Digital DJ Tips1>

Your press kit is your public face: It should be consistent with your marketing and brand. Pic: djpresskits.com

No matter how good you might think you sound in your bedroom; or even how many friends, colleagues and fans say you sound amazing: A DJ’s prime marketing tool is his demo. From cassettes to CDs to digital, giving samples of your work is how you show your skill.

Today we’re going to go right into best practices I’ve seen in making demos, and why you might want to think about these when you go to make your promotional mixes. Small mistakes beyond the actual mix could cost you the gig and help your competition beat you.

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DJ Rap: A good example of the modern truth that while talent is necessary to stay in the game, image and brand are increasingly necessary to get you there.

Back when I started spinning in 1992, DJing was more a world of “hired hands” and “underground creatives”. It was people who never really saw this as any kind of a multi-million stardom kind of thing. Even the original pioneers of house music here in Chicago never even fathomed the idea of being “superstars”. Most simply saw it as a job and a passion.

Now we’re in 2011. We see websites and flyers with DJs being displayed in the same level of fame as most pop artists you see in the charts. We’re even seeing many attempts at the image of a guy with a killer athletic body, wearing some hot youth culture fashion of “now” and looking as if he could sell music, fast food, or T-shirts. That or the “hip nerd” who grew up into being the cool guy who’s ahead of everyone in terms of culture. We’ll also see female DJs all clad in stylish clubwear, looking as if they could double as fashion models.

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Carl Cox has a business empire that involves far more than just DJing, and he's spent many years of full-time work building it.

Have you ever got a glimpse deeper into the life of a big name DJ? Or even one of the middle-ground players who may not make the DJ Mag Top 100 list, but seemingly play constantly and thus it appears that DJing is their only job? If you have, you’ll already know that pretty much all the success stories in DJing are people who gave and still give a full-time effort to the craft.

Why? Because DJing as a profession isn’t just about blending and song selection, but about how those who succeed in it view and work themselves as a business. Most top names now do way more work outside of the actual act of getting into the booth and performing. They’re producing, running record labels, writing articles for publications, promoting, marketing, running nights and events, and even investing in new business ideas.

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DJing for an entertainment company may mean making compromises, but it gets you work and experience, and can lead to better things.

As we saw last week, being socially active in your local scene can help you grow as a DJ, but if regularly hanging out in clubs and bars isn’t to your liking, then you might want to think about joining up with an entertainment company, group, or even promotion crew. It can give you a great starting off point no matter which bucket of DJing you’ve decided to focus your efforts on.

So you see an ad in the paper or online. Some company wants DJs, and they say they will supply you with music, equipment, and even customers. Sounds too good to be true? Looking deeper you find this company is legitimate, but the pay you get for DJing their events isn’t perhaps as much as you would if you went on your own.

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