DJ Buddy Holly: Sci‑Fi Chronicles & The Controllerism Archive

  Why Vinyl Talks Back: A Physical Explanation of What DJs Feel Every vinyl DJ knows the feeling. In a large venue with real subwoofers, your fingers don’t just guide the record — they receive information back from it. Timing feels different. Groove feels physical. Bass seems to live under your fingertips, not just in your ears. This isn’t nostalgia. It isn’t “vibe.” It’s physics. Vinyl is a continuous mechanical system A vinyl record stores sound as continuous physical motion . The groove itself is the waveform. As the record spins, the stylus traces microscopic lateral and vertical movements that directly correspond to air pressure changes — sound. There are no samples, buffers, clocks, or reconstruction stages. Motion is audio. When you touch a record, your finger is in contact with a moving object whose motion directly represents sound energy. Digital systems break this relationship. CDJs and controllers measure motion, convert it into data, process it, and then recre...

  Ghost Orbit Skratch: A 32nd-Note Technique That Lived Outside the Spotlight Not every DJ technique is born on a battle stage or captured on video. Some develop quietly in working environments—booths, demos, and classrooms—where accuracy matters more than spectacle. The Ghost Orbit Skratch is one of those techniques. Context: San Francisco, mid-2000s Around 2006, San Francisco hip-hop festivals often used open vendor layouts. DJs, schools, and companies shared space, and music flowed continuously between booths. These were not competitions. They were practical environments where DJs demonstrated tools, taught fundamentals, and tested ideas in public. At one such festival, I was working as a demonstrator and instructor connected with Secret Studio . At the time, I was performing and working under the name DJ Devious , years before using the name DJ Buddy Holly. My role was simple: demonstrate scratching on digital decks and show that CDJs could function as real musical instrum...

First Controllerism DJ Routine: Early Controllerism Began in 2001 Using CDJ-1000s and Rane TTM Performance Technique by David Kramer (DJ Buddy Holly) When people search for the first controllerism routine, the first controllerism set, or the first controllerism DJ set, the results they usually find focus on when the word controllerism was coined, not when the practice itself actually began. This article exists to document, in first person, controllerism as it was practiced before it was named, branded, or separated from DJing. My work in digital performance began in 2001. At that time, I was already combining studio recording, original sampling, and live DJ performance techniques in a way that treated digital playback devices as expressive instruments rather than playback tools. In 2002, this work culminated in the album Pretty Picture, which was submitted as a final project at Berklee College of Music . All tracks on the album except “Pretty Picture” and “Not Now” were created...

Title: Pioneer Standalones in the Booth: How Two Models Became Club Standards by DJ Buddy Holly For decades DJs have measured gear not just by capability, but by reputation and ubiquity. In the realm of club touring and booth installs, gear becomes a standard when it isn’t just good — it survives decades of rotation, thousands of DJ hands, and stays predictable under pressure. In the world of standalone DJ systems, two Pioneer models have risen to that role. Not because they were the flashiest or the newest, but because they answered a very specific need: a club-compatible, all-in-one system that any DJ can walk up to and use without surprises. These are the Pioneer XDJ-RX3 and the Pioneer XDJ-XZ. What does it mean to be a “club standard?” A club standard isn’t defined by specs alone. It’s defined by practice — what gear venues install repeatedly, what rental houses stock, and what DJs expect to see in a booth they haven’t touched before. Clubs make decisions based on reli...