Dirty Hippie
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Dirty Hippie
MemberSo, a week later, here is the report…
IT WENT AWESOME!!!
I snuck a shot of vodka before hand because I will admit that I was a bit nervous. I got there a bit early and set up my gear, checked sound, the PA was mediocre, but I made it work. I brought a buddy with me, and it made things easier. The cut the overhead lights about 15 minutes til 10 and the place looked great. They really did a good job with the lighting and the place was made for performance. I put on some chillstep as the doors opened, thinking it would take a while to get going. I was wrong, about 60 people were waiting when they opened the doors. People meandered around for a bit, but by 10:30, people were starting to dance.
I was warned beforehand that a different crowd comes in about 12 and they are used to rap and would be expecting it. However, by 11:30 there were at least 200 people there and the place was going crazy. I started getting requests, and they were in the genre I play, or close enough to keep in the flow. By 12, the place was full, 325-350 people. And the crowd they warned about came in. I got constant requests for stuff I would not play to save my life. One person told me that if I just played the songs he told me to, then everyone would dance. I looked at him, looked at the crowd (yep, still going ape shit), looked back at him, pointed at the crowd and told him where he could go…
About 1:30 I put on an exceptionally dirty remix of Clarity and ran out to the balcony for a quick smoke. As I walked out, the breakdown hit and everyone in the room was singing. It was the greatest feeling.
In the end, I am glad I stuck to my guns, I know that the majority had fun and people danced until the lights came on at 2:30. I did learn that I need to get comfortable using the mic as it is the only thing that scared me all night.
MemberDo not wait. This is exactly the type of thing you should cut your teeth on. You may make mistakes. Okay, you will make mistakes. But really no one will care and probably you will be the only one to notice. What you learn from it and the drive you gain from it will be totally worth it.
September 24, 2013 at 10:34 pm in reply to: DJ I met pushed me hard to perform at one of his regular hookah lounge gigs – I'm nervous. #44585MemberYou are getting great advice, so I will just add, consider this a gift. I would put money the fact that you are going to come out of this feeling awesome!
MemberThank you for all of this advice. Just an update, the response to the event has convinced the people booking that the crowd will be bigger and they have moved it to a bigger venue. 300-400 people are expected now. Because of this, they upped my pay (without me asking; booya) and they are going to rent a larger PA than what I can provide and handle the lighting. So I end up with more money and less work. They also indicated that they have two more events coming up in the next month that they will be interested in booking me for if the reaction is good…. so wish me luck.
MemberAt most, a DJ should learn the basics of beat matching for two reasons.
1. It lets you know one of the basics of your art form. If you are an art student, like a painter, and you have a totally new ay of painting, you still would study the work of master painters and learn basic techniques. It just makes you better. You may never use it in a performance setting, but you will be better for it.
2. You never know what you may need to do. Sometimes equipment fails. Sometimes you really want to play a song that can not be properly beat gridded. It is like learning to drive a manual shift car. You can always buy an automatic, so why learn? Well if you need to drive your drunk buddies car or something.
Personally, I use my sync button. I promise it took more time to properly beat grid my whole collection than it did to learn to beat match. But I am glad I learned to beat match for the reasons above. Iceman, I appreciate your post because it touches on the main problem anonymous haters are just that… haters. It would be silly to change the way you do something you love because some random duder says you aren’t doing it right. If you like what you do and the people you play for are happily shaking their asses on the dance floor, you are doing it right.
MemberI think the lesson here is taking the gig without asking these questions. Depending on space, you may be able to set your controller up early. You may also not be allowed to use it at all. Like those above, I would not recommend going in blind. Using a new piece of kit, regardless of how easy it is to use, is not something you want to do the first time playing out. If you have to use CD-J’s, get some and practice. Rental is pretty cheap here, not sure how it is there. If you are allowed to bring your gear, it is not hard to hook up to the house mixer, but you will need to understand how everything connects and how to make sure you will be playing into the correct channel.
All of that being said, congrats on the gig, and I would like to hear how it goes afterwords.
MemberI play dubstep and electro and I agree with these guys; dubstep is not to learn on. WhenI first started, a buddy gave mea stack of house records that were all within 5-7 BPM of each other. It helped a lot just trying to get beats together, working up to phrases being lined up, then eventually trying to figure out what records went well together.
As far as the pitch control issue, think of it this way: the records are going 2 different speeds. You can manually speed up or slow down a record, but you would have to manually control that speed for the entire mix. Once you start the new tune, nudge it if needed, but use the pitch control to adjust the speed so that they stay synced up. What really helped me was to run the pitch control way up or way down on the incoming track so that you know for sure what way you need to adjust. This serves two purposes. It takes the guesswork out of the early adjustments and it gets your ears used to what it sounds like when the new track is faster or slower. Over time, you will immediately know which way you need to adjust.
September 4, 2013 at 6:17 pm in reply to: First gig in a club with a decent sound system. Any advice? #43804MemberOne other thing to mention is the quality of your files. The better the system, the easier it is to notice that the 192’s don’t sound like 320’s.
September 3, 2013 at 5:11 pm in reply to: What do DJs think about clubbing as "just something you do in your 20s"? #43782MemberI am 34. In the area where I live, the “clubs” are top 40and hip hop which I do not enjoy. The few times I have gone to clubs, I did feel like the “old guy”. I get my music at our local festivals, which are amazing here. I have never felt out of place, and even though I am older than the average attendee by 10 years or so, everyone is really there in a big group and goes from camp to camp meeting new people. Only problem I run into is my wife not peeing in the woods, lol. I still go to large club events to see acts that I really like, but it is nothing like it was in my 20’s…
MemberHonestly, my favorite part of DJing is introducing people to music they would not ever listen to normally. This started with my house parties. I play grittier electro and dubstep. I invited everyone I know, and would start by playing remixes of popular songs and get people into the groove then slowly work into the stuff I really love.
What I have noticed is that the slightest bit of familiarity gets people excited. For example, I have a remix of Thrift Shop that only has the horn loop and “This is F*ckin’ Awesome” lyric mixed with some wicked wobbles and people go ape sh*t over it. I got requests for more well known stuff all night; Skrillex, Daft Punk, Bassnectar, Awolnation, etc., but I never played anything the way they would hear it on the radio or a TV commercial. Instead I played chopped up versions or remixes that were another Genre. I played a dubstep version of Get Lucky for example.I did play some more “commercial” tracks because I want people to hear it, like it, and go buy it or watch it on youtube. I am in the position of having to create fans of my type of music as much as my performances because there is literally no scene here and the area I live in is usually about 10 years behind on trends.
I am not really in a position to give advice, it is not like I am making it big or anything, but I can say that the biggest thing that kept people dancing is that I was having fun the whole night. I didn’t feel like I needed to play anything specific to avoid being to commercial or have a specifically designed style. One of my friends said after I was done playing that the best part about me playing is that I am smiling from ear to ear the whole time and never stop dancing.
MemberHere is a picture of the front part of the dancing area that someone snapped. We had 2 tents, a 10’x10′ over the booth and a 12’x12′ for people to dance under. Behind where the picture was taken was another large patio where we had 2 fire pits and more dancers. There were people with hoops and poi out in the yard too. I honestly felt like a million bucks.
MemberMy DJ Software and Traktor… I had SSL before I sold my turntables, and I enjoyed it well enough, but I demo’d Itch and Traktor when I was looking for a controller and preferred Traktor’s effects, mapping capabilities, and the responsiveness when paired with a NI controller. I have an S2 and 2 F1’s. I use the tekken F1 mapping for effects (if you have an F1, try this, it is awesome). I would love for Traktor to introduce side by side waveforms, although now I am so used to it I doubt it would matter much.
MemberI am so scared of losing all of my music. I stopped pirating music when I started DJing (I realized how wrong it was when I saw how little artists get paid for sales). Now that I have spent so much money on music, I have it on 2 external hard drives, and every time a I get enough to fill a DVD, I burn it and take it to my parents house to be stored in the fireproof gun safe.
MemberThank you for comments. Terry, that is huge compliment. I know it would drag a bit if it was longer. This was a big step for me just getting a song done. Now a fire is lit though and I hope to be able to do more.
MemberThe good news is that we know we don’t need 8 hours of sleep any more. http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2002/02_08_kripke.html . A group in Sweden repeated this study and got similar results. Just make sure you get a regular schedule going like everyone else has said.
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