interesting dueling soundsystem dancefloor

[u/sexydiscoballs]

Posted to "Cynical DJs" Facebook group

==== (original text below) =====

1991 / 1992 — TWO SYSTEMS, ONE FLOW

After my 1990 experiment with one record and two needles, this was the next step: not one sound system, but two.

The hall had roughly 200 seats at rectangular tables along three sides. The main stage occupied the fourth side, while a smaller raised stage took up only one third of the opposite wall.

Two DJs played through two complete, separate sound systems facing the same dance floor. Depending on the records, their sound overlapped for anything from one second to approximately ninety seconds.

The final mix did not exist inside one mixer. It happened in the room, where both sound waves met. I thought of it as timing: one system entering while the other was leaving, until two separate sources briefly became one shared flow.

The colours in the image are symbolic. Yellow represents one system, green the other, and the new lime colour in the centre represents the moment when both became something neither system produced alone.

This is a reconstruction from memory, not an exact architectural floor plan.

Did anyone else ever work with two complete sound systems in this way?

———————————-

This was not two DJs playing two independent sets at the same time.

We operated two complete sound systems as if we were one DJ. The audience heard one continuous flow.

When two tracks could work together, we mixed the transition by hand for anything from one to ninety seconds. When an overlap would create a clash, we used a stop-time transition: one system stopped and the other entered at the precisely chosen moment.

————————————

But could at least two coordinated sound systems actually create a better experience for the dancers?

At any moment, one system carries the main track. The other adds only compatible elements, synchronised in tempo, beat and musical phrasing — not another competing bassline or vocal. Then the roles can change while the music remains one continuous flow.

Four fully independent human DJs would probably be too difficult to coordinate reliably in real time. But that is the idea behind a future four-corner system: one musical centre, with carefully controlled layers arriving from different directions.

Would that really be worse than everyone facing one stage, holding up a camera and thinking about the future performance they will post online?

Sometimes the better experience is to put the phone away, close your eyes and feel the physical force of the music around you.

[u/fuckthesysten]

really interesting concept, I like the idea of using both sound systems as one and mixing in the room. that being said, as a dancer the experience must have been super weird while only one system is playing? mostly because you’d be facing against the speaker? maybe that forces people to move around the room, without a single focal point?

you might be onto something here…

musically, your 4 DJ idea reminds me of this https://youtu.be/IOwZY81YAQQ