Dave Pearce on Dance Anthems

[Max Kane]

Good discussion going on here, nice to see as well.

The main issue I have is the quality of mixing. For me personally I really do find it baffling that we don't rate the quality of a DJs mixing as important, I mean in my opinion it's of the primary disciplines from which I draw my judgement of a DJ. It's not everything no & I agree with that but bloody hell it's a large part of what makes me want to go see a DJ play.

Hearing a dodgy mix really disrupts things for me, it takes away from the atmosphere. I've seen DJs fluff mixes many, many times & not just the ones mentioned in this thread, whoever they are it does affect things. I'm not demanding seemless 'albeton' style transistions but there is a standard I deem acceptable & I have to say DJs like Dave Pearce fall way short of it

[Max Kane]

Just to add on the subject of 'big tunes' & 'anthem bashing', personally I feel it's massively important not to overload sets with the so called 'big tunes' & 'anthems'.

Firstly I feel it just shows something of a lack of imagination, I mean there is so much choice around in terms of tracks now that you can really diversify your sets & include tracks unique to your own sets. Definately a selling point.

Secondly I get way more satisfaction out of playing something which I haven't heard anyone else playing, it's great to play a track out & have people asking what it is as they haven't heard it before & it's also nice from a DJing perspective as it means I'm not forcing the same tune down everyone's throat that Armin, et al have been playing seemingly non-stop for 4 months prior to it's release

[Moonman]

i dont think Dave Pearce's mixing is really that bad though. His mixing is more than adequate.

[Max Kane]

i dont think Dave Pearce's mixing is really that bad though. His mixing is more than adequate.

I can only go on my personal experience of it, which has been less than impressive. It all comes down to tastes, if you Dave Pearce then you're gona be a lot more forgiving than someone who hasn't got much time for him or the music he plays. My point really is that there is a hell of a lot better if you seek it out

[Uberduck]

Another thing that annoys me is the lack of respect that other DJ's show towards Dave Pearce. At Escape Into The Park last year, Adam Sheridan didn't shake hands with him or anything when they swapped over, and Matt Hardwick didn't seem to acknowledge him either.

Sheridan is such a muppet when he DJ's. Stands all night staring at his Mac's like the crowd don't even exist. He doesn't interact or anything. Matt Hardwick is a DJ I try and avoid like the plague. He plays boring floaty trance that just totally looses me. That's just personal opinion but I know lots of people that'd agree.

Dave is kind of a target for jokes and abuse because of the dance anthems show but I bet most people haven't even heard him play. I do admit that I didn't like the latter years of the Sunday dance anthems show because of the repetitive track selection and often dodgy mixing but that isn't representative of his style or actual ability.

Feel sorry for him at times. I look at those pictures someone posted on here when he was young and chuckle to myself thinking "oh well, things could be worse; I could look like that .

[Ducky]

I'll give my opinion fella's:

I personally think Dave Pearce is a nice bloke. I also think he has and will always be labelled with the dance anthem cheesy label tag which is a bit sad especially as he does work hard and gives it his best.

I think now he has had the chance to play the sort of tunes he likes on his show it has shown that he is alot better and has a lot better taste than most people thought. His mixing isn't the best but its not as bad especially of recent times as some people make out. I'll be the first and admit he's not up there as one of my favourate top 5 Dj's but dont think he deserves the crap he gets. He is just as much of a professional as most Dj's, but a nice, down to earth bloke with it, so give him a break.

[Briggsy]

Has anyone noticed that if PVD does an anthems or "retrospective" set no one bats an eyelid, but when it's Dave Pearce the lynch mob are out.

Anyway, just somehtings to think about

That's very true! To be honest, i'd rather listen to Dave Pearce than PvD and Oakie. Ok, Dave may not be the greatest mixer, but he gives it his best shot, and at least his sets aren't predictable. PvD ALWAYS plays either Born Slippy or Binary Finary '1998' in a set - if not both. Its tedious, its predictable, and both tunes have been around for 10 years, yet he still supports them as thought they're coming out in 3 months time. He also doesn't mix any more - he bangs tunes in with Ableton - yet people think he's good, and pay £20 to see him play. I don't get it? Oakie is another. He's s***, always has been, and always will be. He's not a DJ - he's a celebrity that has earnt millions of pounds from various other jobs too. He doesn't care about the music, he doesn't care about his crowd - all he wants is his fat pay cheque. He can't mix - his beatmatching is shocking. For someone that is a former number 1, I find it a disgrace that his CD wallet is so out of date. I saw him in September last year, and he played Fred Baker - Total Blackout, Grace - Not Over Yet, and Thomas Bronzwaer - Constellation. I also saw him at Global two months earlier. He played Fred Baker - Total Blackout, Grace - Not Over Yet, and Thomas Bronzwaer - Constellation. I also saw him at Global 2006 - guess what he played....... A load of different tunes you say? Wrong..... he played Fred Baker - Total Blackout and Thomas Bronzwaer - Constellation. He's earning thousands of pounds per gig, yet my CD wallet his fresher than his - and he gets his tunes free! His set building is awful too. He mixed Total Blackout, which is quite hard, into a very calm, melodic Trancer. Nice.........

i dont think Dave Pearce's mixing is really that bad though. His mixing is more than adequate.

I agree. His beatmatching isn't that bad - he doesn't trainwreck mix after mix. Dave's problem is that his mixing is too 'sudden'. Tracks seem to come in really quickly, and the basslines sit on top of each other too heavily. I don't think he cuts the bass eq on his tunes when he mixes, so they're fighting against each other. If he was to cut the bass, and also make a smoother, longer transition, he'd be a decent mixer. His beatmatching is certainly a lot tighter than Jules and Oakie's. When they do a bad mix, 9 times out of 10, its down to bad beatmatching.

For me personally I really do find it baffling that we don't rate the quality of a DJs mixing as important, I mean in my opinion it's of the primary disciplines from which I draw my judgement of a DJ. It's not everything no & I agree with that but bloody hell it's a large part of what makes me want to go see a DJ play.

I do rate Dj's mixing as being important, but I feel the most important factors are 1) The quality of the tunes 2) Set building skills. Mixing is third in my list of priorities. There's no point being a silky smooth mixer if the tunes are crap, or they can't build a decent set. I like different DJ's for different reasons. I like Eddie Halliwell for his all-round skills. He's very entertianing to watch and listen to, and I love his inpredictability - you never know whats coming. Musically, he's not always my cup of tea, but I still love his sets. Armin isn't my cup of tea musically, but when it comes to set building and mixing, he's the best out of all the Trance DJ's - he's a DJ I respect a lot, and a DJ that has never let me down when i've seen him. I like Dave Pearce for his tunes, and the energy he puts into his set. He's not afraid to beef his sets up to 142bpm to give them a lot of energy. Markus Schulz isn't really my cup of tea musically, but he's very unique in his style, and he's a great set builder and a decent mixer.

I like all those DJ's for the reasons stated. Some of them are great mixers, some of them play great tunes - regardless, they're all very different, but I like them all for the reasons stated.

[Judge Mental]

I'm not kidding, I love this discussion a really great deal, and want to quote an awful lot of stuff and give my view, cos reading a lot of it makes me want to hit the reply button instantly, but I keep reading properly and thinking everything through, as I'm genuinly interested and want to discuss it.

I'm well aware finally that this topic wasn't to discuss all this, but its a brilliant talking point imo. And like I said, I'm not against Dave Pearce in the slightest, I reckon this is more a personal taste issue, people's perceptions / views in general, and me trying to explain why I disagree in less than 4000 words at a time.

I didn't join this bored to abuse people because they don't agree with my views, I joined it to discuss, from a different angle from when I started going to see Jules, (about 40 times tbh) Pearce, Hardwick, Tiesto?, Oakenfold (6 times), PVD at least 5 times, etc etc etc.

I've got about 8000 posts on the real JJ board for that very (sad) reason, its dead now because everyone agrees with each other now and nothing topical ever comes up. Too much fecking nicey-nicey. Its like reading a board of people who's Prozac has just kicked in.

That was meant to say: (I'll continue this tomorrow if you're up for it, but I have to get up at 6:30am to let the fecking guy changing my windows at 7).... But I got carried away again without actually saying anything relative to the Pearce thing

As a point, will I post a link to a mix I done last June? Just to see what you think, cos that getting minus tagged really bugs me. I'm prepared to get slated, but if you can't dance to that and see why I'm so passionate about making people dance and have a good time, then the people I've played it to about 15 times must all be wrong.

Can't remember where I was going with this, but I'd be glad to see this topic at the top of the board for a while. Everyone putting there oppions across is a lot more interesting than reading a post about an interview with a dj imo, as has been said, it should be all about the music

Wish I was slower at typing, this must look quite sad.

[Max Kane]

I agree. His beatmatching isn't that bad - he doesn't trainwreck mix after mix. Dave's problem is that his mixing is too 'sudden'. Tracks seem to come in really quickly, and the basslines sit on top of each other too heavily. I don't think he cuts the bass eq on his tunes when he mixes, so they're fighting against each other. If he was to cut the bass, and also make a smoother, longer transition, he'd be a decent mixer. His beatmatching is certainly a lot tighter than Jules and Oakie's. When they do a bad mix, 9 times out of 10, its down to bad beatmatching.

I just feel this is a contradiction here mate, I mean beatmatching is only one element of mixing, sure it's the most important but if you can't use EQs properly then you can't really be classed as anything like a decent DJ, in my opinion of course.

Also I'm not making the argument that good mixers prosper over DJs that posess better set building skills, tune selection etc. I just feel that to be a professional DJ you should be more than competant with all of those disciplines.

[Quadrant]

What a fascinating read you guys!

Personally, for the record I didn't like the kind of stuff Dave used to play. He always played everything a tad too quick for me but I will admit that the niche he had filled as Dance Anthems presenter he did very well indeed.

And when his Trance Trousers were on properly, amongst all the (very) predictable anthems he would sometimes play a random piece of obscure Trance that I've never heard before, which was what made it for me.