I suppose it’s all about being organised. With records, I never used to sort by tempo - but I wish I did. All my tracks are now sorted by Genre, Key, Tempo, etc…
Headphones just reduce the risk of any “nasty surprises” (key clashes, etc…) MiK doesn’t ALWAYS get it right.
Just seems weird to me that the DJ will ONLY hear what the crowd hears.
This leads me to believe that some DJ’s are pre-planning their sets, so they already know that there WON’T be any nasty surprises.
Nothing wrong with that.
Really? You don’t see anything wrong with planning a set ahead of time?
This whole thing seems ridiculous to me. Why would you not want headphones?
no flipping way
you are right good examples!
so headphones are optional?
I like to do a bit of pre mix ‘eq’ and ‘gain’ and a bit of ‘will it work’?
or are these people playing big clubs/festivals with proper monitoring?
I’ve seen plenty of people play with Traktor in internal mode, visually by watching waveforms, without headphones, to good degrees of success.
It’s fine, and it works for most kinds of EDM, rap, and pop as long as it’s sync-able.
doesnt exactly have to be planning a set ahead of time, any given night I play about 150-200 songs these songs I have played over and over again, set cue points, have keys set, have bpms set and even have comments on what works really well with what else… this isnt a planned set… I dont have rules to follow just I know my songs intimately. I play with headphones the odd time but only use them for songs I DONT know. Otherwise there is no need for them when I play, traktor has taken away the need with everything visually marked.
150 to 200 songs? Bloody hell, for how long do you usually play? I go through about 15 tracks an hour, so even if I play longer sets (4h+) I probably won’t play much more than 100 tracks a night.
But not using headphones is something I cannot understand. Sure, would work with pre-planned sets and maybe if you know your tracks extremely well. But even in the latter case I would argue that having no headphones at hand will limit the spontanity of your sets (as you’re probably even more inclined to play them in the combinations which you know to work well from before). To me, one of the biggest advantages of DJing digitally (with sync, cue-points and looping) is that I don’t necessarily have to intimately know all my tunes. I can (and do) easily play tracks I’ve bought like a few hours before the gig - that certainly wouldn’t work without cans.
I’ve never done that. Ever. When I pick out a CD/record/file I know that’s the next track. The sound testing for selection goes on in my head while browsing through tracks.
With 99% of EDM stuff I know my tracks well enough and the general structure of songs to not do that. If I’m not sure about something but really want a certain track to come next then I only mix the intro/outro drums or drop some heavy filtering to be safe, but those are pretty rare occasions. Plus, I’ve got keys commented as a last resort. Any adventurous combinations are tested long before I get to playing a “real” set.
As I pointed out in my last post, I’m not saying my way is “better” than what you do in any way, and I’m not saying that there’s something better about not using headphones (unless you have eraser hair). I’m just saying that I do things differently than you and so do a lot of people - headphones aren’t required for someone that isn’t beatmatching. If you think the way I play “equates to bad mixes and bad DJing”, I’m okay with that. Do whatever works for you. I think the OP’s question of trying to figure out if big headline names use headphones or not to decide whether its acceptable is kind of silly.
It’s a bit like a surgeon turning of the ECG equipment before an operation. Sure, you’ll mostly be fine, but very occasionally you’ll kill a patient.
Actually, it’s a bit like leaving the ECG on, but doing the operation with your eyes shut.
So you don’t take headphones to gigs at all?
Fair enough. Definitely not how I’d approach a set.
For example, I’ve got 800 nu-disco and deep house songs. That’s 640,000 potential combinations. I’ll leave my headphones off for the mixes I’ve planned and got 100%(if I’m syncing). I’ll use my headphones when I feel like ‘being adventurous’.
I guess there’s always the aspect of ‘playing’ v ‘practising’. There’s a couple of DJ’s in my house, so we’re always ‘playing’ - it gets pretty annoying for everyone else otherwise.
I use headphones to beatmatch, not to listen to a bunch of different tracks trying to pick one out. Never used headphones when playing with Ableton since there’s no need to even worry about something being out of time. By “adventurous” I was talking more along the lines of things like genre shifting, playing three tracks right over each other with EQ swaps, wierd acapellas, etc. For straight A-B house/trance/etc mixing with software I can go for hours without needing to preview anything.
maybe this is a bad example because jesus doesnt really need headphones but ive noticed he rarely uses them either
That’s a prepared routine. You’d have seriously messed up if you didn’t know exactly how it was all going to sound.
I need a new record collection 
Nah, not really. If I have 2 records that I’ve never mixed together before, then I’m sure as hell checking they sound good together before they go out to the speakers.
i played in alot of local places that didn’t have monitors in the booth (this was 10-15 years ago)…so i would have to stay in the headphones longer…
i started bringing my own…but it was just more equipment to lug…so i learned to stay in the headphones…
pretty sure alot of the other people mentioned are preparing their routine as well
just havin fun here ya know
It’s all good
Sometimes I don’t use headphones, like yesterday I was going through new tracks and started mixing for the fun of it. Unknown tracks, some not even gridded correctly, all without headphones. And it honestly sounded great. I also was only using my X1 with stock tsi. Oh yeah beast mode engaged
Skillex uses ableton live to mix on stage.. as all the tracks are prewarped all he has to do is push play a split second before the bar he wants to introduce the track into the mix. Ableton will sort the rest out so no need for headphones really.
where were you the last couple of pages?