Reason808
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December 10, 2011 at 12:34 pm in reply to: DJ NAMES: How did you choose yours? Ever wish you'd chosen a different one? #11183
Reason808
ParticipantI actually think most DJ names are lame and usually way over the top. “Magic Mike” “Mixmaster Mike” “Mad Mike” :rolleyes:
I’ve always DJed under my real name, but now I want to have a bit of anonymity as a DJ. Suggestions/help welcome.
In LA my alter-ego was “shabazzz!” But that was just a goof on empty showbiz hype between friends. And there’s no way I could do a respectable set with that name, and most people were wondering why I chose a Muslim name.
Maybe I’ll ask my girlfriend for a clever pun in Chinese? Or use some weird animation term? DJ Keyframe, DJ Render, DJ Subsurface Scattering? Ugh! Maybe cos I’m older something with Silver or Grey in the title? My last name is boring, too. Stumped.
ParticipantThanks Phil. It was fun doing warm-ups for Hybrid, glad somebody knows who they are! One week till my vacation starts and I can really dig into the S4.
ParticipantThanks. Yeah, giving up DJing never seemed like an option, just something I’m always interested in doing. I’m suprised myself: I thought at this age I’d be listening to classical music, sipping brandy in smoking jacket in the den or something. Nope, still crazy about beats.
The S4 seems really amazing. All I liked about the Torq and more. I just did a quick setup and spin, then work got busy again. I will be setting it up for real over the holidays when I have more time. Looking forward to it. Hope to make and post my first S4 based-mix early 2012!
ParticipantHey Iceman, I’ve always been puzzled by the split between hip-hop and EDM. I’ve lost interest in hip-hop for reasons everybody here has mentioned, but before then, I loved both types of music equally. However, I’m a pretty rare bird.
I think the split has always been there, long before Digital DJing. Around 20 years ago, I DJ’ed a small hip-hop club in Minneapolis. I was the only white guy in the place. It was the best DJ gig I ever had: every Friday night, 6 hours straight, in the golden age of hip-hop, new jack swing, Prince, and fantastic stuff. People loved my mixing. I had to bust out the Jodeci when people were getting tired from dancing too much! Then I’d start it up again. Awwww yeah.
Back then (as you probably know, but younger readers might not) music was more segregated: There was top 40 hits and black “urban” hits. Unfortunately, my social world was also segregated. All my white friends who were into the EDM of the times (Nitzer Ebb, Depeche Mode, Acid House, etc.) But never ONCE did any of them come in there to see me spin, having a good time, rocking out the crowd. Sometimes they would mention they were scared, and there were definitely gang-bangers at this place, but all my friends prided themselves on how tough and urban (i.e., not suburban) they were.
It was sad but also an eye-opener. My friends guys were pretty artsy and liberal, you’d think they’d want to try something new. But they really refused to see this scene with any credibility. I definitely got a whiff of “Guess who’s coming to dinner” with music taste. They embraced soul, but at a safe social distance. Seems to be an element of the EDM scene for a long time. But I’ve been out of the scene, and I’m in Hong Kong now, so I can’t really judge whether its true any more.
Sounds like you’ve got a niche you can exploit, though, Iceman. One of the things I’m planning to do with my new Tacktor S4 is set up loops on old hip-hop and soul jams for crazy mixes and re-edits. Do the kinds of mixes I couldn’t do in that old hip hop club. Those old soul and hip-hop tracks had killer loops but they were always too short!
ParticipantFind what I call a “pivot” song. A dubstep track that has electro elements and vice-versa.
Back when I was DJing crappy suburban top 40 bars, half the crowd wanted rock the other wanted dance. Each side refused to dance to the other’s music. INXS “New Sensation” worked for both crowds, and once I got half the floor going I could drop INXS to pull the other “side” of the crowd in and create enough energy so everybody would just start enjoying themselves. I started to love how INXS saved my DJ ass, even though the song is pretty mediocre.
Once I started building my sets around this pivot song, I noticed how I would get creative in my transitions and lead-ups to this point. INXS worked well with Depeche Mode’s Strangelove (another hit from that era). So I’d go from AC/DC to Depeche Mode in three mixes and the crowd would dig it. Kinda creative, given the situation.
Now fast-forward a few years when I’m DJing in much cooler NYC bars, where you’re expected to play underground stuff. I still found the whole concept of pivot songs work to bridge from one genre to the other. The bridge wasn’t quite as drastic but the concept was the same, and the creativity remained and expanded because I had more creative freedom.
Once you start trying to tie the common genre elements together you start seeing your collection with all sorts of interesting possiblities. All sorts of little common hooks and riffs to play around with on a mix.
ParticipantWow! Thanks a lot – very helpful and thorough replies. This pretty much answers my questions about Tracktor with the S4 controller – I’ll probably get it next week. 😎 And I will have a poke around on all the tutorials out there.
Great to know Traktor cues are stored as part of the MP3 tag. Because of Torq, I had assumed it was not technically possible. If Torq had done this, it would’ve spared me a lot of re-work. But I’m glad to know cue work in Traktor will stay with my library MP3s use with other software if need be. And I can’t wait to rock the advanced looping features!
As far as iTunes smart playlists, Traktor seems similar to Torq: read-only. If my smart lists update in iTunes, then I had to re-load Torq to see the update. So I can live with that integration.
However, I’m wondering if there’s a way to use Traktor’s built in comments in a similar way. My larger purpose in using smartlists was to organize EDM genres – which always have fuzzy boundaries and plenty of overlap. I used iTunes “group” field as a 2nd genre category. I guess Traktor may not recognize this field.
I used keywords in iTunes comments sections to drive my smartlists. What I liked was putting keywords like “indie,” “arabic” or “percussive” to drive a themed list that would expand as I built or re-tagged music library. If Traktor can track keywords in this manner – I’d gladly drop iTunes.
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