a way that has become less appealing with to his fans.

For most DJ's, its a step forwards. For Eddie, it just seems like a move sideways - plus, he cheated a bit at times anyway, so who knows what he can get up to on a laptop now!

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The difference with Eddie from a typical DJ is that Eddie could already do amazing things live that very few other DJ's could do - people like me used to watch him on the decks and think "wow, I wish I could do that" - it was fascinating watching how many things he was doing at one time - using effects, scratching, chopping bits in and out, etc - whereas with Ableton, as a spectator and listener, some of the appeal has bene lost now.

If Jules used Ableton and started doing things live with it, then that would be adding something to his sets that he can't already do. For Eddie, its just a different way of doing things - but a way that has become less appealing with to his fans.

For most DJ's, its a step forwards. For Eddie, it just seems like a move sideways - plus, he cheated a bit at times anyway, so who knows what he can get up to on a laptop now!

A top post, and very elequantly put.

Eddie was always at the forefront of pushing the boundrys of what constitutes live dj'ing imo. So when his methods became accessable to all, it left him at a crossroads. He was the one dj that, even if you didn't like his music, you could appreciate how good he was technically. Now, he needs another level to set him apart.

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