Do you know any DJs who don't mix?

Dominic Thomas, post: 21307, member: 2310 wrote:
If I was to give an analogy, it’s like getting into your car and having the interior redone awesomely. It’s still your car and you know where everything is, but now you have purple leather and exciting new buttons on your dashboard. So to end this long rambling post, I respect both, but I like mixing more. It feels more like performing and making the music your own.

Good analogy here!

Interesting topic. You’ve inspired my first post.

I’m a Virtual DJ program DJ. I line up songs and let the program do a 4 second automix. On most nights, the most I’ll do is change the automix points of songs, so that it comes in when I want it to and cuts off any unnecessary intro’s and outro’s. I do it for a living, it takes care of me and my wife, and we live pretty comfortably. I have 4 guys who work for me, and last year my company had almost 700 shows. Everything from 12 year old birthday parties to Weddings, plus, mostly, a lot of bars and restaurants. In any given night we can go from top 40, to old school hip hop, to 90’s rock, to country… Whatever seems to fit the mood of the crowd. I charge about $50 per hour with a 4 hour minimum for the basic shows, obviously, much more for Weddings and the more complicated gigs. If I’ve got a dance floor slammed, and I’m playing a bunch of songs that would go well mixed together, I’ll usually do some basic beat matching and mixing within Virtual DJ and throw in a few effects sparingly, but nothing fancy, and frankly, usually people don’t know the difference between my beatmatched mix, and virtual DJ’s quick automix. In a way, I do it just to look busier. Also, some of the area DJ’s that mix give me shit because I’ll “press play, and walk away”… But I’m usually off engaging specific people in the crowd. Checking in on the different groups of people, cracking jokes, getting to know the newcomers, basically trying to make damn sure that everybody is having a good time and that they know who I am and that they can and should come up and engage me.

I often shake my head when I go on DJ boards and hear people bad mouthing program DJing. I can think of a bunch of DJ’s off the top of my head in my area who mix and work really hard at it, and are pretty damn good at it. But they don’t make good and consistent money or get consistent shows, because they don’t adapt to different crowds as well. With that said, there are also a few DJs in my area that mix top 40, are really good at it, and are like local celebrities. I’m happy for their success. I would never bad mouth mixing, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. We’re all supposedly about the music, I’d rather play 50 random incredible songs that fit my crowd, in their entirety, than 100 similar styled, pretty good songs, that we’re beatmatched and cut up.

Now, I’m here because I’m trying to teach myself to mix a lot better, and I’d like to start using my NS6 out once in a while if the show seems to call for it. But I definitely wanted to chime in to say that plenty of people out there in my fairly affluent Chicago suburbs have a blast getting drunk while I DJ, and I usually don’t mix at all. Song selection is the key for me, I love it when at the end of the night, the hipsters, dubsteppers, country girls, and top 40 fans are all leaving happy. I love it when I play a track and people go apeshit because it’s an awesome song that they forgot existed and they still remember every word… that’s my favorite. I love being a DJ, I just haven’t needed to mix to love it, or to profit from it.

quite surprised david mancuso hasn’t been mentioned here. as for DJ’s whose mixing is not the best but the selection and flow more than make up for it, I’d say Daniel Wang and Move D.

I’m sorry but how is this valid Djing?

So many people on these forums have made jokes and cracks at the likes of SHM and David Guetta for playing a prerecorded set, not doing any actual work and just waving their arms around. Which is essentially what this guy is doing.

Phil you have even posted on FB funny videos of DJs who “Nailed it” when they just cut from one track to the next.
and made comical remarks about it.

Oh, I realize that I misspoke a bit, or at least, I was misunderstood. I never ever have a pre-set set list. That’s a lot of my point, I read the crowd and interact with them and adjust accordingly. The thing that makes me confident in my DJ abilities is my vast knowledge of American Popular Music and an ability to read a crowd and pick music accordingly. I usually line-up 3 or 4 songs ahead of time. But then when I get requests, I build the rest of the nights set list accordingly. For example, If I’m playing ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and then I have a few country requests, or a few rock requests, I’ll try to thing of a few great songs that fit in between those two genre’s. So the when the requests comes up, it doesn’t sound like a jukebox or a Ipod shuffle, it goes from one genre to the next in ways that flow and make sense. That way everybody stays happy and keeps drinking and partying. This probably only works for DJ’s that play mainstream music like me, this post wouldn’t apply to EDM.

Basically, I spend a lot of careful consideration on the songs and styles and moods and less consideration on my specific mixes. I’m often playing songs that I haven’t played for months, or sometimes years. But I don’t let that hold me back from working them into a set if they fit right.

Phil, that’s an outstanding video, I hadn’t got to it yet in the series. That’s the idea I’ve been working with since 2005. I’d like to learn to mix on top of it, but I think song selection and crowd energy trump mixing in many scenarios, and I’m living proof that you can make a good career out of it.

Hey there twicx!

I see what your saying, and song selection is definitely paramount. And a lot of that should be a part of preparation, as far as building up your musical knowledge of new and old, and getting them coded into your system, and if your planning to mix them, setting hot cues and such…

But then, it seems that your talking about carefully putting together a setlist. And really, in many places, there is nothing wrong with that, it allows you to do mixes and transitions and maybe even blends that you’ve already thought out and practiced, it can be wonderful and a great way for you to show off your mixing abilities.

But be careful, I see a lot of DJ’s fail (at shows) because they spent hour upon hours working on a set only to show up at a bar or club where the crowd apparently was looking for something different, and instead of finding something the crowd likes, they just plow on ahead with the set they had planned. In most cases, a well executed but poorly conceived plan will get you nowhere.

The difference when a major band or even a major DJ does it, is that they have a room full of people that specifically came there to see them because they are huge fans. If you’re starting out, you are probably going to have to be playing in a lot of rooms where you have to win their approval. It’s a big difference.

Yeah Twicx, I think that nails it on the head. If you are a specific genre DJ in a club full of people that came to hear that, then I don’t see anything wrong with putting together a set-list before your show. It would give you a lot of advantages when it came time to mix and blend.

If you were booking shows at bars full of whoever happened to show up that night, it could get hairy.