I’m just getting back into djing after a few years off, mainly house and techno.
I have less time and more commitments than I had before, so I don’t see myself fitting in too many club gigs, but I was planning on recording and sharing my mixes online.
So I opened a Mixcloud account and put up a mix in the House & Tech House categories, and within a few hours it was lost in a deluge of other mixes. That’s ok, I was expecting that, I know I need to put in the work and do some promo if I want to get my mixes noticed. But where should I do that promo?
I joined a couple of Facebook dj groups and they just seem to be a flood of promo posts for gigs and other mixes, with little to no interaction or feedback on any of them. Looking at the mixes section on the dj forums (such as here) the pattern seems similar - lots of people posting mixes, but very little replies or feedback.
So is there actually any point posting mixes online? Does anyone listen to them? Is it possible to get noticed in such a crowded space these days?
I view mine as more of practice of getting the arch of the mix correct. Exactly what am I trying to convey? Chill. Dance-ish. Peak time. Summery. Dark. Moody.
Yes, but just posting a mix is not enough mate, ya gotta spam promote like crazy. I also post everything on mixcloud but its small change compared to soundcloud … e.g just over 200 total plays in mixcloud compared to around 150/day on soundcloud.
I never ever listened to any mix that has been ‘spammed’ to me and I listen to a lot of mixes.
I would try to create an organic following, start with your friends, create some amazing stuff and grow it slowly. Check DJTT blog for this topic IIRC there are some cool articles on this topic.
I know a few DJs who build themselves a massive (100k) followerbase and get tons of gigs only by making podcasts.
Would you still recommend Soundcloud for DJ mixes? I’ve read so many articles lately (including on DJTT) about how soundcloud
is dead for djs, so I discounted it.
Yes to all three questions, but it is more complicated than that - posting mixes can be seen as a tactic that is part of a larger overall strategy.
This forum has a rule which states that you must have posted 25 times on the forum before you can share a DJ mix. This agrees with my strategy on sharing mixes - if you just upload mixes to soundcloud to share with people who don’t know you, it’ll be hard to get noticed. But if you plant yourself into a community and forge connections with people, then they will be more inclined to listen to your contributions.
Thanks for the advice Lanz. That’s what I was thinking myself too…you only get what you give. I have started giving feedback to mixes on other forums and on mixcloud. I am just getting started on the DJTT forum, but I’ll do the same on here too.
So the message from the replies so far seems to be that posting mixes online is worth it, but I need to put the work in at the start
[QUOTE]First of all, you need to understand one thing, and that is that this is a frustrating, and painfully slow process. One thing you need to understand is that in order to build yourself up, you need to be broken down… I’ll do that for you now.
You are doing something that thousands of others are currently doing.
A good chunk of those people do it a lot better than you do.
You are not going to post a few mixes and get thousands of plays. People love music, but let’s be real here.
You are never going to master this art, you will only continue to learn.
If you think people, even your friends are going to care that you are starting to DJ, you are truly mistaken.[/QUOTE]
Love this bit. Might as well call it like it is! It’s kinda what I’ve been been figuring out for myself these last few days.
Thankfully I’m really enjoying putting together and recording mixes, so hopefully that will sustain me through the “frustrating, and painfully slow process”.
That article is bollocks, i have only had a handful of mixes removed since 2007. Also if you use soundcloud, activate the RSS feed and send it to iTunes, Voila, instant podcast.
Thanks, and yeah it’s good to understand what you’re up against versus thinking you’ll just magically gain plays and followers simply because you post mixes. And I would NOT consider Soundcloud to be dead for DJs… You just need to be careful on what you play. If you DJ top 40, Krewella type shit then save yourself the headache now and don’t use Soundcloud because that shit is copyright heaven. Not bashing the genre but the popular stuff like that is what will get you struck out with them.
Cool, Soundcloud definitely sounds like an option for me so. The stuff I play is pretty much all underground house & techno. No top 40 or major label stuff at all.
Thanks to everyone who gave advice so far. Sounds like I have a lot of work to put in, but it is do-able.
Yeah then you’ll be less of a target, but not invisible. You can always do the 5-10 seconds of silence in the beginning of the mix or even have some type of intro made for ya. Those seem to throw off Soundclouds copyright scanners or whatever they’re called. That’s not 100% proven but it’s helped at least me and a few others.
It’s all about the first song w/ soundcloud in my experience. Avoid a major label for the first song, and you should be fine. I’ve even had underground stuff in the first song that sampled an old record that got removed. (this was after a year or so of it being online)
