Oh, now I get it!
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  1. #1
    Tech Mentor heaps's Avatar
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    Default Oh, now I get it!

    Played my first fully improv'd DJ set at my friend's birthday (~50-60 people house party).

    I was playing dubstep and DnB, had a friend open for me playing some techier stuff. I went on for 3 hours straight (while frantically sprinting for piss breaks here and there).

    The first hour was pure anxiety, between some shoddy mixing, misreading the crowd, and blowing the speakers. People were making conflicting requests in the beginning, and I got the "play something we can dance to" girl along with the "PLAY SOME SKRILLEX OMFG" people and the "EVERYBODY wants to hear (obscure hip-hop song)" bois. After I filled a few requests, the dance floor became packed, and at that point I could really tell what they were after, when they wanted me to step it up, and when they were tired. It was awesome, and after that point, I got tons of complements from people I didn't know!

    To recap on some lessons learned:
    1) DJ's are not musicians: musicians play music to express themselves, DJ's share music with others.
    2) Most people (only) want to hear songs they know
    3) Use #2 to fill the floor, and then introduce the weird shit they haven't heard to keep people around.
    4) In house parties, the beat dropping out in a breakdown means "smoke break"
    5) Don't let #4 happen so often
    6) The music carries you, in my city, somewhere under 10% of the crowd pays attention to your mixing, including other "DJ's"
    7) You can always redeem yourself if things are going poorly.
    8) People only remember the good shit, and appreciate you sometimes more than even the keg.
    9) I need to pack more songs, and be aware of how many songs per energy level per key per BPM I have.
    10) It's an incredible feeling to drop your own track, and watch people get down to it more than the previous song by a known artist.
    11) Speakers have a "reset overload" button

    Something like that.

  2. #2
    Tech Guru MrPopinjay's Avatar
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    Nicely done.

    What equipment were you playing out with?

  3. #3
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    I've mastered #7!!!

    SSL - DJM 800 - Technic 1200's - X1 - ITCH - NS6 - VCI-300

  4. #4

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    #2 sounds like my sister.. BIG TIME
    I end up hearing the same old songs she likes too many times
    I think I heard them all almost like 200 or so times =.=
    /人◕‿‿◕人\
    --Its not the OS, It's the user--

  5. #5
    Tech Guru MrPopinjay's Avatar
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    I hate number 2. It's all about bowling up and not knowing a single tune you hear all night. Bonus points if you don't know the genre either.

  6. #6
    Tech Mentor Ryan Leo's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by haze324 View Post
    I've mastered #7!!!


    I think rule number 7 is the golden lesson
    DJM900||CDJ800MKII(2)||PDX 2000(2)||Yamaha HS50M(2)||Yorkville YSS2||Macbook||Traktor 2


    http://soundcloud.com/ryanleomusic/

  7. #7
    Tech Mentor DJTechMag's Avatar
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    Great post. No 2 is a must for house parties I wish my m8 would understand that concept he just plays really underground proggresive house all night and then see's his arse when no ones dancing. Not everyone likes what u like.

  8. #8
    Tech Mentor Yep.'s Avatar
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    I hear you. All of my gigs are at my boarding school. There are 3 DJs at my school, One kid is the son of James Newton Howard who did the scoring for the dark knight, blood diamond, chinatown, king kong, etc. This kid plays the dirtiest of the dirty in terms of grinding music. He also uses serato. Just saying. His dances end up having about 20 - 30 kids left on the dance floor after it's over because everyone else went with a partner and *cough.* The other DJ besides me is a member of the forum here, and he's only had a few gigs, but the pressure kind of kills him. He plays mostly electronic, with a bit of stuff tossed in elsewhere. We've jammed before and he's a great DJ, but the stress kind of throws him off. And then there's me. I'm all electronic most of the time, but if someone requests a song I go down to it and it normally works out. But the most annoying thing is the ridiculous inconsistency that you find in people. I'll represent this with an image... This is obviously extremely accelerated.

    So I'm Playing some Zedd. 127 BPM


    Nuff' Said.

    Of course I still take requests, but scumbag steve isn't gonna get any more playtime.
    MacBook Pro 13" 8GB RAM | Traktor Kontrol S4 | 2x Technics 1200Mk5 TTs | Yamaha Motif ES8 | M-Audio Axiom Pro 49 Controller | M-Audio Audiophile AV 30/40 Speakers | Pioneer HDJ-2000 | MIDI Fighter |

    http://soundcloud.com/fullkontrol

  9. #9
    Tech Guru TommyQuiet's Avatar
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    1+ for scumbag Steve ref

    have u heard his rapping? AWFUL

    there is all so a interview of him on youtube pretty funny

  10. #10
    Tech Guru MrPopinjay's Avatar
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    scumbag steve strikes me as a pretty decent guy.

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