DJ Questions Answered Video 1

0:00 We'll start off with Maciej Szczer, spelt M-A-C-I-E-J-S-Z-Z

Right, ladies and gentlemen, recently I did a video, it was actually in the car, and it was about Q&As. So in that video I asked people, DJs, whoever, to post a comment that is DJ related, and it could be about anything. And this video is Video 1 Part 2, where I'll be answering some of the questions. Now I said I was going to do five questions, but one of the questions is pretty much from two comments. So we'll start off with Maciej Szczer, spelt M-A-C-I-E-J-S-Z-Z. E-F-F-E-R. I do apologise about the pronunciation, alright, I'm really sorry. And also DJ Mama. So, how to get outside from a home DJ to a club DJing? What's your advice for wannabes who want to transition from home DJing to a club? How to avoid biggest disappointments while trying to get public?

Where to start? Thanks for the answer. And then DJ Mama. Hi Jonathan, love to know your opinions of the different methods of getting gigs and the pros, cons, attached agencies, approaching venues, building your own tribe for recommendations, etc. And so on and so on. So really, these two people are asking a very similar question. Now, as I've said time and time again in videos, you've got to think outside the box. So, I'm going to go back, let's say, to the 80s and early 90s. Now, this is all relevant, but if you wanted to get, let's say, a request on the radio, you'd send a letter. But then everyone else was sending letters, so there's very little chance of you getting your letter opened, if at all.

2:25 No, it's actually reverse psychology

And highly unlikely to get your request because they probably had thousands. But then, of course, we had the fax machine and that was great. And all of a sudden people would fax. But again, slowly as time progressed, everyone was faxing and it got to the stage where, you know, there were so many of them, you just picked ten out of a thousand. And then, of course, texting. Now, a lot of people seem to think that their best way of contacting a manager, find their number, send them a message and that's it. No, it's actually reverse psychology. Now, just imagine if you're a radio presenter now on a big radio station and all of a sudden you get a handwritten letter. Just think reverse psychology. You are more than likely going to open that letter and read it.

And also, if that letter has been handwritten, not printed off even better. So it's very likely you're going to get that. If you sent that letter, you're going to get that request or someone's going to go. I had a letter because very few people do that anymore. Now, let's look at DJing. A lot of people now will be texting and messaging the manager of a nightclub. Why don't you send that manager of the nightclub a handwritten letter? Explain who you are, where you are, what sort of music you play and just explain, express the interest in you. Maybe having a small set. Now, don't expect to have the main set or, you know, sort of mid evening or last hour. But there's no problem in potentially you turning up if the club opens at say nine o'clock, ten o'clock in the evening and just saying, can I do the first hour?

4:50 You could physically write a link to

Free gratis and for nothing. So the manager gets a taste of what you're playing now. Of course, you need to make sure that you target the correct clubs. There's no point being a drum and bass player. There's no point being a bass DJ and contacting a house club. So that's one way I'm just going to say really that that's it, because I don't want to inundate you with different ways of doing it and so on. I mean, all right, yes, you could put a CD in there as well. And a lot of people don't use CDs anymore. You can maybe put a thumb drive in there of your mix or in the letter. You could physically write a link to. Some uploads you've done, say on Mixcloud or YouTube. That's a good way of doing it as well. But then when you do your set, what you've got to do is again, you've got to try and impress.

Now, you could do one of two things. You could make up a set before you go and play that. Alternatively, you could play for the crowd if there's anyone there and any manager will know that you're any good manager will know which one you're doing. Because it's very obvious if you're playing some pre sort of made up set because it just seems a little bit made up. I know that sounds like, yeah, well, it's obvious. But, you know, most managers are probably DJs anyway or know a lot about DJing and they're going to suss you out straight away. Yeah, this DJ has practiced this set for about 10 years, comes to my nightclub post and plays it. And the trouble is, if you do that kind of thing, they're thinking, well, what are they going to be like in a real environment when all of a sudden the dance floor is empty and they have to change angle?

Will they be able to do it or have they just got this preset and that's it? Right. So that's hopefully question number one answered. The next one was from J30K. So if we can find that one, J30K. Do pro DJs bring their own gear or only use thumb drives to gigs? Since the home setup is a laptop, a controller, SSD full of tracks like most budget home setups. I could imagine that tracks with cue points and all that stuff saved within a certain software wouldn't work on the club setups. Well, again, it does depend on what club. I mean, you know, really, you've got three tiered nightclubs. You've got your fun bar kind of set up. You've got your sort of pub stroke dance floor in the corner with a DJ. Generally, more than likely you're going to take, you know, your own setup.

7:12 Big high end clubs, then they're

I would advise that because generally with places like that, if there is a piece of kit, it's probably absolutely hammered and battered. It's probably not very good, won't work. And if you just turn up with a thumb drive, good luck. Secondly, you've got your sort of mediocre clubs. You know, the sort of place, I don't know, in a small town or, you know, not even a city, a small town. And it's generally busy Friday, Saturday nights and probably not even open the rest of the week. They probably will have kit. But again, it's sort of user be wary. Whereas if you go to the big high end clubs, then they're going to have some pro high end kit. Generally, the Nexus series from Pioneer. And undisputedly, you know, you will take just a thumb drive.

There is no need to take your own kit to those venues, except if you want to take your laptop or your effects and so on. And again, generally nightclubs will have Pioneer kit, which is record box friendly. A lot of Denon and other kit now will use record box files. It's a bit like going back years ago. A bank had a bank card. If you use that card in that bank, you wouldn't get charged. But if you used it anywhere else, they charge you. Basically what the bank said is, do you know what? Why don't we just let all cards use all banks and we won't charge anyone? So it was a win-win. That's sort of what's happening now with the DJ industry. People are going, you know, software companies that are different to, let's say, the other kit companies and so on.

You know, Denon has their own software. You know, Pioneer has their own software. And so on. They're all going, let's just use each other's. So long as you've got all of your cue points and your folders, your files on your thumb drives, pretty much you can turn up and play. Generally as well, everything should be linked correctly. So one thumb drive in one CDJ and that should be linked up at performance mode to all the kit you've got. Hope that helps. And that was to J30K. Next one, RJ Sims. Let's have a look. All right. What do you use to record your DJ set? Very simply, you can use OBS or Audacity. Slight difference with OBS. You can use audio, but you can also do video as well. So you can record yourself video style and then upload that with Audacity.

9:43 Not a third party

You can just record the audio. And then upload that to your mix, your SoundCloud and YouTube. Both of those are free. So it's OBS and Audacity. By the way, if you do download those softwares, make sure you get them from the website. Not a third party. Many years ago, a friend of mine downloaded Audacity for me. It took ages only to find out. Yes, it was a corrupt file. And I spent the next week trying to get my computer fixed. So just be wary there. Number four, DJ Ash Noble. Okay, so let's have a look. Hold on. Where are we? I think that one, DJ Ash Noble. DJ Ash Noble. As a mobile DJ, what do you think is an acceptable amount to charge a client? Really good question. I mean, this is a very good question. And it does depend on a lot of aspects.

Your skill set.

Your kill set. Your skill set. Oh, I'm a mother fucking mother. I'm a cunny fund. Yeah, I am. I'm just a cunny fund sometimes. Your skill set. Get that right. Also, your demograph where you are and how much kit and what you can bring to the table. So first and foremost, let's imagine you're an average DJ. You've got a set of speakers on stands. You've got a couple of flashy lights. You've got a decent, you know, you've got a decent setup. You don't turn up and say, excuse me, please, can I use a trestle table? No. All you need from the venue, which you should only need is a connection to the power. Then again, it depends on the distance and how long you're going to play as well. So there's really quite a bit to fit in here.

12:07 I said you can drop your price

But let's say, for example, you know, you're playing in the local town and you're playing till one o'clock. You're starting at, say, eight o'clock, seven o'clock background music. And then you're not really going to get going until, say, ten o'clock by the time. People have had a few drinks. Buffets finish and they want to dance. Now, I'd be looking at a minimum of three hundred pounds simply because if you start low, it's very difficult to go high. But if you start high, you can always drop your price. But then it's always again. OK, I said you can drop your price. You should. Again, this is a video in itself that could last for half an hour. Because if you give a price to a client over the phone and they say, oh, I can't pay that much.

Can you do it for cheaper? And you go, all right, I can do it for 250. Then, you know, you've made yourself look as though you're not worth the original price you wanted. You're better off saying, no, that's my price. Three hundred putting the phone down because you never know they might phone you back. OK, but let's imagine. OK, so that's sort of a middle of the road DJ. In other words, you've got a small car. You can put all your kit in your small car, including the console that's a frame and you can break it down and so on. Let's imagine then you've got a small post office van and you've got a couple of subs, couple of mid top. You've got some moving heads. You've got some lights on T bars. You've got a laser.

You know, you've got a good set up. You've spent a thousand pounds just on your controller. Now, you're probably still looking. Ironically enough, at about the same price. But then again, if you have add ons, for example, you could say to the client, well, this is my set price. But if you want up lighting, you could maybe charge another hundred pounds. Maybe you're doing a wedding and the client wants a radio mic for speeches. You could charge another 20 pounds. Let's say also, for example, they want cocktail music in the afternoon, which means you've got to get there in the morning. You could charge another hundred and fifty pounds. So potentially now you're looking at about five hundred pounds and convert that to euros and dollars.

14:30 Techno, mark guzman, electronic sounds

Five hundred pounds is probably going to be about five, fifty, six hundred dollars, similar to euros. Now, let's imagine now, you know, you have got a club set up. You've got four twin 18s. You've got mid and top. You've got everything is by amps. You've got a rack of amplifiers. You've got the latest Nexus set up. You know, it takes you three or four hours just to set up the lighting rig. Now you're looking into triple figures of a thousand pounds and above. And what I must stress here is a lot of DJs, including myself back in the day, we'd fall into this pitfall of just having the joy of taking all of our kit to the venue and filling it full of kit and getting a minimum amount. But we just felt it was amazing to take all of the kit.

But what you're doing is you're kicking yourself in the backside because basically you're doing all that work for very little. And I'm finding now if I do a medium venue, I'll take two twelve and horn on tripods tidy sort of set up as I'm sure you've seen in gig logs and you're getting two fifty three hundred pounds. Whereas if I want to go a little bit higher, I'll take extra lighting and the base cabs. And I can get all of that just about in the back of an estate car. All right. So DJ Ash Noble, I hope that's helped. And the next one, Mark Guzman. So let's go down here. Mark.

Mark Guzman. Please explain the house music types. Cheers, mate. Now there are loads of styles of house music, but what I've got is a few here. Techno, soulful, funky piano and progressive. OK, one, two, three, four, five. First of all, techno. Now, if we go back to the early nineties, there was a track entitled What You're Going To Do With My Loving. And that was known as techno. And if you listen to it now, it's like soulful music. So a lot of these styles have, they've almost changed over the years. And some of you may agree with you. Some of you may agree with me. Some of you may disagree with me about my interpretations. But here we go. So techno is in a way sort of a minimal kind of style. It's very hard, big energy.

17:01 Your house tracks

Very often it's in the minor keys, not the major scale. So it's very moody, minimal sort of vocals. And you know, you tend to have a lot of electronic sounds and also minimal electronic sounds. So quite often with techno there's not really a lot going on. The energy is in the repetitive vibe of the track. The next one, soulful house music. Much more down tempo. Again, more so believe it or not on the minor scale. Because the idea is to be sort of soulful and moody. And I'd like you to do a test after this video. Go on your laptop and have a look at your house tracks. And you'll probably find that in fact most of your music is actually in the minor scale. Which is strange really because the major scale is a lot more uplifting and vibrant.

Okay, funky. Alright, a bit more about soulful. Again you have more vocals in there. And you have like, quite often you'll have sort of proper instruments in there. Okay they have been maybe a computer's sort of used them and you know they're not like real instruments as in a band has played them. But then you're going to get your violins and guitars and so on. Alright, the next one is funky. Now the term funk is really kind of a slap bass offbeat you know old school if you imagine James Brown. So what you have here is again a steady four-fold time. But it's got funky elements into it. It's got that Stop laughing. A lot more funky and a lot more vibrant. And if anything what you find with funky house. It's a lot more uplifting and you will find in funky house slightly more in the major scale than you probably would in the latter.

19:28 I'm going to talk about

Now piano house is as it says on the tin. You have a lot more melody. Quite often you do have female vocals, male vocals. A lot more music involved with it. A lot more uplift. And what you have here is the breaks generally have piano orientated sort of breaks where there's a build and a build and a build and all of a sudden bosh someone's trying to phone me I better get rid of that. Looks like I had to edit it. Someone's trying to call me. Okay, so piano again. Big breaks lots of big euphoric kind of drops. And it's very uplifting again, you know, you will find quite a few in the major scale but generally sort of the minor scale as well. The next one I'm going to talk about is progressive house. Now what you find with this is it seems to build up in steps.

So with progressive house, you could have a very long intro of just a steady kick. And then you may have say for example, say eight bars or 16 bars. And then you may have 16 bars of the kick and just hi-hat and then 16 bars of kick hi-hat and bassline quite often with progressive. You won't have any vocals at all, but you probably will have samples of vocals like that kind of thing. Also, the breaks seem to be quite long. And with progressive there doesn't seem to be much that happens. So what you tend to do is you will choose your progressive house tracks, hopefully in key and maybe one of them has an energy level of five. Another one has an energy level of six. So of course if you want to increase the energy, you'll go from your five to your six.

Maybe another one has six. The next one will be six. The next one will be seven. So generally with progressive house sets, they're sort of quite... How can I put it? There doesn't seem to be much going on. It's a sort of set that could last for say two or three hours. And after you finish dancing, you think, wow, what happened? It took me on a journey. But it was a very flowing, slow, progressive journey. All right. OK, we've got one more. And that is from Daniel Murphy. So if I go down... Daniel Murphy.

Where is he?

21:31 Not really trying to stand out

Chris... Daniel Murphy. What's your advice for someone trying to build unique sets where all the music you're hearing lately sounds the same? I've been going to gigs where I'm just not feeling the music others are playing. Not really trying to stand out. Just trying to keep things fresh. Now, I have talked about this before. And if you follow this rule, I promise you, you will do a blinding set. Let's say, for example, you are a drum and bass DJ. Of course, you're probably going to be looking for the latest drum and bass tracks, sounds and playing those out. We'll stop right there. Go back in time. Chuck a bit of jungle in there from the early 90s, the late 80s. Chuck a bit of original drum and bass in. Find those classic diamond tracks from the past 20 years and throw them into your set.

People will walk away loving you. Exactly the same with any style of music. If you're a house DJ... If you, let's say, just chose the tracks from this week that were released this week. You could probably do a set for a month. Okay? The trouble is though, everyone else is trying to find the latest tracks to give the new fresh set. But like Daniel said, they all sound the same. So go back in time and choose some bangers from years gone by. Because to this day there are probably 20-30 million tracks, maybe not that many, from the 90s that you and I have never even heard. And we're still finding out these amazing songs and thinking, wow, when was this released? And you find out it was released 15-20 years ago.

If you think about it, 20 years ago sounds a very long time. And it is! But that was 22. 2002. So, you know, we're still in this century. Whereas if you go back to the 90s... There are some absolute monster cuts, underground house tunes that you can bring into your set and will blow people away. All right! I hope that's been a help. Now this is video... This is the answers. Okay? So I'm going to be doing another video soon. Very simple short video where you'll be putting questions underneath that video for the next video which will be the answers. So this is video number one for the answers for the questions from video number one. I know that was a bit confusing but I'm sure it makes sense. Thank you for watching.

Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.