Ready to shine? You’ve been working on collecting the sickest tracks. You’ve been practicing your beat matching. And now a buddy has asked you to handle the music at a house party. Time to take this thing to the streets. Don’t worry. You got this. Here are a few things to remember about first-time DJing.
Your gear
Let me guess: you don’t have the money for the gear you want right now? Here’s the thing: you’ll always have your eye on something new and flashier. There is always going to be someone with more dope gear than you. But stick with what you need. Here’s why. You don’t want to be carrying around anything you don’t use. You often end up playing on venue or event rigs, and don’t bring your gear anyway. You aren’t trying to impress other DJs with fancy stuff, you’re trying to impress strangers with your taste. Keep it simple: two sources of music, and a device to mix them together.
File prep
There’s a world of work to be done before a gig. Don’t do it all on the day! Keep curating your music collection by making sure that you have a solid, easily readable collection of tunes. MP3s can contain bad metadata, garbled text formatting and corrupt data. And having a spanner in the works like a track that doesn’t play on time is one way to kill the whole vibe. So do your prep work by testing playback on every song in your set. If you have a pair of CDJs at home, do the same for the file display window and make sure your tracks behave like they should every time. And always take a second copy of your music selection on a backup USB!
The boring stuff
Admin, admin, admin. It’s what separates the pros from the hobbyists. Make sure you’re totally on top of it. That’s how your build your reputation as a pro. Being drinking buddies with the event organizers will only take you so far. If DJing professionally is a long-term vision, you’ll need to make friends with spreadsheets and invoicing software. Most often, paying clients want you to act like a businessperson offstage and a rock star on stage. You’ll know when it’s time to level up. When you do, remember this advice. Get good at the admin.
Chances are nobody will notice all the mistakes, nerves and fumbling at your first gig. Give yourself a break! The important thing is that you keep doing it. You’ll learn something new every time, even if it feels like you’re never where you want to be. DJing like a pro is like doing anything else like a pro. You earn it. But help yourself out by learning from the pros with one of the DJ courses from DJ Courses Online, and shorten your walk to awesomeness.
John Bartmann is a music producer and DJ.