For the last 26 years I've been rocking stage is playing in clubs and having a lot of fun as a DJ and turntablist. And in that time I've seen and learned a lot now it's time for me to share that knowledge by answering the questions that can help. You become a better DJ. I'm BJT 11 and this is the Sheridan College podcast for DJs. Today's podcast is brought to you by bands Jules. What's going on? Everyone? Welcome to the shed. And I was podcast with DJ's. I'm your host DJ tlm and this is episode 2 season 2. This is Mike. Uh, yo for DJ's where I try to answer as many DJ related questions as possible. Now, you can send me questions through IG Facebook comments and YouTube you name it? I have a bunch of questions right here, and I'll try to answer all of these questions and whenever I run into a question that I just don't know the answer. Acid to I will just honestly tell you I do not know now the great thing about this is reading the comments and reading the questions I run into a lot of situations that I'm familiar with but also a lot of stuff, I don't know because not all DJ's have the same type of career. So I'm still learning on a daily basis and I absolutely love that. So my goal with this show is to add value to the DJ community help you become better DJs and at the same time educate myself, and hopefully we can all learn from each. Each other now, I have a bunch of questions ready. Like I said, I want to talk about social media taking your DJ skills to the next level playing DJ pool tracks in public. I mean, these are all questions I received and before I get into those questions just a quick little plug if you want to know more about me. Make sure you check me out on DJ TL m.com. If you're not familiar with my video content, you should definitely check out DJ tlm TV on YouTube. I do Post content in different places, but that's what you find like 450 DJ related videos, right? Now and if you want to find me anywhere else on social media to handle the DJ tlm everywhere you want to send me a question share the knowledge at the JT alarm.com, but you can also just take a comment section or DM's on Instagram work really? Well, let's get into the show and let's get into the first question. So let's get into that first question. It's about social media. And this question comes all the way from India talking about Instagram. I see a lot of DJ's that are using Bots and automation just to increase their Going to try to show themselves bigger than they actually are a lot of DJ's especially female DJ's here in India who don't even know how to beat match are doing big clubs and events with premix sets just because they're females and have good social media following and management teams. What's your take on this the DJ's need to spend more time and money on social media and marketing or on themselves to increase their creativity and talent and DJing and music. So my answer to the second part is very simple, that's both I'll talk about that in a minute but let's just start at that beginning so it's a fact that you have a lot of people not just DJ's but people who find different ways to get that follower count up because they know it'll look better so that could be fake followers buying comments. You name it? I've seen them. I know them sometimes it absolutely looks ridiculous. Like you have someone who have like 65 thousand followers on Instagram, but every photo they post will have maybe a hundred likes and like one or two comments when you see that, you know, most likely that's just not a real number or those followers are just not good followers meaning they're not really an influencer because there's no engagement. The people aren't really interested. They probably just click follow because they like one video and never looked again. I don't know but those numbers don't really Add up so yes, you have people not just in India, but in different places who have a great social media following they have a marketing team, they built a brand for themselves and because of that they are now being booked to do all sorts of things. So they might get great brand deals to promote stuff, but they are also in a position where they can actually get booked to come DJ, even if they're like terrible DJs and for some it's like just a plan they will let themselves be booked as DJs. They don't know how to DJ they'll have that pre-mixed set like you said and they're getting away with it. It works and you have to realize that this is not new. This has been going on forever. The only difference is back in the days. It used to be movie stars. At least you name it. And now we have people that are internet famous, but they still have a following and that's all that counts the promoters at a club. Like we can go back like 10 20, whatever years they would actually pay famous people to come to their Club because it would be a good look for their club or event man. I even remember like what I would call not even like the famous famous but like semi-famous people would still get nice amounts of money just to come through a party. They won't even stay all night. They will stay like 20 30 minutes. The photos will get taken and they be out again now the same thing In happens with people now that have that following the only difference is like I said, it's internet Fame instead of like movie Fame but times have changed a lot of Internet famous people are actually bigger than some of these movie stars. They have way larger following you have people on YouTube that put up videos and every video. They upload has like 10 or 20 million views and it dropped like multiple videos a week. Those are crazy crazy numbers. So it's just business. I understand that's how promoters and club Owners look at it. Now as far as they get them getting booked if they booked someone who's famous and has a following and it will attract a crowd even if it's a terrible DJ if that club is full and people are all anxious to see that person for the club owner. It's a win honest and for us DJ's it can be annoying to see Someone on stage who can't be J Who's using a premix set? But the crowd that that person attracts doesn't seem to mind or they actually like it. So, who are we to complain? That's not our gig and the club Owners fine with it. They're going to continue to do that. So yeah, it might be a fat that is because they're females probably would like a good-looking females with a big Instagram following and they can promote to their followers. Like I'm DJing at that club and people will come it's Business so nothing you can really do about that. So let's skip that that is what it is feel about it how you want to feel about it. I'm not saying it's a good thing or bad thing. You have to decide how you feel about that. It's just how it is. We cannot change that now the second part like you asked spend more time and money on social media and marketing or on your skills. It has to be both. We're living in an era where you cannot depend on just your Mills is been proven playing at times like we just talked about DJ's getting gigs when they're not really DJ's just famous people. You see the same thing with artists you have artists nowadays that are getting record deals when they weren't even an artist, but they just had like this internet following and labels are like, hey, you have a following you have people who you have influence over. They'll probably buy your product or stream your product all day. Here's a record deal. It happens. So you can't just depend on your skill now you You want to make sure that you focus on your skill because at the end of the day, hopefully if you decide that you want to become a DJ you should want to be a good DJ just from a technical aspect be a good DJ when it comes to your song selection be a good DJ. That should be your goal besides that is the other part and that is branding yourself making sure you see yourself as a brand and try to get that out there. So yes you have to Market yourself as social media is a great way to do that. Social media has opened the door for all of us to be able to have that outlet. It's not like you can produce a video at home and then you have to hope that one of the TV stations will use your video and play it on their music channel that's in the past. We all have access to the internet. We all have the option to promote ourselves. Look I'll take myself as an example. I started out as a DJ and I I had a deejay career. I still DJ but it was a DJ for a long time and at a certain point. I just found that the people here where I live. They just weren't enough people who truly appreciate what I do as a DJ, so I found YouTube and I started to do videos on YouTube DJ videos to promote myself as a DJ in to show what it is that I do back in the days. I couldn't have done that. I did it the other way through my mixtapes and I would have to sell. And give away those mixtapes everywhere. Go to places go to events. Share that tape sell that tape to get my name out there. It's a hustle it works. But this allows me to do the same thing, but with people from all over the world now, even though YouTube and mixes didn't work out after I did it for a couple years. I already found a new audience from all over the world. Now, of course after that I made that switch. Rich and I started to do different types of videos that did not include music and I turned it into an educational new channel. That's the channel that you're watching. Now, if you're watching the video clip djt lime TV, I found a new audience and a lot of people were able to find me. That's what the internet and that's what social media has done. So yes, it's a great way to get out there now side note when it comes to this channel if you want to start getting more bookings as a DJ do not make a channel like this. That does not help at all. I'm not gotten a single booking as a DJ from the videos that I do on this channel. That's not what it does. But if I wanted to Brand myself as a certain type of DJI really focus on getting gigs like that social media will be Ablaze great place to do that by actually making sure I have a lot of mixes with that type of material online Mixcloud wherever and then find the audience that I want to cater to online. Oh my g on Facebook on Twitter looking searching for hashtags trying to find people who like the type of music that I'm playing and then interacting with those people finding and building your audience. Make sure that they start to see and hear your name. So you should definitely spend time on that as well. You can be the greatest DJ with all the skills. But if you're sitting at home, and you do nothing nothing is going to happen simple as that. All right. So this question is about playing music from a DJ pool in Public and I know a lot of you are probably familiar with this and know how it works, but I received a couple of questions like this before. So I feel it's important to actually address this in a video and on the podcast right now and that question comes from a 13 year old DJ and he's basically new to a lot of these things. So let me just talk about this. I just encountered your channel and I was wondering how you play your music. Do you have to buy every single song and album to avoid legal issues or are they? Our alternative legal Solutions and one of your video you talked about DJ pools, they sound great. But can you play the music from them at gigs or are they just for reference? And do you have to be an established DJ to use them? I'm an aspiring thirteen-year-old DJ who's just started but it's getting a bit caught up in all of the legal stuff and your advice would be much appreciated. All right. So here's the thing DJ pools have been around for a long time. I mean before the internet we had DJ pools back in the days. It was a little bit different. And as a DJ, if you were part of a DJ pool of a record pool every month, you would get a stack of vinyl. Now, you would not know what you were getting in advance. It all depended on which tracks were being released by the record label. So anytime a record label wants to release new music before the official release. They also make promo copies on vinyl and they would send those two DJ's but instead of sending those to every DJ by themselves, they would use record pools and those record pools with distribute to a bunch of DJ's now of course nowadays. It's a little bit different because it's all digital. So no one sending you vinyl anymore. You just become part of a record pool and then you can just go through the archive and download the music some record pools will have you leaving feedback so that the record companies can see how DJ is actually feel about the tracks some don't ask for a lot of feedback. So that depends on which record pool all record pools are a little bit different when it comes to what kind of music They offer so you have to make sure you check the sites and just check to see what type of artist and titles you see that you can see if it's appealing or if it's for you or not. And yes, it is legal. The whole setup is legal. So if you are part of that record pool and you download that music you can play that music at your gigs. That's cool. That's all fine. The only thing is not all record pools are as easy to join. Some will actually ask for a lot of credentials to see if you're actually Actually a DJ so you'll have to fill out some information. I know some are more strict others are definitely not so just check that out. If you want to apply you'll see what they're asking for. But yes, that is totally legal. That's why it's such a great resource for us you have access to a lot of music you play a monthly low fee and it's all there plus you get instrumentals and edit sockappellas whenever that's available. So you get a lot and yeah. Just it's just a matter of going through what else is in there listening to it finding the tracks. You want downloading the tracks. Most of them are already tagged and everything. So you're good to go. So, I hope that helps you out just take a look at the DJ pool see which one fits your needs best and then just apply and you'll see what happens. All right, so I have a question right here about cue points and I've done videos about Q points before this is a video request. I might do a new video as well, but I wanted to talk about this. Us for a second now the question is I'm a bedroom DJ and I'm studying the craft more and more. Can you do a video on Mark and Q points and setting up points on a track? I'm realizing most of the work in DJing is done before the set with so many tracks who has time to mark all the cue points. All right, that's what I wanted to talk about because that is important. So first of all, if you're watching this or listening to the podcast, you're not familiar with Q points acupoint is basically a marker. In a track that allows you to go straight to that point so cue points give you easy access to any point in the song. That's a lot easier than when we were using vinyl and you won't have to like spend forward to find it spin back to go back to point. A previous point acupoint will allow you to do that automatically. You can trigger that Q Point either within DJ software or on cdjs on a button, but in order to use Q points first, you have to set them because they're not in your songs yet. So you have to decide if you want to To have markers in that track that will allow you to go straight to that point now for me personally, I use Q points a lot of times. I'll have a cue point at the first beat that's a part. I want to get back to easily a lot of times. I might be playing or queuing it up and instead of bringing it back. I can just hit that Q point and be back at the beginning a lot of times. I'll have one at the beginning of a verse because I like the backspin that first sentence stuff like that and maybe I'll have some key points either further in the track like a breakdown or something like that and with Tracks on might just have q points on single drum sound. So one of the kick one and a high one on the snare so I can do some finger drumming on the pads. That's my preferred method of using Q points. I know a lot of these is also use Q points as a marker for their transition in and out points to have like that visual indicator to show them like, okay my cue point is coming up. This is where I have to start my transition that works. I don't use it. But I understand that that definitely works now in this case. You're wondering how much time is going to take to mark all of your points going to take a lot of time. You don't have to mark all your tracks with Q points. That's where you begin. You do not play all of the music in your music collection. So if we're talking about preparation, if you want to set Q points in advance, which is a good thing. You can do that with the tracks that you will most likely play if you're still a bedroom DJ right now you're practicing at home whenever you practice and you loaded and Track that you haven't put Q points in yet. You put the cue points in right then when you're playing it that way after a while. A lot of your tracks will have the cue points in there. Now. If you're already doing gigs and you're downloading a lot of new music every week, you don't have to poke you points in all of those tracks. Not for me. Like I have to go back to that point you're realizing most of the work in DJing is done before the set for me personally that is not the case in some playing freestyle. So I do not pray. Prepare my set. I do make sure that I have an idea of what I'm bringing so that definitely counts as preparation. But since I'm DJing digitally those crates are already in my laptop. I might just take a look and maybe make a special crate for an evening and fill it with tracks. But a lot of times I don't even do that and it happens a bunch of times and I'm playing and I'm loading in a track and I took it from a different folder and that version does not have the cue points yet. It takes me a couple of Seconds to set of course that coupon at the beginning that's easy. So the first time I know the track go to the beginning set that cute Point moving forward or just beat match it once I'm beat-matching queuing it. I'll get to that point with a verse begins set of Q point there. I can work that way but the preferred method is to make sure that at least most of the tracks that you play most often have the cue points in there. But if you're at home right now, that's no issue. But you do not have to do everything. Just please keep that in mind because Cuz I get this question more often, like people telling me like, yeah, I've been busy the last couple of weeks putting cue points in all my music. I'm like, why would you do that? Most likely I have a collection of Music some of these tracks in here never get played also have to take those out. But why would you spend time on something when you don't even know if you would play that track? So there's no need to do that now, I'll think about making a new cue Point video to explain it again, but if you go to DJ tlm TV Go The channel page you go to the search box right there and you hit cue points you type Q points, you will get the videos that I made about Q points. I have a video how to make you points. I even have a video that shows you how you can make a cue point with stickers musing real vinyl. So I have some material about that on the channel already. So I hope that helps you out have fun practicing and while you're practicing set those cue points. So this next question is about a scenario that a lot of us are scared of or were scared of and a lot of us have been through It this is about being in a situation where your equipment fails during a gig and yes, this question is about laptops. But I've seen plenty of situations where DJ's were struggling with the CDJ that didn't work anymore a mixer failure you name it all sorts of things can happen. But let's go into this question. Now, I've been getting straight gigs for about six months now and I haven't experienced any glitches like laptop freezes Etc. What do You do when this happens? Okay, make a video about this on your channel. I'm working with the SP2 and I don't have a four-channel controller. So I can't play Emergency mixes. So what it means is if you have a four channel mixer and you're using two channels, you can use like one of the other two channels to connect like an extra device with a mix just in case so he still wanted to know what I feel about that. So here's my thing. I went to a transition period when I was switching from Vinyl to digital I use digital for a while when I was using final scratch, but I would always have my vinyl with me because final scratch wasn't the most Dependable system. And yeah, I had some fails with that but mostly I saw other DJ's have fails with it. So I was still bringing my vinyl even though it's playing digitally. I just didn't trust it yet. Now I switch to Cerrado later on and it took me some time before I felt comfortable enough to leave vinyl at home. So I was still bringing vinyl now mind you I was not bringing my three to four crates of vinyl. I will bring one smaller crate and that crate was packed with nothing. But these what's the best way to call them like these were like best of albums like collection albums with nothing but like bangers and hits so They were all double albums. But every track on one of those albums would be suitable for the club's. So this crate was like this big but with that crate, I could spend a couple of hours of like dope tracks. I brought that crater long for I don't know probably at least six more months to every gig just because I was scared something would happen one gig something did happen to me and at that gig I hooked My Cerrado always using the so1 my vinyl there and the tracks were playing in reverse. At that time I wasn't using Cerrado that long yet. I freaked out I had no idea what was going on now mind you internet wasn't that great then especially on phones so I didn't really have the option to look it up right on the spot. If I could have done that. I would have fixed the problem in two seconds. That's beside the fact the problem was and I didn't know at that time if your tracks are playing in Reverse, it means that the RCA cables are in the wrong way. Now mind you if you looked at that the red and white went into the right inputs on the mixer, but these were two of those older turntables that have been revised a couple of times new cables and the RCA cables weren't connected the right way. So white was actually read and read was white. Now if I would have known about that, I could have fixed it in 10 seconds. I didn't so I freaked out I was like, ah, so put Cerrado to the side and I think I did a three hours. Set with just that crate Rock The Party it worked but it bugged me out when I came home and realize it was that simple as like okay, never mind if that happens again, and it's happened a couple of times switch to RCA. And then you're good to go. Now. I've played a gig where my laptop my old old laptop that was like an old Windows computer. I was using it got too hot. The club was like crazy lot of humidity a lot of heat and it got Hot that the laptop just it got to a point where just said and it went out in that case. We were playing in a club and I was playing back-to-back with another DJ and we had two sets right there. So there was also a see DJ set. I believe there was a second set. So I just looked at him as like play a track right now and took a couple of seconds and he just started attract. I actually just restarted my laptop and I lifted it up a bit put something under it. So Are could come underneath it and it did work for the rest of the night. That was the first time I realized I need a laptop stand because I would have my laptop like just flat on the floor. So the ventilation did not get his room lesson learned. That's how you learn a lot of these things by making the mistakes. But in that case I had to back up mount it would be in my best interest to always bring it back up and always have that connected and I'll be very honest and tell you right now that I don't actually do that. I can't remember the last time I actually had something hooked up as a backup even when I'm playing on a set and there's a CDJ next to it. A lot of times. I don't even have the flash drive in there. Now. I have a flash drive. So if something would happen to my set I could switch and go to the cdjs, but I don't have it in there. I just I don't know I feel comfortable with my set. I know that at any time something could happen and if that does then if there's an extra set. That I'm in a position to just put it on a flash drive fix it that way if there's nothing else. Yeah, then we would have a problem but I actually hardly ever play in spots where the DJ said I'm playing on is the only set their most of the times I'm playing in clubs where the rest of the DJ's are playing on cdjs, and I'm the DJ coming into play with turntables and Cerrado. So I know if anything happens I use that in your case if you have USB to and you're doing gigs on that sb2, are you connecting that SB to straight to a PA system or is your sb2 going into like an external mixer? It has to go into something that has to be like a sound system at the venue where you're playing most likely that sound system from the venue will have extra inputs. So what you could do basically is use some type even if it's like A simple old-school MP3 player I still have my old iPod 120 gigs of Music on their bring that and have that connected to that PA system. If anything would happen to your set. You would have to like signal the engineer or whoever's in charge of the sound to start something on that. Even if it takes a couple of seconds that's going to go on and it's going to give you time to figure out what's going on. Now if your laptop Is dead and there's not coming up. It's not going on again. I don't know how you would fix that if your setup is the only set up there. So in that case you're screwed. All right, so let's talk about question about taking it to the next level and I have to say right off the bat before even reading the question. This can be interpreted a lot of different ways because there are different ways. You can take it to a Next Level. So if you're a bedroom DJ right now and you want to start playing in clubs that's taking it to the next level. If you just learn how to mix your transitions are going. Okay, but now you're starting to incorporate turntablism that's taking it to a Next Level if you're already playing in bars, but now you're going to play bigger events. That is a Next Level. So there's different ways to interpret that and I wanted to say that before I get into this question because I'm actually not totally sure what is meant in this case. So the question is how do you know or what level? Of skill does it take to take it to the next level which you're DJing like you're making a living with DJ. How do you get better? If you're a family man with a full-time job at a busy lifestyle aside from DJing. I lifestyle is always on the go when I have a gig that's the only time so things slow down for me. I'm not very good at scratching really haven't had the motivation to learn it. Like you do transitioning is very good, and I'm pretty Creative as well with that. I have around 10 grand worth of equipment lights speakers controllers Etc the market where I live for DJing really isn't here most clubs bars Etc around me don't like hip-hop and dances genres genres that I play. It's more country classic rock crowds. So it's hard to get Known playing that kind of music. So that's the thing. There's a couple of different things within this question. The first thing is about know, In what level is skill does it take to take it to the next level what you're DJing like if you already busy DJing, how do you get better now? If we're talking about skills getting better practice is the only solution now if you're doing gigs, your gig is also practice, but if you want to really take it to a next level with your skills, you have to find time to practice now as someone who has spent time being a full-time DJ and family, man. I know that yeah we We live a busy lifestyle, but it's not like there's no time left. If you currently have no time left. There's a very good possibility that you're not spending your time, right? If you take a close look at your time. You most likely will find that you're wasting quite a lot of time that could have been spent on more productive things. I found that out about myself as well now, I'm not a full-time DJ right now. I'm spending most of my time on creating content for my Channel with the podcast. You name it. And then I have my clients that produce content for them. That is part of what I do. Then. I have some DJ gigs and I still tour brain power all of that combined creates or is what I do right now. So I'm living in an era and we're living in an era where I'm able to actually diversify and do like five six different things that are all DJ related. So to me, that's perfect. Now that makes it even more busy than when you just a DJ because to be honest DJ life, isn't that hectic? If you're a family man, and you do gigs on the weekend, or even if you have some weekday gigs, it's not like you're running around all day. That's it for me. At least that's not the case. You will still have extra time here and there but in your case, you're also talking about that you have like lights speakers controller. So are you looking to also like get into doing like mobile gigs? Are you currently actually doing gigs or are you a bedroom DJ who wants to take it to the next level and start playing games? In clubs, I can't really tell from that but going to the latter part of this story you're playing in an area where they're not playing the type of music that you're playing in the bars and clubs. So, how can you get your how can you get your gigs? I would suggest what I say. All the times is if you're living in an area where no one is doing the type of parties you want to do you're going to have to be the one to do them. Now do a small event for people who actually like the the music that you play so you're going to have to do the research or maybe you already know this are there people in your area who would love to hear the music that you're playing and don't want to go to the bars where they're playing like the country and classic rock. I can imagine that there's basically no place on the planet where there's still only people who want to hear country and classic rock. So most likely there will be a crowd there that wants to hear hip hop and dance and those type of showers find those people if not in person search online. Find those people and organize a small event to build your own fan base. And I mean small small. I've talked about this in several other videos, but that is an option or you have to start looking beyond your own area and find out where the places are where they are more into the music that you're playing. So there's multiple ways to interpret and I hope I kind of answered that but just keep in mind that that is part of the thing if you want to get better as a DJ you going to have to spend that? At time and practice and become better and evolve at Morse to your skill set if we're talking about actually venturing out and doing gigs. You have to start finding the spots where you could actually play if they're not in your area. You're going to have to create that for yourself or move out and find it somewhere else. Now if you want to know more hit me back. Once again, I don't know. I think this was a YouTube question if I'm not mistaken, so Hit me back. If you hear this or see this if you have more information, all right bad Zuko makes it easy to build a stunning website for your music and minutes. You can choose from hundreds of mobile friendly themes and then customize your design and content in a few clicks with bands. You was easy visual editor all the features you need for professional website are already built in including tools to sell your music and merge commission-free mailing list tools to grow your fan list and send newsletters and integration to pull in content from all your online services including on Twitter Instagram and SoundCloud I use bands you will to create the shared knowledge podcast website and that was very easy bands who will plant started just 829 a month and include your own free custom domain name. Now, if you want to try it out for free for 30 days click on the link in the description box down below and be sure to use the promo code share to get 15% off the first year of your subscription. So this is a topic that I love to talk about for the simple fact that it allows me to get rid of some of the stigma around this and also, Sure, I educate people to write weight. And that is this question. The question is what is hard or easier scratching with the jog wheel or actual vinyl. Now a lot of people are still looking at controllers. Like that's not for DJing that's not for scratching and then you have people saying like turntable is the only real thing you name it that discussion is so old it's incredible that it's still alive. But here's the thing you have plenty controllers out there. That are great for basic scratching. You can learn basic scratches on those controllers a lot of the controllers. So scratching with a jog wheel it works. You can definitely do it. If you want to learn more about scratching if you want to do more Advanced Techniques, the only way to learn that is by using turntables. It is a different feeling it allows you to truly feel the Front and that really helps you out now, I don't actually have to explain that anymore because the proof is there have you seen or do you know any DJ who started on the controller still plays with a controller and has totally mastered like turntablism skills. I highly doubt it. I've seen great performances on controllers, but all of those DJ's In those routines started with turntables that's where they learned the technique and the muscle memory. They have allows them to do those same things with that non-moving platter. That's it for me. I can do things on a small controller. You might have that same controller you learned on that and I'll do things that make you say like, wait a minute. How can you do that with this controller that never works for me? That is that's what I noticed because with like a small controller with like know. You will indicate is nothing I was still able to do the right hand movement because my hand is actually used to having to do a certain movement because the moving platter that's for me. That's the best way for me to explain it. It just gives you a better feeling and you have more control over it. So if you want to learn how to scratch you can use your controller if you want to take that to a Next Level Advanced scratches turntablism, a turntable is still the best tool to learn how to do. Do that. Now. If you use that to learn how to do it, you can go back to that controller and dual or things with it that you could ever do before but chances are after you've done it with the turntable you prefer the moving platters for scratching and turntablism. I still have my turntables, but that's why I also like all the controllers removing platters. That's why the ns7 when it came out. That was like, I love that thing it gave me that vinyl feel and it gave me all the advantages of a controller. So hard easier basic scratches you can do on anything if you want to go further than that take that turntable, like for instance. I did a Saturday sessions video where I'm actually using the SB and this same person here is telling me that he has the DDJ as be check out that video if you haven't checked it out and you can see what I'm doing with that as be I actually start on a turntable and that I do the same thing on that as B and for a lot of of people who just start on that SB it's going to be really hard to do the same thing. I did if they haven't learned to do that on a turntable first, but if we're talking about basic scratches you want to do like a baby scratch you want to do some Cuts you want to transform all of that stuff can be done with controller cdjs, no problem. But if you're asking me like what's harder what's easier that's pretty subjective like for me a turntable feels better. So for me, it's easier on a turntable than it is on a job will because that's like a non-moving piece of Plastic that is not gave me the same field I can do it, but I'll preferred that moving platter if you started out on a jog wheel. That's all. You know, it's going to be easier for you on that jogwheel than it probably is when you get that moving platter the first time but after you practice with that turntable for a while things start to change. Alright, so right now I want to talk about Ableton and just to be clear. I do not have a lot of experience with Ableton not for live performances, not for producing. I tried it like a couple of times. I'm going to have to really sit down with that one because that is different from all the systems that I use to use like Cubase logic even machine Ableton is a different animal but I still will find time some time to really learn how to do it Master it because I liked what I saw but this is a question from Sri Lanka. And the question is I used to use cdjs as my standard setup but now because Knowledge is taken over the music industry. I feel like switching to Ableton Live for my live performances. He talked about pros and cons and performing live music with Ableton on stage versus using cdjs to play mp3s. Now, look first of all, you want to switch because technology has taken over the music industry. I'm not sure what that actually means. So you would have to elaborate like yes Tech is definitely playing a bigger part and if we're talking about technology and we're including the internet the internet has totally changed the way the music industry works from sales to streams. You name it. That's a fact but that has nothing to do with you playing a DJ set. If you decide that you want to go to Ableton to play live music that is a conscious decision to switch from just playing songs to actually becoming More of a performer because Ableton does allow you to be way more creative. You can load tracks in there, but you can also have like your own music in there mix it in then take certain parts of the track out. Just like you hear like drums or just Melody you have options and you can do a lot of fun stuff with it now mind you again. I'll tell you I do not have a lot of experience with it. But I've seen people use it. I've seen that you have a lot of possibilities and it could be great for live performances, especially if you're a DJ EJ was performing with like an artist. I've seen DJ to do that as well. Great. A lot of tools in there that are great to use but it is a totally different animal than go on stage and playing songs and that could be from a CDJ that could be from turntables and controller doesn't really matter. So it has nothing to do with the fact that technology has taken over the music industry that does not matter. So my question to you would be do you have your own music are you producing music? Do you have songs where you have the separate? The separate layers of the track, then it would make more sense to have something like Ableton, but you could also use a tractor and work with stems in that as a different story. But if you're only going to use like the same MP3s that you're using now in the cdjs, then it doesn't really make sense to switch to Ableton because now you have to bring a different type of setup. What are you going to use to control Ableton? Are you going to bring something like push or different type of device and you have to bring your laptop, you know? Name it so it's a totally different animal compared to If You're Now using cdjs most likely with like a flash drive. So if you're going to do a lot of like live manipulation adding extra samples and layers and stuff like that. Ableton is great. I can't really talk about the pros and cons, but if we're talking about being creative and actually performing Ableton can do a lot for you. If you're just going to play music. I see no reason for you to switch to a different system right now, so I want to take a second to talk about MCA. During your DJ set and I know for some of you this is not an option. You just do not feel comfortable with a microphone. That's perfectly fine. There's no saying that you have to be able to rock like phone during a set but it is an additional skill that's very useful to have within Your Arsenal. So if you are comfortable enough speaking in front of people it would make sense to also be able to hold that mic during your gig practice that at home the question I have here. It's not really a question. It's more so scenario, but I want to talk about this for a second. It has to do with control in the mic now last weekend. I arrived as a guest DJ at a new hip-hop club in Shanghai and like two minutes before my set the manager gave me a mic and said I should use it during my set. All right lucky enough. I didn't mind but one problem. I realized during my set while occasionally I'm seeing is that I ran out of things to say for crowd Hypes. I had already used the obvious hype such as He make some noise Etc. But for sure I saw myself touching the Michael S as my gig went on. So basically the question is what do you do in a situation like that for me personally as a DJ who has emceed a lot during gigs and I still do sometimes but if there's an MC present who I trust I'm perfectly fine with that, but I've been in situations where there's an MC and it's like a terrible MC. I'll tell that MC straight away like homes listen up. Up. I'll take my own set. I'll host my own set. So do you but don't speak through my set simple as that? Here's the thing don't overthink emceeing. So the first thing I do is I don't MC too much you have certain DJ's who just grab that microphone every chance they get to ask people to throw their hands up again. You don't want to overdo that depends on the crowd like certain crowds if they really came to see that these They'll probably do anything to DJ says but if we talk on the club night people just come to that club to party. They don't want to have some MC like commanding them to do this and that all night long. So use it when it's appropriate don't feel you have to do it all the time in my case. I don't have a lot of go to sentences. I use I say I might say something like Make some noise, but it's not going to be like really interesting. I'm special things to sound different. So if I feel that a certain thing is good like asking people to make some noise and if that works I might do that again later on. So in my case, I'll use that microphone in the beginning when I start and I might just ask people like are you ready to party? Yeah. I know. It's a standard line, whatever that's not little interaction if you get like a yeah, you could continue and just start playing from there or if you know what type of track you're playing you could like. In the middle of your set like stop and if it's a familiar artists like we're all my let me do old school where I want to park fans that if you get that reaction, you got to make sure that you know, what type of crowd you have there, but something like that if they give you a reaction and you throw that Tupac in there, they'll go nuts stuff like that or maybe every once in a while. I'll grab a mic and I'll sing sing. I'll rap along just like one of those sentences that I know the crowd is going to say as well. That fader down and just sing along having some fun and do that. There's no saying that you have to constantly talk to that crowd constantly use that Mike but there are situations where it could definitely help you out. Like for instance if you want to switch to a totally different genre totally different PPM range being able to just stop attract address the crowd with the microphone and then start a new track in a different Tempo different genre is perfect, but don't overthink it don't use it too. Watch and don't be scared to say the same thing a couple of times if that works. That's my opinion. If you have advice if you do a lot of emceeing and you do it differently, let us know in the comments section down below. All right. So this question definitely hits close to home. This is one of the things within my DJ career, I feel I should have done differently and that is a question about playing for a radio station. Now, here's the thing should you plan your travel? Tracklist for radio station or just freestyle two things. I've had my own radio shows on radio stations and that was like a mix show in that case. I did not prepare. That was just me doing like two hours sets and I would have my own stuff. They're like my own equipment. I made sure like with one station. I used to have my ns7 there with the other station. I had to turn table set like permanently there just for me to come in. And play but that was in my own comfort zone my own show. So I get to do what I do in that case. I felt perfectly at home. This did my thing, but I've also done guest radio slots where you just come in during a program and within that program you do like 30 or 40 minutes set. I did those freestyle and to me it did not work. Well, so Like like like twice that it happened not like 10 times twice both times. I did not feel good about the gig and a game. I needed some time to think about what actually went wrong. And the thing is I wasn't in my own personal Vibe because I wasn't in my own space now. Normally that's not an issue. If I go to a new club, that's not my space. But if you're playing in a club, you have the crowd reaction, you have the crowd interaction if you're in a radio station here in the booth. Do not have any interaction. There's no crowd. So you don't see how people react once in an uncomfortable or unfamiliar surrounding. I just did not catch the vibe. Like I catch you when I'm in a club or even when I'm doing like my own sets for radio station for my own radio show so that definitely made a difference and afterwards I thought to myself if I ever do guest radio spots again. I have to make sure I prepare Those now I might not do a total prepared set. But I have to make sure like I have an intro outro ready and at least like half of the stuff I'm going to do with in that mix has to be at least set so I know this is what I'm going to do. This is where I'm going to go next maybe plan a little routine in there as well just because I'm not going to have that interaction. So I want to make sure that I have a solid thing prepared because I'm not going to get the energy that's it for me when I play Freestyle is not just about reading the crowd to know what to play next. You also going off their energy. Their energy feeds me when I'm playing. I didn't have that at the radio. So I needed to remind myself like okay, it's a different scenario different surroundings treated in a different way. So that's my personal thing again. When I did my own show, that was my own thing. I was there like an hour early setting up everything. I knew exactly what I was going to do because it was totally me and that just felt different and I never really had that issue. Shoo. Now this thing also is for my own radio show. I made sure that I was live streaming it and I was reading comments on Twitter people sending in request. So there was sort of an interaction there. I had feedback while I was playing so that's totally different now, it might be different now because the radio gigs I was talking about like the guests things those were before the Twitter era and everything. So the really was like no feedback. So it is a different situation, but I Say at least know what you plan to do during a radio set. You don't have to like prepare the entire mix with know what you're about to do that helps out. So you don't have to think about that and you don't have the crowd to give you that feedback. That's my opinion again. If you're watching the video clip, let me know how you handle that. If you do get spots. Do you have a specific way to treat that if you do a radio guest spot holler at your boy in the comment section. Alright. So for this question, we're going to take it a little bit to the personal side of Things talk about work-life balance and this question is all about that. So the question is I won't mind if you can talk about DJing and real life being married having children putting the family first turning down gigs because of the family like when you move from your previous address to your present and just stuff about transition from a kid to a full-grown adult DJ. So yeah, we've been together for 17 years. So I've been in this situation That you could call the work-life balance situation where you have like your partner and then children come into the picture and turns into a family situation. Now when it was just me and her I definitely was able to choose the DJ side of things a lot more. That's just a different situation when kids come into play Yo those kids come first that's that's my take on it and I know not everyone. Will agree or feel the same but for me it definitely changed the path of my career because my focus shifted. I was not spending as much time on my career as it was before and I definitely turned down certain things because I wanted to be there now it might have hurt my DJ career to an extent, but I have no regrets about that. So that's why I'm saying. I know DJ's who go the opposite direction and they're killing it and they're doing great business. They hardly see their kids. That's a choice as well same it's not just for DJing you have people in business in daily life doing that all day seeing their kids like two hours a day and for the rest of the time they're working. So that's their situation as a DJ. We have a little bit more choice because we're not nine-to-fivers but I chose family and I'm very glad I did I got to see both of my son's take their first step. I was there I was present I got to witness that that's something new. One can take away from me and no gig on Earth can replace that being there seeing that that's a moment right there. So there have been situations like that where you choose differently like when my kids were still wearing my oldest was still young and I got this opportunity to play but I have to go away for like two weeks. I decided not to not mind you if this was like a really really good business opportunity that would lead to a lot more in the future. I might have chosen differently in this case. That wasn't it. It was like, okay. It's a couple of gigs they're paid. Okay, but it's nothing special. It's going to take me away from my newborn two weeks. No, that's not happening. Now. That's when the kids just come into play. Of course after that if you are like really active Within The family and you're part of the family it changes your life. I have two sons right now and they have school. They have their extra things. So that takes up a lot of time combining that with DJing is a different thing, especially if you're talking about waking up early in the morning to take kids to school when maybe the night before you DJ and I've been in those situations where I come home like 5:00 in the morning. All I can do is shower and then it's time for the kids to wake up. It happens. Now, it doesn't happen that much now because I'm Not Dead DJing as much that's also a conscious decision to do that less. I'm seeing if there's anything else in there. But as far as longevity I started this when I definitely was a kid I've been doing for over 25 years now. I think the only reason I still love doing what I do is because I love what I do. I love DJing so that's why I stayed in it for so long. Because I had ups and downs. So more gigs less gigs financially. You're doing better financially. You're not doing as good. I never had a job on the side. So music was always the only income. So yeah that fluctuated like crazy and if you're not totally into it, you're not totally devoted your heart's not totally there. You're going to give up after a while now. That's okay. That just means you don't really have that much love for you just like it so difference between liking and loving but I'm so glad I chose the path I chose because I just felt that was what I needed to do. When I was that young like younger. I was doing basketball and DJing at the same time at a certain point. I had to make a decision which one I'm going to choose now. I love playing basketball, but also love music and DJing so I had to make a decision right there and I chose and I know I chose the right path and the journey Self the process itself. That's the whole adventure and I love everything that is brought me so far even though not everything has been as great especially if you look at social media nowadays, you might think that DJ is live this great life and all DJ's that you see are doing amazing. That's just a bunch of BS, but that's because most of them treat Instagram and Facebook like they're highlight reel and all you see is that good stuff when most of them have at the time their tireless can be because they're And or they have a period where they don't have as many gigs or they post a lot of gigs like on their social and then you find out to hear that they're hardly getting paid for those gigs. So yeah, you have a nice list of gigs, but you're not really making that much money. So it's more appearance than actually good business. Yeah, there's more that goes into it. But for me I've been able to do this and combine this life with family life also because of communication you have to make sure that you're paying attention to your family. Only so if there's time when you're spending more time on work, you have to make sure to keep in check if everything else is okay, and especially when it comes to a relationship when you have children for the people that are watching or listening that are in this situation where you have kids you might run into a point where you find out that you're basically living your life in the focus is on the kids and then you forget about each other that happens and you have to be aware of that be conscious of that. That communicate about that and take care of that because you all need to be tight. So it's an ongoing process because everything changes sometimes I might be more busy and that's going to affect my family life as well. And sometimes I'll have more time so it all depends but for me it is that I chose something I love that gives me a lot of Happiness. So that's also healthy for them and communication is key. Sometimes you have to To do more and then you have to let them know and you have to make sure that you keep your eyes and ears open to see and hear if you're lacking if you're not spending enough time on that other side and take care of that then but there's no formula. It's all experimental. You just have to live and see that's at least My Philosophy. That's how I've been doing it for this amount of time and growth comes with that time as well you learn from just the experience. You gain from all the gigs you do mistakes? You make relationships People You Meet everything and I look at life differently now than I did when I started I make different decisions. Not that I did when I started as a DJ like I have the confidence and self awareness to know like no, I'm not doing that gig because that's not a God not not going to give me a good feeling even though I could use the money. I will choose not to because I want to make sure I'm not tarnishing the - another half for to thing I do. I'd rather look for other outlets, like creating content to still maintain and do the things I love to do. So for me, this is amazing being able to share my experience talk about DJing having DJ gear around the test and have that be part of my job part of my income and still touring with bring power and still doing DJ gigs when I run into the gigs that are fun that are good and we'll see what time brings Zile continue to do this for a very long time if I can do the thing I love to do. So that's my answer rant whatever you want to call it and I hope that helps you out and I hope more DJ's would become a little bit more honest and share a little bit more instead of the facade that I see a lot of them. Hold up like making it look all pretty and great and there's so much more to it. There's so much more to it. All right, that's it. Now look there were a lot more questions, but I'm going to stop the episode right here because I feel this is becoming a way too long episode. I already have more than enough questions for next week because the questions just kept on rolling in I was even able to put some more questions and because I had to cut this recording into two, so I added some more questions now and yeah, once again thanks to all of you for not just checking out the content online like on djt Lime TV, listen to the podcast but also the interaction that we have Online especially on Instagram all the questions. I receive I truly love it and you guys give me that inspiration and actually material for more content. So it's it's a give and take thing and you're giving me and I'm giving back and hopefully we can take some knowledge from each other and become better. That's it for this episode episode 2 of the Sheridan College podcast for DJ season 2 in 2019. I'll be back next week on Monday in the meantime, make sure you check. Check me out on YouTube on Instagram on Facebook LinkedIn. I'm everywhere posting content everywhere. Let's chat. Let's chop it up and check in next week.
Welcome to season 2, episode 2, brought to you by Bandzoogle. Try Bandzoogle free for 30 days: https://bandzoogle.com/websites-for/djs?pc=share Use the code SHARE for 15% off your first year. - Using the mic during your sets. - Turntables vs controllers for scratching. - Should DJs focus on social media or on their skills? - Can you use the music from DJ pools for your gigs? - Work life balance. - Radio sets vs club sets. And much more. Feel free to jump in the comment section and join the conversation when you see a question that you can answer. 