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-- What are your DJing annoyances/hurdles?
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What are your DJing annoyances/hurdles?
This sub-forum is a little quiet lately, so I figured I'd try and get some conversation going. 
What do you struggle with as a DJ? What recurring problems or hurdles do you run into? Problems with networking? Skill? Price of gear? Lack of appreciation?
I'd say that, for me, I live in a small town with a lot of DJs. So, I end up playing for free a lot... which kinda sets a precedent that I will play for free in the future. (Though, I'm not really into this for business... if I were, I would focus more on the wedding/graduation/mobile DJ scene). But, it would be nice to be compensated sometimes. I've been trying to insist that I get some compensation for special events (like fundraisers) that I play, since I provide and set up my own sound. It becomes a job at that point.
What about you?
Ha, It's the same thing in my area. Too many bedroom DJ's who think they're all Tiesto, and promoters that don't want to pay. Can barely get free drinks out od some places. The old models of getting into DJ'ing are useless these days. Too many nubs are doing it. Should focus on producing and getting some tracks played by the big boys and let the gigs come to you.
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| Originally posted by KiNeTiC ENeRgY Ha, It's the same thing in my area. Too many bedroom DJ's who think they're all Tiesto, and promoters that don't want to pay. Can barely get free drinks out od some places. The old models of getting into DJ'ing are useless these days. Too many nubs are doing it. Should focus on producing and getting some tracks played by the big boys and let the gigs come to you. |
I made a similar comment on another message board and nearly got crucified... got called a communist and a thief by the end of it. Not even sure how that happened, lol.
They are mostly wedding/corporate/graduation DJs running businesses, though.
My bane right now is some nasty rotator cuff stuff going on in my left shoulder. Injured multiple times along with nearly 3 decades of cupping the headphone to my ear with my shoulder has temporarily sidelined me from even jamming out at home for my own entertainment.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by PivotTechno My bane right now is some nasty rotator cuff stuff going on in my left shoulder. Injured multiple times along with nearly 3 decades of cupping the headphone to my ear with my shoulder has temporarily sidelined me from even jamming out at home for my own entertainment. |
My buddy used to go to jam band festivals and dj in the lot at night and hand out cds and promote himself he actually has thousands of people following him on soundcloud now and he has even landed gigs at some festivals djing in front of thousands and thousands of people. Doesnt make a lot of money but he is really happy and has a following.
When other DJs or booth bunnies try and have a huge conversation with me while I'm clearly on a 2-3 minute long layer job between two tracks. Fucking drives me nuts.
That the Chinese do not get my sense of humour. I like to joke and do stupid shit. I once tried to mix 2 records with chops sticks. I train wrecked like mad, and they just got hungry. Epic fail.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dykes_on_Jay That the Chinese do not get my sense of humour. I like to joke and do stupid shit. I once tried to mix 2 records with chops sticks. I train wrecked like mad, and they just got hungry. Epic fail. |
My biggest hurdle is that I don't play music most people want to listen to, or they like some music in my set and can careless for other stuff. This usually happens when I play psy/goa in my sets. :-/
| quote: |
| Originally posted by BshidoHEAT My biggest hurdle is that I don't play music most people want to listen to, or they like some music in my set and can careless for other stuff. This usually happens when I play psy/goa in my sets. :-/ |
Or go the "sneaky" route and try to see what you can get away with, lol.
Yeah, I ran into a similar problem because I wanted to play slower groovy deep house kind of tracks and there wasn't much of a market for that in my town. I eventually started figuring it out and started playing more specialized events (both inside and outside) of clubs, and suddenly started noticing a lot more positive response. Fashion shows, benefits, fundraisers, etc. are all quite a bit of fun when I feel like playing that sort of stuff.
good djs like all music and tend to just pick what they like given the parameters of the event. Never understood the attitude , i play this kind of house. Then again, most djs are djs for the wrong reasons and tend to suck at it. They don't realize their role and think it is about them. You are a host. A host takes into account their guests up to a point. Sure a black guy shows up, you dont' let him in but if your library consists of some ridiculously narrow niche, djing isn't for you.
Not that you can't play it, but if that is all you have ... A good dj loves music. ALl music. And in evert style there is a good and bad and good djs are able to work with that. If you can't say make a list of great rock , metal , country , funk , techno, electro , trance and any other genre, you probably are not a good a dj.
my biggest concern is the other djs, i have stopped playing in mi city because 90% of clubs suck and they have a full list of suckers waiting to play for free salsa, latin house, rock or whatever girls like on that moment, since some of this genres doesn't need to beatmatch having any skill is not an issue, and in any case there are the laptop djs which beatmatch the last 4 beats of a song with the eqs on +6db on both channels and say "i am djing".
The other clubs are ran by the owner who djs and a selected group of close friends, there is some kind of competition between this 3 clubs in a way that if you play once on one of them you are not elligible to play on the other 2, i've played in 2 of them a few years ago when this ownership war wasn't so hard but i know i am restricted on the 3rd one as they don't want any competitors.
In general in my city 10 years ago you could catch a trance set, a techno set, several tech house clubs... now they have watered down everything and this former djs are playing commercial shit, you can't compete with this, is very hard to stand out as a top 40 dj since the track selection is going to be the same and being original and playing different stuff is often seen by the public as something pernicious "we want the shit radios have been hammering away for the last 3 years!!"
And well in general lack of appreciation, i feel bad both when i think i've made a great set and only a few folks value it and also when i play total shit and people like it a lot, i feel sold out.
Pretty disgusting hopefully there are areas in my surroundings where people value true edm music, the problem is the general misunderstanding of edm "everyone who listens to edm does drugs,has no culture, is dangerous, poor..." playing house for house heads is not cool anymore.
most people don't mind edm. Djs just don't know how to deliver it without clearing the dance floor. A competant dj will transition to music you never thought you would dance to and you will be dancing before you realize that wait a second ....
that's perfect if you don't have the promoter behind your back and his friends (normally girls) being pricks about the music they'd like to hear... 3 weeks ago i was in Italy with a promoter i get on well i played for 2 weeks in a row on the thursday night. This night consists in rnb/commercial-->Deep House/Tech House and then was my slot from 3:30 to 6, 6:30 am in this case night went very well, there were 300 persons or so still at 6:30 when it's usually closed at 6. I played tech house breaks, progressive house, classics... not very underground but worked very well and promoter, people and myself were happy.
Thing is that since i get on very well with him told me to come back next thursday so i did although i was a bit reluctant the night was exactly the same but instead of hanging out with some friends i spent a few hours with him and his/her friends this is when i fucked it up. Girls started to annoy me with the music they'd like to here, i gave them false promises "yes of course i will try to fit it at some point" and then it was my turn, i started with a set similar to the one i did on thursday, in fact i recognized some faces obviously a lot of people are regulars on that night... things were going well but this pack of girls already had some confidence with me and started coming with more girls to ask for real top 40 shit that i hadn't got in my crate...
I ignored them, more false promises etc... but they were giving me a headache and since they were on the VIP area which is behind the booth they had access and it would had been very unpolite to tell the security to send them go fuck elsewhere... i told it to the promoter and instead of tell them off he said me "well you know some commercial music won't hurt at this point and this will make them shut up... your choice..." so i spent my last 30 minutes playing all the garbage i had just in case... to the delight of some girls and turds and the sad faces of some people who left before closing...
This piss me off a lot, and it is always because of girls, some times someone comes with a mobile phone and i see written pretty interesting things like "please some [Insert decent producer here]" and i am very willing to please this guys. When i see girls trying to hand me a mobile phone i pretend to be very busy its always shit... with the exception of a girl that asked me prior my set for minimal...
in all honesty?
I'm sick of places not caring about having a decent sound system and general lack of low end.
it's embarassing to think that the only place in town that has good low end is the local concert hall which will be fun to play at is not ideal on numerous levels, but otherwise at this point I've played in many places here and including the clubs they all have terrible sound systems.
I don't consider myself to be someone who plays loud yet I've managed to get amps to go into protection mode in three different places... it's really because the gear is so under powered in relation to the space that you start pushing it and there goes the overload protection.
the average place doesn't even have a single subwoofer,and this lounge where I play at has ... Klipsch speakers I mean come one, sure they're fancy looking but that ain't pro gear.
Now how does this affect me?
It's hard to get people to appreciate the music fully if they can't 'feel it' making for a dj set that often feels pointless. But all in all I still manage ok.
On the issue of "edm" acceptance and all that. I have found that many owners might be scared of you pushing the envelope ( btw I am not in a market that has much if any underground music) for fear of scareing customers. But in all cases where I've played in a "hostile" setting I have never once had problems (sure there is the occasional person who asks/complains but they're so rare that they don't even come into my line of thinking).
What does this mean?
I have no idea, either it's because I'm really good (haha) or either because the customers are more open minded that one might imagine.
If you ease the musical transition(which is easy if you have a couple hours to play) I honestly believe you can take your music anywhere!
ps: I play house to cosmic disco 
what music was playing before your set.
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| Originally posted by Looney4Clooney what music was playing before your set. |
the average scene 'round here is that all the big clubs book local djs (and pay) to open for shitty international "EDM" DJs and they gain huge crowds because these clubs are in prime locations and EDM is the big fad atm. Most of these guys couldn't play an interesting set to save their lives and think they're big shots because the promoters don't know any better and just slap them in as openers without any regard to how well they fit with the headlining dj (not that the EDM kiddies really know any better either.)
the underground scene is a monopoly, with a certain few groups booking great acts and having their friends and themselves open (but they're actually pretty good, so i'll give em that). it's a hard scene to break into.
LUCKILY, i've joined up on the ground level with a couple groups that just popped up in the city doing really good parties and have built a great crowd of people that enjoy the music and are completely outside of the long-standing dance music scene in the area. every show i've done with them so far has been really successful and a lot of venues and other promoters/djs are noticing, so hopefully that keeps up and leads to more regular gigs with solid crowds for myself and close dj friends in the same situation!
rodri...fuck off. I wouldn't hire you to play a banjo.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Looney4Clooney good djs like all music and tend to just pick what they like given the parameters of the event. Never understood the attitude , i play this kind of house. Then again, most djs are djs for the wrong reasons and tend to suck at it. They don't realize their role and think it is about them. You are a host. A host takes into account their guests up to a point. Sure a black guy shows up, you dont' let him in but if your library consists of some ridiculously narrow niche, djing isn't for you. Not that you can't play it, but if that is all you have ... A good dj loves music. ALl music. And in evert style there is a good and bad and good djs are able to work with that. If you can't say make a list of great rock , metal , country , funk , techno, electro , trance and any other genre, you probably are not a good a dj. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Rodri Santos I had the feeling that people weren't enjoying the stuff he was playing except some exceptions, i think his set was quite good but full of 120 bpm deep house stuff pitched up a bit people were a bit absent no real dancing thats why i tried with something on this line but more cheerful. First day this was his last tune: (Probably a wink since i am spanish) And i followed with Something quite commercial to start with and after that a bootleg of Chemical brothers - Hey Boy, Hey Girl. |
Looney you are a straight up troll! Quit being such an asshole to everyone. Seriously
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