Hey guys, my buddy calls me tonight and decides to tell me we have the opportunity to play in a club… thing is it’s this thursday (ladies night) and would be our first public gig. Talk about leaving the bedroom. It’s definitely a conservative top 40’s crowd. I’m just wondering, can I really get away with doing a gig by doing simple smooth transitions from song to song? I think i’ve set a really high standard for what a Dj should be able to do, in my mind that means very complex transitions and being able to mash up songs on the fly, and i’m definitely not at that point yet. I guess what I’m getting it is do we take this opportunity or take the time to get better.
Do it! The experience is invaluable. Most dj’s just do smooth transitions. Alot of it is reading the crowd and song selection. Trust your instincts too. I was meant to play house, electro and techno (basically whatever I wanted to play) for a 21st. Turn up and they decide they want me to play pop. I had a few pop songs and some remixes. They went down okay but got old quick and people started leaving and I was still playing what they wanted. It wasn’t until I started playing what I wanted to play that heaps of people came back. In short, people don’t know what they want although they might think so at times!
It’s a ladies night, it doesn’t take much to get ladies dancing! Have good tracks and keep it varied and then you can take it deeper as the night goes on and people get more drunk.
Pop can be hard too mix because of abrupt endings, keep the loop trigger close for this one. One more thing, a remix of a pop song may go down a lot better in some cases and it will be a lot easier to mix (4 to the floor kick @ 128bpm)
One crowd pleasing mix I did was from a house track into Lady Gaga - Poker face (ducks to avoid flying midi controllers) The synth solo at the beginning is killer. Alot of pop songs are like that and you can ride the intro looping for a while, I did it a few times, intentionally and unintentionally.
Good luck, and don’t forget a few pop oldies - 80’s and 90’s stuff. Better get practicing, you don’t have long.
I disagree, what’s most important is that you get out there!
There will be many more gigs to come but only one first, you should scratch it off your list now and if you mess up somewhere, whatever, that’s what people do
I say do it now that you are still learning. You can practice all you want but it doesn’t matter too much until you are watching a crowd, seeing them move (or not) and interpreting what your next move is.
My only suggestion is, when you get more gigs be more picky… Not to picky, just start deciding what you want to do with music. What makes you feel good to play. I’ve been offered a lot of gigs like this, but the only appeal to me was money. So I had to decline. Being a producer, I try to stay kind of close to what I make, so I can play my own stuff.
None the less, give it a try. You may love the hell out of it.
Make sure you got all your cables, and some for back-up. Show up early to plug everything in and test the sound, so you feel comfortable while playing for the crowd. Play several genres to see what the crowd responds to the most (RnB,Pop;House etc), than crank it up your style in the later hours. In the first few hours, keep mixing simple, dont do too much tricks. Then, when everyone is quite drunk you can start to amaze them, at this point most of them wont notice the most mistakes, in case you do any
Dont just bring tunes you like or think about playing, there may be a request for a song that you dont like personally but the lady on the dancefloor likes it
Think about 70´s,80´s and all those Lady-songs, maybe its raining man
But most importantly, dont worry. You can do it. As long as you enjoy yourself its all good. Remember, its your first gig, there´s only one. If you mess up or if you do great doesnt matter that much as long as you have a good time the crowd will too
oh, and in case you use a midicontroller make sure you have the most important actions mapped to your keyboard in case your usb fucks up, or your platters act strange, or your pitch. Base can be a bitch sometimes
have fun, and make sure you post your experience here
Definitely have redundancy cables with you, make sure you’re set with your gear, practice your breakdown and set up.
If it’s just a top40 crowd, then basic transitions will probably work just fine. Do a few small chunks of more complicated stuff to see how they respond, but just keep the tracks coming.
And remember, people do need breaks. You have a bar there, they want money. If you’re just pumping jam after jam out people won’t go to the bar as much.
Unless they are paying you bank, make sure to have fun. Triple check your gear before you leave the house, and bring a backup (CDs, ipod with RCA hookup, anything) in case things go to shit.
Bottom line, do it! or someone else will get their foot in there. If you are asking if you should do it then you must think you are ready otherwise you wouldn’t consider it. So have fun, be prepared and see how it goes. its sounds like you will be fine! Good luck, let us know how you made out!
I think since it is your first gig make sure to look over your library and practise a little at home would be a nice deal.
aLSO if u playing on cd’s u good to go
But if your equipment involves some midi controller, you need to make sure that you gonna have space in the club,and no interference.
Personally i am using vci 300 so i had multiple problems with interference, but I am lucky that muziq never stopped and i was able to transfer to cd’s.
So get ready and enjoy your gig.
Good luck
loud base can shake internal pieces. If you have some loose buttons they might get triggered through the vibration or your platters might react (vci-issue).
I think using something that dulls the vibration is a good idea if you should get too much feedback through the table or the booth. I once used an old sweater, did the job well. There are also turntable floaters thet are filled with air that are usefull. Or just use a brick
I thinks heres a thread somewhere that explains that well, a search might help.
I dont know about interference with other devices, or the power curcuit. Maybe someone else can help on this point.
make shure you get ferrites on your usb cable
use short 2.0 high speed cert cable
foam pad(thats what i use)
external power supply
power filter
dont stay close to fog machine or lasers
make sure your wireless and bluetooth is off
and prepare couple cd’s right away, in case shit happens so you can do the transfer quick:sunglasses:
When you say ferrites you mean the knob/cylinder on the line close to the end of the cable. Also we’ll be running laptops and the audio 8 what is usually the set up for that kind of thing to run it into the club. Also have any of you experienced trouble with delay in the master output compared what’s coming up in your cue monitor? Me and my buddy we just jammin last night using the home theatre system and there was a delay between what was coming from the speaker and coming out of our headphones
Hey quick update, my buddy got in touch with the guy at the club and i guess were going in for a chat/interview tomorrow at 9, anyone have any experience with these kinds of meetings before hand
be professional, but still friendly (don’t be an uptight piece of wood). ask everything you can think of (write down questions beforehand and as you think of them in case you forget). leave nothing in the dark, so everything is out on the table. let him know your ideas for what you’re going to do without seeming like you’re forcing them on him, be open to suggestions by him, ask him what would be best, etc. and most importantly..
yes ferrite cylinders on the end u got to have 2 of these on one cable
I had experienced latency before that u talking about
but the reason why it was happening i connnected my vci 300 to another vci 300 thrue port that gave me lots of latency
you’re getting paid to dj. word!