Why Mixing Skills Sometimes Just Don't Matter

I totally feel you on this one Mike!
I used to have a residency at the local uni bar near my home for the student nights. It was crazy fun, and I have some truly memorable nights playing there. But there was one thing that I noticed more and more- the majority of people in the bar didn’t care about my mixing so much as they cared about my track selection!

This hit me quite hard. As a dj I’d spent years learning the art of the pitch perfect, beatmatched, seamless liquid mix, and I was quite proud of my ability to do so. I usually focused on straight pure 4/4 house music/nu disco/classics, and that worked just fine in a club setting. But at this new venue I realised that I seriously had to step my game up, and focus not so much on playing great mixes, but playing great (see popular) tracks.

Just to make it plain, it wasn’t like my track selection was rubbish, and I never fully planned out my sets to the point where I couldn’t adapt for crowd taste and atmosphere, but my mixing skills were not received in the way I thought that they would be. I’d hit a crazy loop/build/sweep/drop between two sure things and it just seemed like the crowd didn’t react in the way that your usual club crowd would. But if I let that new track go to the percussion loop at the end and then drop “Little Bad Girl” with its tell tale start, people would go crazy! So after a while I went pop, and sprinkled in new top 40s and female favorites (DJ top tip: when in doubt, focus on getting the girls to dance) to my sets, and focused more on tracks then mixes, and it worked quite well.

The problem with this phenomenon is that when people don’t really care about your DJ’ing skills, you lose your ability to demand wages based on them. I personally lost my night to a guy who I originally taught to mix, and now he plays off of virtual dj without any controllers/mixers/equipment at all. I mean he doesn’t even use headphones; he just drags the track, hits quantize, and moves the crossfader on the screen. He also doesn’t ask for payment. But since this uni night has become so big (in no small part because of my old residency) most people don’t seem to mind his lack of skills; they’re just there to get pissed and hook up.

I realize that this has become a bit of a rant but my dilemma is this: how do I compete with free when all I can offer is my skills, experience, and promoting capabilities?! I learned my lesson but when mixing doesn’t matter what’s stopping venues from just putting on NightLife or some noob with a laptop?!

D….. there comes a point when you have to stop being a “crowd whore” and do it as its supposed to be done and pay homage to thos ethat made the art what it is… sometimes its the dj’s responsibilty to teach the crowd as well as entertain them

I don’t know how to say this kindly, but if you are a DJ, at some level you are already a crowd whore. You seek the approval of others or you wouldn’t try to play your music outside your bedroom, and definitely not for money.

If you can’t read a crowd, you deserve to lose your spot. “Educating” people is your ego talking. Working new/different things they may like into a set is not the same thing as trying to shoe-horn your own priorities onto a room full of strangers. If you’re doing it right, the crowd isn’t dictating your set – you’re interacting with them and building a set together. The crowd should educate you. I get the biggest kick out of folks talking about wedding DJs with disdain when the fact of the matter is they will not only likely make more money per show than a club guy, they’ll get more business the better they are at what they do. Weddings often pay 3-5x better than regular shows.

You’ll never work some of the crunkest parties ever if you’re turning your nose up at things because you can’t sit around noodling 4/4 house or dubstep or whatever your personal thing is. I had to get over the fact that many of the crowds I worked weren’t all going to be into the same type of music I listen to in my free time really early on. Nobody was paying me to screw & chop stuff (until they did later, but those were specialty parties.) “If someone is happy being a wedding DJ.” Ha. I’ve had more engaged crowds at odd places like class reunions (where I got to break out straight-up Miami bass 2 Live Crew style sets in-between requests for 80s/90s radio ish once everyone got drunk) or an anniversary party where they want to hear 70s funk and country, but then decide once the kids are gone, they need to get on some G-Funk Dr. Dre & Snoop type jams. I realize it’s not a club night, but you know what? It paid well. I got a lot of musical education myself working shows like that. The crowd got into it a lot more than some of the massive club parties I’d done. In the end, I appreciate any crowd for whom I was allowed to play music – I always treated the shows like a fun learning experience that also put money in my pocket. Otherwise, I may as well stick to noodling in my home.

Music snobs don’t bother me, but I do find them to be kinda counterproductive to actual DJing whether they’re DJs or audience.

“yournameishere” Slow down with the assumptions please, you are not the only one who has played in front of various crowds. I played at weddings as early as 1988, I understand that crowd and what the pay is like. As I understand what the pay is for a large commercial club venue, I’ve spun for that crowd as well. No one is “sitting around noodling” as you put it, we are spinning the music that is central to out lives. At a gig where that can’t freely be done, you won’t find me spinning anymore. If other people want to use to Djing as a means to get rich , so be it, that’s their choice. And please refrain from calling out such names like “music snobs”, without interacting with someone on a personal level.

I’ll echo what D-jam said for a minute here. What I said about myself, early gigs were of the sort that I mentioned. Some weddings, cultural functions etc. I used to open for my older brother, my DJ tutor. At the time I took any damn chance I could get to spin, because I was itching to play in front of people..I was a kid after all. When I went solo, and focused in with confidence on what genres I wanted to spin..the crowds understood what to expect. Of course we need to feed off the energy of the floor, that’s where the fun is after all! But I personally am at my best when spinning the music I truly love, otherwise they can just get a juke box. Now I guess it’s gotten to a point , where if someone calls me in they now what to expect ..soulful ,deep house journeys 🙂 So Djams right on with getting them into the palm of your hands, but to do so may mean giving up some gigs. That or compromising at some gigs, like I did early on. If Djing is one’s primary source of income, which it is not for me anymore . Then of course, I can understand taking what ya can get..or if you’re just starting out and dying to be in front of a crowd. I gotta run , have something at the apple store ready to pick up. Take care folks