I visit this site all the time and it has helped me immensely with my skills and confidence as a DJ. This being my first post, I wanted to discuss something that I feel is an important observation that myself and other DJ friends have made throughout numerous gigs.
I have read threads on this website regarding issues of transitioning seamlessly from say a 90 BPM song to a 125 BPM song. To this day, I still have trouble conquering such a mix and feel discouraged when I cannot do so. However, the one thing that eases my pain is seeing the crowd continue to dance because the 125 BPM song is FILTHY HOT! I then began to notice at certain gigs, that the crowd didn't seem to care if the mix was perfect, all they were concerned about was if the song was hot and kept them dancing. The other night I was having a pretty solid session going at around 100-110 BPM when a lady came up to the booth and requested "Suavemente" by Elvis Crespo. I began desperately searching my hard drive for a "Suavemente" remix of some sort that was around 100-110 BPM but could only find the original (which runs about 124 BPM). Reluctantly, I made a pretty standard crossfade transition and was shocked to see the dancefloor BUM RUSHED. This kind of thing continued all night with pretty weak transitions from BPM's all over the board, but the dancefloor was completely out of control. I mixed normally when I could but when a request would throw off my groove, the dancefloor failed to suffer.
In Chicago, where I hail from, there is a place called "Liar's Club." The DJ who spins there sometimes does not demonstrate much skill with beat or tonal matching but his song selection is RIDICULOUS. He was simply crossfading into "B'52's" to "Beastie Boys" to "Cascada" to "Dr. Dre" and the crowd remained EPIC. It seemed like he just read the minds of everyone in the place. Granted the dude spins there all the time and probably knows the crowd but STILL, when I went there for the first time it was unreal. I was dancing up a storm with mad bitties (babes) cause every song just KILLED IT.
Therefore, I think I came to a pretty solid conclusion. If people are coming to see DJ OB (my DJ name by the way) HOUSE AND ELECTRO SET THAT WILL RIP FACES OFF!!!...I'll 99.9% be beat and tonal matching the entire night because that crowd will (hopefully) appreciate the craft of mixing. However if people are coming to see DJ OB: PLAYING DA HOTTEST JAMS FROM THE 70's, 80's, 90's and TODAY!! DOLLAR FIREHOUSE ENERGY BOMBS!!....I feel like it's totally acceptable to crossfade a few tempo changing requests in there, as long as the party keeps on hoppin. Granted mixing flawlessly is a HELL of a lot more fun than crossfading (obviously), I still feel a DJ shouldn't be judged solely on his or her ability to transition. Now maybe I'm just not practicing hard enough or perhaps I'm being lazy, but without great tunes being eatin up a dance hungry crowd, who cares if my mix was ABSURDLY SICK? I don't see any bodies on the dancefloor.
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