On Djing...

i really want to do this in some form or another and i think i have a potential foothold at an older gay bar in town. i know/am casual friends with the manager and i've asked him a few times about an empty monday night slot. he's been a little cool about it so far but encouraged me to come on a monday and hear what the later guy was playing. i'm not really hip to popular gay classics or anything but i think some italo and etc. disco wouldn't bomb? (crowd is older gay dudes and random hustlers.) the manager is an ex-cattle-showing country guy who probably wouldn't get too excited if i talked to him in playlist-ese, which is how i'm used to talking to people about music. but i really think the bar (one of the oldest landmarks in the city but kind of "uncool" now) might benefit from something a little more interesting than what it plays right now -- bring in a younger crowd, etc., but also keep its current clientele psyched to come out.

really my question is how should i make this happen? (obviously the first step would be to go there on a monday night and check it out and talk to manager; i haven't yet because of the holidays and assorted stress.) any things to say / pitfalls to avoid? i really want to dj somewhere, somehow, and right now this seems like my best bet.

in general though, how pathetic and gauche is it these days to do the mp3jay thing with an ipod? i think at this particular bar no one would really give a shit, but if i want to keep it up / do something else... i need to invest in a turntable and start buying vinyl right?

re general dj-ing advice: what's the best way for someone who likes music a lot and likes watching people enjoy music and has music he thinks people would enjoy to start playing enjoyable music for people in a public (or any kind of) setting? keep in mind i'm not very good w/ people or schmoozing but getting better and i feel like this is necessary for my future uh happiness. thanks

do you have a laptop?

download traktor and use that.

Based on my experience I'd give two general pieces of advice:
1) Get used to people making ridiculous wishes for a tune, and generally not understanding you don't have every record they'd like to hear readily available in your bag.
2) Get used to people trying to hit on you.

I've DJed mostly in university student parties though, maybe your club is a more specialized setting so these things won't happen so often.

I am a rock guy that came to the DJ game pretty late. It's a fucking blast getting to play my records for other people.

Here's a few quick tips:

1) unless you are going to do dance nights, you don't need to learn to beat match, scratch, or show off any other "skills"

2) FLOW is the single most important thing you can provide. Don't fuck with the audience repeatedly, even if you're playing adventurous music. At least use the "punishment/reward" concept if you must satisfy yourself

3) Don't be embarrassed to pick up a really cheap and useful book called "How do Dj Right". I read great reviews of it, and was blown away at how simple and correct its methodology is.

***

Other than that, yeah--don't use mp3s if you can help it. That's gay.

BTW, you don't need to own turntables unless you're going to do a lot of gigs at places that don't already have them. I do recommend investing in your own cartridges though. That will run you around $60 and will save your records from harsh needles on public decks.

Also, in case you didn't get it, my mp3 comment was a joke. I rely heavily on my vinyl collection because I don't beat match or whatever. So I fall back on two things: my great record collection and my immaculate flow.

:)

Oh yeah, one more thing I've learned: the more drunk the crowd, the less adventurous music the probably want to hear. If you're playing at some club centred around certain genre(s) it might be different, but in general clubs people just want to have a bit of fun and not expand their musical horizons too much.

i've got good flow, thanks. gr8080, no laptop :(. do you think a cheap-ish notebook/laptop w/ traktor or whatever is a better investment for all-purpose dance-ish semi-weirdo dj-ing than a turntable in the future?

tuomas, i'm not gonna be too weird. if anything i'm too sensitive to crowd moods--that is, if i take advice from upthread and don't do it drunk.

And Nate is correct about not needing specialized DJ skills: if it's not a dance or hip-hop club, people probably don't care shit about such tricks. Basically you just need to learn to use the crossfader and try not to follow one tune with another one in completely different tempo (no slow r'n'b jams immediately after a fast house tune). The only things people will notice are blatant fuck-ups, like accidentally pressing the pause button. Which leads to one more piece of advice - don't get drunk, even if your drinks are on the house. A few drinks might be good to ease the tension, but if you get too drunk the potentiality of such fuck-ups is very high.

(x-post)

thx tuomas, good advice.

p.s. manager told me cds were the operating media here so i guess that would be best (though i think i can get away w/ an ipod since the mixing "booth" is like above and hidden from anyone and i could probably find a stereo in and bring some jacks). what i really need to do is check out the set-up tomorrow and see how they're mixing em.

i'd stay away from using your ipod and use cds if you can. burn your best sounding files to cd at least.

ok thx

if you're unfamiliar w/ the basics of using a dj mixer (or even if you are familiar but haven't used the specific type the bar has) see if you can drop in before they open and mess around for half an hour or so, so you can get comfortable with the basics of going from one cd deck to the next.

even if you don't plan on beat matching, the more comfortable you can get with compensating for volume variances between different tracks, minimizing dead air between tracks, perfecting your general flow, etc.

also, bring your own headphones if you have a pair with a 1/4" jack.

also, nate otm. at least stop by the book store and spend half an hour thumbing through "how to dj right".

ok. i'm not a total mixer n00b but i'm unfamiliar with dual cd mixers if that's really what they have. this is great advice + making me think about what i haven't actually thought about yet because i'm too self-deluded and arrogant. i'll check out the set-up tomorrow if i can and report back for everyone's reading enjoyment. and i've got to grab that book; it looks really really helpful. thx nate!

dont forget to have fun, too.

dont get too caught up in pre-arranging your music ("i'll play this track and then this track and then this track...") the best part of deejaying, even at a bar w/o a dancefloor, is connecting with the room and seeing where they're at with regard to what you're playing and how that influences your next selection.

if someone makes a request and you have it, play it. if you don't have it, be honest, but use their request as a springboard to a different topic, musical or otherwise. if people are super annoying and complaining about what you're playing or making vague and non-specific requests, tell them that the next deejay plays the kind of stuff they're into and he goes on in an hour.

also don't listen to tuomas; if you get to drink for free take advantage of that shit! its a bar, not a dance club, right?

always play 'you make me feel mighty real' by sylvester.

haha yes! sylvester will not be MIA

yeah gr8080 i just need to check their set-up and make that work w/ what i have +++++ the flexibility axis. this place is definitely NOT a dance place. people are drinking, eyeing other men and occasionally playing pool. some nights the bar just plays an xm radio station. monday is 'oldies' night but god knows what that means (general '70s/'80s). if anything i need to educate myself on some mainstream (gay) shit from that era to keep the crowd alive. and i am NEVER one to turn down a free drink.

I didn't mean you should take any free drinks, just that you shouldn't get too drunk, if you want avoid errors. But if it's just a bar night I guess it doesn't really matter that much.

I think it's always good to know the general age of your audience, because people usually tend to love the music of their youth the most, so you'll know what songs will be guaranteed floorfillers. For example, I usually DJ in student parties where people are in their early twenties, and I've noticed I shouldn't play too many eighties and early nineties tunes, because those youngsters might not be familiar with them at all. One time I was playing "Informer" by Snow, and two girls actually came to ask me what song it is, they'd never heard it before.

x-post haha i'd like fuck you if you played informer.

nah it really does since i won't be familiar with the setup. but you know, i know my alcohol limit for basic motor/mental control etc. this is all riding on future knowledge at this point though so.....

thanks everyone for yore knowledge and responses. i really needed the feedback, if only to get my own juices going for the whole thing. do you ever have something stewing in the back of yr mind for way too long but you just don't have the guts to bring it into a frontal lobe until you mention it to other people? that's me on this thread. thanks bye

I had weekly DJ gig at a Irish pub in Sunnyvale for a couple of months but ended up quitting over some (admittedly) mild drama. The owner wanted Thursday to become a "Rockin' College Party Night" but we ran into a few problems:

1. The bar was totally dead almost every Thursday, not very rockin'
2. When remotely college-aged people showed up they wanted to hear hip-hop
3. Barflys would bitch and moan when I went off the classic rock playbook and tried to play something edgy like The Clash or Talking Heads.

All of this would have been much more tolerable if they ever gave me A DRINK TICKET OR TWO. I stuck it out for a couple months because the pay was decent, which is never a good reason to keep do something you otherwise love. But after some drama with being replaced without notice for a couple weeks by Ronnie the Karaoke DJ I decided to quit.

I've gone back to mobile DJing and private parties and am much, much happier.

anyway.. strongo break a legski!

haha that's not strongo.

the best part of deejaying, even at a bar w/o a dancefloor, is connecting with the room and seeing where they're at with regard to what you're playing and how that influences your next selection.

this is great advice.

strgn u know u better announce ur first gig we'll be there. i don't know shit about djing so carry on.

if you ever want to play vinyl, needles are essential, as not all clubs even have a house pair and you're expected to bring your own...and if they do have a house pair they're usually crap.

Depending on the quality of the dual CD players, you'll likely find it much easier to use than mixing with your ipod, though having the ipod as back-up won't hurt.

If you're going to burn a set of CDs, make 2 copies of each, that way you can mix from one song two another on the same comp.

Use a short fade or do a quick fade on the first song and fade in or even just start the second song from zero. For instance, when you're cueing the second CD you'll start getting used to finding the beat and even when not beatmixing, you can still make for a smoother transaction by starting on beat. You'll also find yourself getting really bored back there and you'll play around with beatmatching in your headphones because there's nothing else to do. That's how I learned to DJ at least.

ok that makes more sense now that i've finally checked out the two-cd deck. the guy who drops it there monday evening (6-9) is gonna school me on the decks next week (hopefully). and in any case i think i've got a night, or something. thanks everyone for the info and encouragement.

p.s. what sounds as good as "inspiration information" by shuggie otis?

eddie kendricks - 'date with the rain' y/n

definitely practice a bit beforehand. it's actually quite scary, even in a bar or something, suddenly being in control of the music that's playing. stuff like volume levels is actually really important too especially if you're using music that's come from bought cds and mp3s etc, just make sure you stay with the lights at the same level on the individual channels and use the gains to help you with this.

it can be sort of embarassing if you are not beatmatching and the track you mix in is way too loud (or way too quiet)

I wouldn't bother using the crossfader, just volumes up and down, it's more logical when you start off.

if you can practice on the soundsystem even for 45 mins or an hour beforehand that's pretty good too. I know it's a bar but some records sound much more manic and loud when you play them on a bigger system: you may have stuff you planned to play early on that is like this and you'll think "oops" when you play it.

if nobody is dancing, don't be afraid to make things more mellow rather than more intense.

i had a recurring and cliched dream where the track is about to finish and for some reason you haven't and can't get the next one going.

we talk about that a lot on a DJ mailing list I'm on. I don't know if it's specifically anxiety about DJing, or just your mind using that as a way to express anxiety in general. I've been DJing for well over 10 years and in every situation possible, and while I still can get a little nervous, I'm pretty comfortable DJing, yet I'm constantly having these dreams where the song is about to end and I don't have my records with me or I have records but they're all the wrong ones or the equipment is working...

i have been teed up to play a party tonight. i'm not actually a dj and i'm out of practice!! is this going to be a disaster???

the party is a 'P'-themed party. i am going to fudge it with paradise garage-y records, ie: the disco and house in my collection

my first thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYTEQjwxXzU

So, I'm thinking about buying a CDJ, as I don't intend to stop buying CD's, and as I have/buy a lot of straight up dance albums, which have many a track that it would be nice to be able to mix.

This all makes me nervous, though, since I've always been rubbed the wrong way by CDJ's, and I can't help feel it'll be an affront to my vinyl (I would really hate to start neglecting it as a neglect). Keep in mind I have no intention to, and don't really want to, use this to play burned CD's.

These aren't cheap, even on craigslist, so I have no idea if it'll be worth it?

must admit i've toyed with this idea in the past - and never followed it up due to a) not being a working DJ, b) the cost.

(party refernced upthread was excellent - tho i finished up lost in a k-hole somewhere - then i played another party a couple months later and it was terrible. never again.)

Hmmn. Well I might able to get a good pioneer one for as little as $400 on craigslist, but even still, $400 doesn't just come out of nowhere.

i guess if you already have enough cds with enough music unavailable to you on vinyl then it is definitely worth it

i think once you've made the leap though, it might be difficult to resist the temptation of buying mp3s and burning them to cd-r, and in that case you'd probably be better off with a copy of serato or whatever

Yeah, I'm kind of afraid of that, but I'm kind of weird in my resistance to burning mp3's (see: "lol teenage guilt over stealing music"), most notably in the fact that a week ago I deleted all the mp3's off my computer (backed up of course) to focus on listening to my acquired music more.

It seems like there's all sorts of pressures to move away from vinyl, and I hope this wouldn't be a push in the wrong direction (though having only one would prevent that).

i think once you've made the leap though, it might be difficult to resist the temptation of buying mp3s and burning them to cd-r, and in that case you'd probably be better off with a copy of serato or whatever

This is exactly where I am at right now.

Hmmmn. I see a pioneer CDJ 800 mk1 for $400. The inadvertently nice thing about the mk1 is that it can't play Mp3's (I guess you have to convert tracks to wav's first), which would be an extra barrier against the potential temptation to play mp3's.

To those out there who DJ...do you enjoy having a sparring partner in the booth? Is it a hindrance?

depends on the person. mostly a hindrance imo. i only ever had one setup where i used to come back to dublin once a month and dj with a mate and we did 3 and 3 the first night and it went great so we continued doing that.

it's very hard to find someone whose music complements your own even if you think you have similar tastes, imo.

I love doing it, but it can be a frustrating if with the wrong person.

so i think i'm gonna go full mobile dj in 2021. i know it's early and my hopes are probably high wrt vaccination but still feel like it's looking likely that "events" are back online within a year.

the only thing is i'm gonna have to get some kind of small business loan together for equipment, 5k or so. i can't stop thinking about it. has anyone in the us done this?

You mean, including a PA? Because a controller and a laptop are cheap if you're going that route.

yep, speakers.

and i want to switch from traktor to pioneer, get the xdj-rr or xdj-rx2. though i still haven't totally decided on that yet, it would be a lot cheaper to stick with traktor and upgrade to an s3 or s4. also it might be preferable to bring the laptop to gigs anyway for requests and such.

Ah ok. Last summer I DJed a friend's wedding a borrowed a PA from a lawyer, two Yamaha mains and a sub, and it worked out great. He offered to sell me the whole system + a Mackie powered mixer for $700, so he could upgrade to some Bose tower speakers. Idk, that's all I know about the PA part.

I have these powered PA speakers and love them, but you might need something a little bigger:

https://products.electrovoice.com/ap/en/zlx-12p/

my opinion is, you need to endorse/support DJs you really believe in artistically & let them have absolute free reign (assuming they understand the remit)

I think whether or not the DJ is any good at what they do is more the issue...a great dj can sell a 'corny' record and a mid dj will draw attention to how unimaginative what they're doing is

by 'understand the remit' I basically mean, tell them that's the remit, but you dont really 'enforce' it ... then the syncing of trusted creative minds kind of *determines* the remit ex post facto

The pub has been a lot of fun and I'm going to keep doing it, but my taste in music lends itself to clubs more. I've been picking up the odd hour-long slot here or there, or doing theme nights that still feel further away from what I should be doing, but in terms of playing to people actually dancing it's not really been happening. Until last week. A local venue recently changed ownership and was offering cheap venue hire for club events, and with a considerable amount of persuasion from some pals we decided to put an event. We called it Zhoosh, we positioned it as "dance music and disco, for the girls the gays and the theys" and for four hours I played a mix of house, pop, garage, hi-NRG and disco.

I didn't record it live on the night but I did record a run-through of it the next day. Here's the last three hours of it.

I did an absolutely rotten job of promoting it - I had plans to post on Instagram, share Soundcloud mixes, all that kind of stuff. But a) my roof sprung a leak and I got distracted dealing with that; b) I find all this stuff so boring and stressful and embarrassing, "please come to my event, please"; c) I believe in what I do and so do many people around me but it's a comparatively small amount of people I actually know who would come to something like this for various reasons. I paid for some flyers to get printed and given out on the night but I don't have the online profile or local presence to really be known or be a "draw" so it was a gamble.

We broke even, which was a relief, but more importantly - I had the best time doing it. The first hour I struggled, between unfamiliar equipment, nerves, and the lack of crowd. But about midnight it started to pick up, by 1am it was busy and I was fielding requests, and by 2am it was busy with everyone dancing. I got so many compliments at the end, a few new followers, a girl gave me her phone number and asked me to text her about the next time I'm playing, and a group of lads asked me if I could come DJ at an afterparty there and then (which was tempting but I didn't). Obviously you have to take this stuff with a pinch of salt - at 3am when they're full of booze and whatever else it's easy to get swept up in the momentum. But it's such a nice feeling and it has helped me with believing two things: I'm good at what I do, and I do it in my own way. I hope to do it again.

One thing I am really not a fan of: people standing in a line at the front to watch me. What happened to dancing in circles with your pals, ideally round a pile of bags and coats, instead of staring at the DJ? It feels very intense, especially when you're just letting a track play and they seem to expect you to be twiddling knobs and filters instead of just dancing or having a drink. I had a few moments where I felt like I was being very seriously watched rather just observed and looked at.

haha I had my first hater call in years on my radio show yesterday, ironically a university professor had just stopped by the station to tell me how much he loves the show. but this caller was having none of it, he was soooo mad about the (very noisy and challenging) Virgin Prunes track that was playing. I told the GM about it, we laughed and laughed, and on my way back into the studio one of the college kids says "I like whatever you're playing right now"

in conclusion, suck it haters

Great weekend! Friday night I played a 3-hour set of soul, R&B, beat and new wave from the 60s and 70s at the local pub.

Saturday night was even better, with 5+ hours of Dutch hiphop and R&B for a packed dancefloor of 90% ladies. I felt like a rockstar!

For 18 months now I've been playing weddings and parties via a booking agency, but I'm getting more and more bookings directly through club/bar owners and guests from earlier parties. When I started I played maybe five shows a year, now I'm usually doing two every weekend. Things are going well, I love it.

btw, I would love some technical tips on the second show, especially on transitions. I suspect I could make more use of filters, but those rap tracks are so short that it's often not worth bothering I guess?

I’m excited to listen but scratches if you’re not already scratching. Learning to scratch is easier than ever!

Scratching on digital always feels like a gimmick to me, but I'm happy to change my opinion on that.

I went out to see/dance to Objekt last month and it knocked something loose; hooked up the Traktor controller that’s been gathering dust in my closet for like 8 years and I’m trying to really put in the time to not suck. I don’t expect to ever do this outside of my apartment but it’s just fun, you know? It just feels so much better engaging with dance music when you can really just get your hands in there and fuck around with it

Currently working on getting better with using the upfaders and channel EQ instead of the crossfader, and just going through the music I’ve put on my laptop (which is probably far too much at this stage even though it’s just from my Bandcamp library) and setting cue points, tweaking beatgrids, making playlists, etc.

I’d really love to know how people manage their files— I don’t use the id3 genre tag (never have, honestly) but instead I’m making playlists for subgenre (bleep, Birmingham techno, dub techno, etc) and structural features/sounds (acid, breaks, whatever). I’m hoping Traktor’s search/smart playlist functionality is good enough that I can just dump a bunch of tags in the comment fields and work with those without cluttering up my library view too much

I just have a bunch of genre playlists, some clear and obvious and some that just make sense to me.

I also have a folder called "slowish" which is a large selection of sub-115 bpm stuff.

Finally I have a folder called "crate" which I empty and fill before each time DJing, stuff I'm thinking I'd like to play. Helps me find it faster and keep a rough sense of what I want to do.

Oh man yeah. I have a similar playlist for stuff I love and that is *kind of* mixable but not necessarily at my current skill level. Like I don’t want to just play house and techno but it feels like there’s a certain amount of homework I have to do before I can play around with stuff like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtNqcGKBmI

oh god I have completely forgotten how the markdown for YouTube embeds works here

Maybe if I clean up the url a little?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtNqcGKBmI

of my less obvious playlists, there's one called "Dazzle Ships", which is basically the kind of stuff I played at a party I used to have that was more of a listening thing. So it's a lot of more experimental dubby post-punk/krautrock type things.

I also have a Balearic/Cosmic/Loft playlist that follows a playlist I've had up on Apple/Spotify, which is what it says on the tin more or less.

Was asked to do a warm-up set (5-8pm) at a lovely bar called Renae in Manchester. Started with some slow things and slowly brought things up, ending with house and techno.

It is up on some new site for music (which may disappear at any time). https://plyr.fm/track/69

Ooops, wrong link! Make that: https://plyr.fm/track/70

On the lot tonight 10-12. Gotta pick some records

eh. good records. terrible transitions.

I’d really love to know how people manage their files— I don’t use the id3 genre tag (never have, honestly) but instead I’m making playlists for subgenre (bleep, Birmingham techno, dub techno, etc) and structural features/sounds (acid, breaks, whatever). I’m hoping Traktor’s search/smart playlist functionality is good enough that I can just dump a bunch of tags in the comment fields and work with those without cluttering up my library view too much

I heavily use Genre(s) tags, and make sure Year is populated correctly too (otherwise filtering for "House" or "Pop" will return decades of music). Annoying thing is that the current DJ platforms don't support multiple values (i.e. "Acid;Techno" is a different genre from "Acid" and "Techno") but if you search or filter with "Genre contains Acid" this doesn't matter too much.

For preparing sets I create these big genre crates/smart playlists (say "1985-1990 House", "Italo Disco", "2010-2019 Pop" etc), that makes selecting a lot easier. I now have almost 300,000 tracks in the library, if I don't do this I'll never find anything.