Live djing mistakes?
I was curious what you all feel are acceptable mistakes and unacceptable mistakes ( completely avoidable ones) when djing live or on the fly trainwreck,misscue,phrase matching, no back ups etc…Your opinion
small drift, off beat is imo “acceptable”. You’ll hear it ALOT, other DJ will just hear it, and people probably won’t notice, unless you screw up big time and it’s Bagdad in da mix.
yeah i don’t mind drifting here and there…
Once had to play entire song with a pressed hotkey button on an X1 because I wasn’t sure if shifting back to the Play buttons would stop the track. Glad I did though it probably looked like I glued my hand to the table.
I have also stopped the wrong track. only once and it will NEVER happen again.
A few years ago punched in an echo freeze and forgot that BOTH decks had the FX turned on. I recovered by bringing the forward track back in with an LPF sweep up and all was good.
Those mistakes in my view are not acceptable. esp the second.
I’d say a slight drift is ok provided it is corrected.
The occasional mis time effect isn’t the end of the world.
Things that are Def not ok:
Train wrecks, vocals over vocals (Unless done right ala word play), tracks that are completely out of key.
I’m sure others will ad.
Well here are some mistakes I have done and since, I’ve done them. I understand and will consider them acceptable: 
- Got busy talking to someone and grab the wrong CDJ to cue, I grab the one playing. I played it off like I was scratching and just threw the other song on. Ooooppss
- Got caught up in the moment and just wanted to get the next song on without bothering to phrase it or wait for the drop. This also happens when I get pissed at folks that keep coming up for requesting the same song, like Sexy and I Know It.
- Forgot to kill the lows and the beats sounded like a galloping horse. Yeah I was one drink away from being drunk.
- Talking to a hot chick and forgot to throw in the next song so I had a split second of dead air. ooopppsss
I might add, if you are playing out every weekend, one get complacent at times and mistakes are inevitable. Especially if you are holding down the entire night doing 4-5hr sets, taking request in an open format club.
Mistakes like train wrecking are not acceptable, clearing a dance floor because you don’t know your music and are just playing tunes some random chick you think is hot is not cool.
Other than that the small stuff is not noticable by non DJ’s and its all how you handle the mistakes that makes a difference
Hasn’t everyone stopped the wrong deck at least once in their career
hahaha yes! One of my first gigs in public was a DJ comp in a bar, 2 mixes in I ejected the track I just brought in. Safe to say I didn’t win.
yea learning how to play the stuff off is the key imo… tapping the jog wheel in vinyl mode on my cdj a few times why i was beat matching
no one is safe when it comes to mistakes. we are all humans.
i´d say that there is a big difference between making a mistake or being a bad “dj”.
The first time I played live I slipped and hit a hotcue button starting the song over… Did a little cue juggling and smoothed that one out. I must admit I have learned a few tricks by making mistakes and rolling with them.
Mistakes will happen. That is part of the “art” of live DJing. Stopping the wrong deck. Playing the wrong song. Train wrecks. Open mic comments. I have seen (and heard…and done) all of the above.
If your set is “perfect” then I will “assume” that you just played a pre-recorded mix…even if you didn’t…even if you really were that good. When there is “live” entertainment…I want to see the effort…I want to notice the person in the loop…I want to find the mistakes, so that I know it’s really live.
One fine balance is to ensure that you can always achieve “good” while occasionally shooting at “great.” This is not the same thing as “playing it safe.” It is much more like this: beginners practice until they can get it right, experts practice until they can not get it wrong.
All that leads to this: The ONLY unforgivable mistake is to let your last mistake cause your next mistake. Or…NEVER allow one error to shake your concentration so that it causes another error.
I have seen a HORRID train wreck live…and the DJ cut the sound (e.g. dead air)…came out and took a giant bow…and then went back and nailed the next part of the set. THAT is one “right” way to handle a mistake. (I found out later that the turntable died…and needed to be replaced…the dead air and bow bought the sound guy about 90 seconds to swap it out…it’s all about the performance.)
If I’m honest with you every one of those mistakes are unacceptable in my opinion. The last one even more so than the rest.
saying that i have lifted the needle off the wrong deck… once… and i made sure if NEVER happened again. Saying that though I’ve seen Paul Van Dyk and Sasha both do this!!
Once i aired the wrong track and then right after that i cued the correct one, so to recover i put up the volume on the last 8 bars of beats of the track that was playing all before and mixed the new one with that. Nevertheless, later in the night i was on a break discussing with the stuff and they told me they didn’t even notice it. Another time i had an old cd playing on a cdj-100 and it started skipping… badly so i dropped the next ready track as soon as i realized it.
So what makes a bad " dj " in you opinion?
dayum! i know someone would ask this question 
well i guess this is really in the the eye of the beholder but i´d say a bad dj is a dj not being able to entertain his crowd.
A bad Dj and there’s a lot here where i live, is a Dj that can’t beat match, if you can’t beat match, don’t use CDJ’s stick to controllers. a bad Dj starts testing out a song, cueing it on the main speakers ( not headphones ) i’ve heard it before. A bad DJ says he is good, but in reality is total shit.
Twice in one night
If you’ve never made a mistake or two, you haven’t been playing out long enough.