D Homei

I actually played a kid’s party.  At first I was so embarrassed I wanted to die.  It turned out to be one of my most interesting and challenging nights in my 25 years in DJing.

You’ll have to keep your songs extremely current

Why?  Because last year’s hit is seen like a song from the 1960’s to them.  It happened 1/8th of their life ago.
A song that’s two years old?    Forget it.  That’s when they were listening to kid’s music.  (Nursery Rhymes, Barney the Dinosaur or whatever they play in Day Care centers these days.)  Even playing 6 month old hits was on risky territory.

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Thank God I was partnered up with an MC who had done this before.  All night long he was telling me: “too old, forget it, won’t work”  It was tough.  But once I got the hang of it, and past the embarrassment, I gotta say it was a hell of a lot of fun.

You’ll never get a more enthusiastic and joyful crowd.  The MC decided to have a “dance your pants off” contest.   There was one cute little kid, maybe two ft high, looking up at me with a big smile and wide eyes.  She was shaking her hips as fast as possible, screaming “I’M DANCING MY PANTS OFF!!!  I’M DANCING MY PANTS OFF!!!”

Mitch Hambling, post: 41876, member: 7942 wrote: theres nothing worse than fucking up on a mix though. pardon my language, but even when im at home by myself, ill be mixing and when i screw up and you can clearly hear it, it is the worst thing in the world

Watch out for the trap of perfectionism. The worst thing in the world can also be people bored by a technically flawless mix. An audience will forgive an (occasional) bad mix of great music, but never be inspired by flawlessly blended mediocrity.

I don’t want to read too much into your thinking, but sounds like you could be missing the forest for the trees. I’ve seen lots of DJ’s practice away on amazing technical blends, go out on their first gig and just have people complain about the music. Happened to me when I started out. Some wind up bitter and give up.

I’m still guilty of perfectionism myself, but I try to keep things in perspective. It ain’t easy. Its much easier (and comforting) to retreat into the world of cue points, BPM and other things that can easily be measured. Its hard to focus in intangible things like “soul” and “spirit” and “vibe,” but ultimately I’ve found they matter most.

Coltrane09, post: 41275, member: 2800 wrote: Thanks, Homei! Question. I was looking for a better and cleaner version of Timex Social Club’s “Rumors” a few months ago and noticed that iTunes/Amazon have them listed under Club Nouveau. I know the two groups were together at some point and were beefing back in the day, but do you know why Rumors isn’t listed under TSC? Just curious.

Sorry for the late reply. I can only guess. I think the beef became a lawsuit. I remember reading an article about it, and one of the guys from TSC felt cheated and gave up on the music industry. It sounds like the the Club Nouveau faction won. I mixed up the two songs myself in my memory. There were extremely similar.

Wikipedia doesn’t say anything about the controversy directly, but mentions that Club Nouveau’s hit “Jealousy” was:

essentially an answer song responding to Timex Social Club‘s hit “Rumors“

Hmmmmmmm. Finding the real story on old lawsuits is extremely difficult even for well-known cases.

I’ll offer an anecdote that may help, and a question to expand the topic a bit:

1) People just want to hear their favorite song over and over again
I had a weird DJ gig in NYC 10 years ago – a private restaurant for the ultra-rich. What made it even weirder was the owner insisted on playing a specific song once an hour, all night long. I got sick of it right away, but the regulars loved it. Every night the same people would react as if they had never heard the song. They’d jump around like teenagers getting a prized birthday gift. This went on for months. For all I know, they’re still dancing to that stupid song every hour, on the hour.

2) What’s your DJ honor code about repeating songs (especially for internet mixes)?
I try to never repeat the same song during the night. I’ve always felt it was “cheating” because a DJ should have enough good music to last the whole night and then some. I think most DJ’s follow this rule, too. This is more my own pride and snobbery more than the crowd insisting I not play the same song twice.

However, the ‘no repeat’ rule creates a dilemma for me as I move my mixes online. I don’t feel like I should repeat a music in a mix CD/podcast/stream as people are seeking out new material. However, I’m finding internet mixes tilt heavily towards highly specialized mix sets, and often there’s just not enough good material, “classics” if you will, to stretch out over several mixes.

I also find my mixes start leaning a little too much on one or two artists that do the specialty well. For example if I wanted to do a downtempo mix of dreamy female vocals, its hard to avoid a Bjork megamix. (actually, its probably not that hard, but hopefully you guys see where I’m going with this.)

What do you guys think?

If you’re willing to pay for online tutorials, lynda.com tutes are really good. They’re geared more towards graphics software, but I’ve noticed Abelton tutorials. It’s $30/USD a month, and you can sample free segments. I teach at a design college and frequently assign these tutorials so my students can get up to speed on software basics. Our school provides free Lynda accounts to all students.

Unlike many tutes that just explain one little software trick but don’t help you understand the bigger picture, lynda.com will guide you through the process. But you have to be patient & willing to sit through the course, which it sounds like you are.

Lynda also avoids the other big problem with “free” youTube tutorials: you have to wait 5-10 minutes to realize the presenter is an idiot. The instructors and courses are well organized and step you through the complexities and concepts. These tutes are structured like a class with video segments broken down into 5-10 minute chunks.

BTW I’m not being paid by Lynda to say this.

The Black Rag, post: 40863, member: 7330 wrote: it seems like it’s due to my age,like i started too late.

I thought the same thing in my 20’s.
I thought the same thing in my 30’s.
I started my 40’s thinking the same way. Then I finally stopped.
I sure wish I didn’t spend so much of my life thinking that way.

I finally learned to embrace where I’m at. Its hard sometimes, but definitely worth it. As Dirty Hippie Said, success is relative. Even if you woke up tomorrow as the President of the USA, you could still wonder if you were a “successful” president.

Here’s another thing: Success feels great at any age. I went back to school in my 40’s and changed careers. I’ll never be a whiz kid again, but I’m happy with my success. (I’ve done senior creative work for MTV & Microsoft, have an MFA from one of the world’s best film schools, and now teach at a good university)

Can a nobody become a success?

Every successful person was a “nobody” at some point. But they weren’t really “nobodies” to begin with, the world just caught up with them. For every success milestone I’ve had (like a graduation, job offer, etc.) I was the same person I was the day before.

“Pursue excellence and success will chase you” That’s a quote from a great Indian movie called the Three Idiots. Just enjoy DJing, respect the craft, and eventually things will work out. You’re still starting out, 22 is still pretty young. Patience young Jedi.

How about DJ’s using the loop to run to the toilet?
I’ve noticed this at work while I’m listening to some of my favorite streaming radio stations:

“Wow this song is really repetitive”
Wait!
Its a 32 bar loop.
3 minutes now!

C’mon DJ, this is a broadcast, not a club. Get it together!

SimBa, post: 40256, member: 5184 wrote: This is a really interesting well balanced response. So much so I’d like to quote you in the written part of my assignment if that’s cool with you?

Totally fine. Glad I was of help. Feel free to PM me if you want my “real” name and info.

SimBa, post: 40256, member: 5184 wrote: That makes me wonder if, with training, the brain of someone who’s deaf would do a similar trick with the visual cortex? Would a Deaf person be able to perceive as much through the waveforms on something like traktor or Serato as we do with our ears?

I can only guess. Somewhere on this site is an article/discussion on something called “waveriding” which is DJ’s looking at the waveforms and relying on the snyc button to mix without headphones to cue the upcoming song. It might be considered “cheating” for us, but for a DDJ it’s probably a great workflow.

It’s been many years since I’ve done music production, but I remember there was sound design software being developed that would let you take a digital image and convert it into soundwaves and vice versa. This might be the best way to hear the results of sounds created by visuals. As I remember, it was designed more to create individual sounds not music, but you could probably adapt it. And there may have been interesting developments since I last heard about it.