Don’t worry. This isn’t one of those ‘turn it down, sonny!’ posts. It’s just a bit of common sense for aspiring DJs. Music is sometimes (not always) too loud. Repeat exposure to loud music causes hearing loss at a surprisingly early age (think mid-30s). As someone who frequents loud music environments, you gotta protect your hearing. Right?
Turn down the club monitors
If you’ve got a club gig, the management usually wants the sound at a certain level. That’s out of your control. But you do have control over the monitor speakers. Think of the monitors as the ‘dry’ mix. All the boomy reverby stuff coming from the front-of-house speakers and bouncing off the walls before it reaches you is your ‘wet’ mix. The reason we have in-booth monitors isn’t for volume, it’s for ‘dryness’. We need a clear, un-reverby signal, not a loud one. So the trick is to make the club monitors just loud enough to sound dry, but no louder.
Play quality audio files
In comparison to playing in a band, traveling as a DJing is super agile. A pen drive and a pair of headphones might be all you need. But the drawback is that space-saving MP3 rips can be horrible to listen to and also cause hearing damage. That high-frequency aliasing effect you hear? Terrible for your ears. Wherever possible, make sure your DJ techniques include playing a set in WAV format and that the music is well produced! You can get away with MP3s, but if the tune sounds grainy and brittle at the top end, find a better copy.
Try ‘close-and-soft’ chatting
There’s a trick to communicating clearly at a loud party without raising your voice, but it takes trust. Instead of facing the person and shouting, get your mouth right next to their ear, cup your hand to it and speak at a normal level. You can even whisper. It works. The reason we don’t do this all the time is because of a lack of trust. People come too close and then shout into your ear! Train your friends. It takes a huge amount of trust letting someone do it, but it’s the best way to talk when the music is blaring. Try it. Close-and-soft speaking is also a good way to gain the trust of someone you’re vibing with.
You’re actually more than one person. You’re now-you, and you’re later-you. Later-you wants to say thanks to now-you for being a little kinder and helping protect their hearing. Friends might say you’re being lame. But, like, honestly, not going deaf is basic common sense. And if you’re not convinced, check out what the professional DJs at DJ Courses Online have to say about it.