For the last 26 years. I've been rocking stages 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 DJ t11 and this is the Sheridan College podcast for DJ's today's podcast is brought to you by bands Jules. I think the title on the flyer was something like the influence of digital DJing, but basically I want to talk about the influence of technology to the DJ culture and DJ in this case. I'll use my personal experience to go through some of these technological Evolutions in DJ and I know it can be a polarizing topic sometimes every time there's like a new development. You'll hear people say DJing is dead. It happened with some of the equipment that we have right here. It's all fake now and we all know that there's a lot of people who talk a lot of that stuff about DJ's with Hours, which in my opinion is absolute nonsense. So to all you control a DJ's out there use what you want to use and don't listen to any of these old sour DJ's who feel that they have the right to tell you what real DJing is and what isn't so that's what a base want to talk about. But I want to give you guys a little bit of context by telling you my personal experience anyone here familiar with me. See that's good to know. My name DJ name is DJ tlm. I'm a DJ from Amsterdam. I've been DJing for 25 years. So in clubs festivals private events stuff like that. I've been at or DJ for 21 years. Now meaning that I DJ for an artist and we've done over 3,500 live shows in the last 21 years. So basically as a 2d gel on stage, I'll provide the music. I also do backing vocals. So I'm wrapping with the artists. Splat them selling rap artists out absurd amaz, walk or brain power and in certain tracks, I'll do scratches most of the times before we start our performance. I might play a couple of tracks just to get the crowd height before we begin. I'm also a mixed a DJ that reminds me. I have props. I just brought this along. This is my first mixtape series that I did my first 10 mixtapes, but just to illustrate This is a cassette. It's a little carrier that has a bunch of tape inside and this was used to like I said distribute music you can record music on it and play it in a cassette recorder who still has a cassette recorder. Okay, you go want something that's more than I thought. Okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's really cool. I like that. All right. Yeah, I still have like a full container of tapes some are like tapes from artist. I used to listen to but a lot is just my own stuff and like I said a mixtape DJ I still do mixes. But of course, I'm not doing them on cassette anymore. Now that mixes will be done digitally and I'll post them on Soundcloud Mixcloud whichever platform will allow my mixes to stay up. That's Always an issue as well besides I mix a DJ. I've also been radio DJ. I've gone local radio. I did host a mix shows, but I'm mixing live on radio did that on local radio? And on the Dutch national channel five through eight radio five through eight juice. That was the name of it. So mixed a PGA Tour DJ Club DJ radio DJ and I spent most of my time now actually producing video content. So if you're not familiar with that, I have a channel. On YouTube called the JTL MTV and that is all about educational videos for DJ's where I try to talk about anything from techniques to the business side of things ups and downs that DJ's go through try to keep it real honest because a lot of DJ's will show you their highlight reel on Instagram and everything looks great, but that's not the real life of a DJ so I try to share all of that. So I started 25 26 years ago something like that. That was my start as a DJ at home. Anyone here just a DJ at home or are you all playing in clubs and places already? bedroom DJs Birthdays, there you go. Yeah corporate parties. Yep. So for me, it was exactly the same thing. I wanted to DJ. I knew this is something that I would like to do. I bought my first set of turntables and that was a belt drive set. So not something fancy like this here, which is a direct drive turntable, which gives you lots of power and speed but a belt drive turntable that when you started you have to like wait before it begins no pitch slider, but you Have a little pitch wheel, but you have to turn to change the pitch to maybe go faster or slower. And if you wanted to see if you were playing as zero, you have to look at the lights and the lights were aligned that you knew you were playing at 0 so you have to do a little bit more work to make everything work. for props You know what? This is right. Have you seen this? Thank you at how old are you? How old are you 11? See my oldest son is 11. I took this to his class half of the kids have no idea what this was keep that in mind and a couple of years will be saying the same thing about the CD and they'll have no idea. What a CD is either. The secrets on their precious actually really about it. Alright, so this is basically for me a visual aid to tell me what a starting point of a certain track is. So in this case, I have no idea if everything is working already. So let's see if there's anything on Phone. Oh, which channel one is all phone? Oh, no, I don't hear it yet. You know, I'll let you figure that out until we have sound. So what I was talking about when I started is we all have to deal with DJ's that will try to tell you that there is a certain way to DJ to call it real DJ, especially all the DJ's that will try to convince you that the only way you're allowed to call yourself a real DJ is if you play with this or at least started with this which in my opinion is complete nonsense. The reason I started with turntables is that was the only choice we had. So this was not like a personal choice like all this is my device now. I'll tell you I did fall in love with it. It is my favorite device now, but at that time that was your only option you have turntables and it is working. There you go. And you had to go to record stores to buy vinyl if you wanted to play music at home. Oh why you have it in the screen as well. There you go. So we take this back to the beginning take it off 45. In this case. This sticker right here is pointing right at the needle at the part where this begins and what that tells me is that if I bring it back to this point, I'm at that beginning again. So that was a visual aid when we were doing tricks so that you didn't have to use your headphones every time you want to go back to the beginning. You have your stickers. Now, I'm not going to do any real turntablism right now because I'm also a turntablist what you might call a Scratch DJ, but if I do that I would not put the turntables like that. I would put them right next to the mixer. We're perfectly fine. I'm not doing a showcase anyway, so this is this is good. So that's where it started for me vinyl. I'm turntables. Like I said not something like this some old turntables. It took me a year or two before I was able to upgrade to the classic techniques. Sl 1200 this case the mark 2 turntables and I stuck with that for a long long time really enjoyed the feeling of it. But again, I didn't really have any other option. This is what we use now. Like I said, I want to talk about the influence of Technology on DJing but not just playing as as a DJ, so you probably all record your own mixes at home or most of you will you're probably all using your computer. I'll take it back to the tapes. When I started. This was my only recording option. I had to record to tape at that time. When I started I was just like recording live mixes at home. So I take one side of the tape 30 minutes or 45 minutes just do some freestyle mixing when the tape was done. The side was done. I would stop I would sit down and I will listen to what I just recorded and I will kind of critique myself. I never had a mentor I had to teach myself. Of how to DJ luckily I drummed for about a year when I was 14 so that gave me a good sense of Rhythm which really helped me out when I started to DJ. So I was not familiar with the terms beats bars or anything like that, but because of drumming I somehow naturally knew how to mix a new one it sounded right I knew when to start mixes, but I have to practice so I recorded I would listen and then I will record again and I will do that for hours and hours and hours. Now if we take a look at the next second technological step when it comes to going from this to other formats, of course after that you have stuff like CDs and that you were able to earn on CDs. But before I went there I use a different medium called MD anyone familiar with the minidisc. Yeah. It's it only existed for a while. It's basically a small CD in like a square container. It was popular for like two minutes and then it died again, but because of the newer technology and my case that MD recorder I could still record my mixes, but now I would record them in higher quality and I had like a digital recording instead of my analog tape, which I had to produce and reproduce over and over to get my tapes out to the street, but you got to look for now. There you go. That's it. Now, it looks massively right there, but it's like this big there you go MD players like portable players, but the cool thing is I didn't have a normal MD recorder. I had a four-track MD recorder which means I could record on one track and then I could play that back and record something else on a second track and even use a third and a fourth. So in my case I could record a mix. So let's say you One track into the next and after that I could layer some scratches over it as well. So for me that technological development allowed me to be more creative look when you're limited as far as your equipment, it does spark creativity because if I take it back to the tape deck I used to do crazy stuff with my tape decks. I used to make like edits where you would record on tape. I would record a couple of bars of beat then I would hit pause then I will grab. Next record get it ready and I would practice the timing to let that pause go again. So it will start to record again play a different beat and if you do it just right you could make your own pause button tape, which basically you can do in like 10 seconds on your computer now and it took me like a couple of hours to get it right but it did spark creativity. So that's what I like about limitations. But at a certain point, you can't go further than the equipment will let you so that MD already. Let me do a More than my tape now, like I said CDs, I've never been the biggest fan of cdjs or any CD player and your own has always since the beginning since the very first one try to convince me and I would miss straight away. They are great devices, but I was so in love with the feeling of the turntable the moving platter that I did not want to move away from that but we did start. To implement the use of a CD player. I did not use this CD because I prefer that way of DJing. That's it. What's this the one? Yeah, this one opens up, right? Yes, sir. That that that has happened in the club. But like I said, we didn't use this CD because we prefer it over the turntable, but it allowed us to do something we couldn't do before in our case. This was in the era when downloads were first starting to come into play. And we had like Napster and LimeWire and there's a couple others the name. I forgot the names I don't even know yet because I was probably there too. It's probably all around the same time, but we would find new music that was not available on vinyl yet. We would burn it to a CD and we would play those quote-unquote exclusive tracks from the CD player. So again taking advantage of new technology to basically enhance our DJ sets. Because we wanted to play that new music and if you're only relying on vinyl you have to wait until the record store gets the songs and record stores did not get all music. I'll tell you one more thing taking it way back to old school. Now. I'm not even going to I don't have an example. You don't have to Google it. We used to have video cassettes. And I used to record a program on TV called yo MTV Raps and sometimes they would have songs that we didn't hot not have on vinyl yet and all mixtape number two right there in that Row the Beast side starts with a song that I played that I recorded by playing it from my video recorder because I wanted that song all my mixtape. So I just played that video recorder let that play the first song and then from Vinyl I would mix in the next track. So the CD definitely had some advantages over the vinyl at that. Point so we definitely took advantage of that now if we take a leap forward and we go to devices like this and that case it was the CDJ 1000 and that is where we definitely did our first like partnership because at that time we were recording an album. This was a group effort to DJ's two MCS, and we wanted to have some of our own vocals scratched into our song. Song so I wanted the option to scratch those songs. The CDJ 1000 was there you don't make sure we have one so we could use it in our studio sessions and we would let the MCS say some stuff on the microphone. We would burn that to a CD and then I was able to use that in the studio sessions to actually scratch with their voices. So again, even though it wasn't my favorite device it allowed me to do something I could not do with my currently. Woman and that's the thing for me. I feel any time. There's new technological developments. You have to just see I think for yourself. Is this something that could help me out. Is there something in here I can use because there's always new equipment and half of the time it's not interesting for me, but it might be interesting for you and vice versa. Of course sometimes stuff will come out that I'm in love with and you might look at it and go I'm going to do with that. So it is all about your personal preference. But I like to always take a look at whatever comes out and up until this point every new development. Allow me to do something I wasn't able to do before now then we get to something that's very dear to my heart and that is not just DJ software but using DJ software as DBS does everyone know what DVS is? One okay, DVS basically means digital vinyl system. It is a tool that allows you to play the music that you have on your computer. And you can control that music by using special vinyl or special CDs. So in my case, I use the special vinyl and that vinyl only has a control tone on it and that tone goes into an audio interface and that audio interface goes to your computer and it tells the DJ software. Okay move the song back and forth when I'm moving it back and forth. The reason I love it so much is it allows me to play with my favorite device this right here the moving platter, but I don't have to bring all my vinyl. I can bring songs that are not available on vinyl and the DJ software also had the options that you have all a lot of these new devices. So things that are probably simply to all of you like Loops. That's something I used to have to do manually when I had my vinyl Are they both connected just to see I mean I have this is what I used to do. I had two copies of the same record. There you go. Now mind you the setup is not in my favor. Luckily. I have long arms. It's like I've played I played in clubs where I did what I'm about to do where one turntable is there and the other one was here and I was sliding back and forth. Like I was on roller skates trying to make that work. So normally you would move your turntables right next to the mixer, but what we used to do if we wanted to Loop something. We need a two copies of the same song by the way. All right, you have controllers you're familiar with a crossfader realize that for a lot of DJ's who started like for me. My first mixer did not even have a crossfader. That was not really a thing yet. So I had a mixer that only had two channels. No EQ and just gain that's what I learned to mix on you. I like one knob that was not eqa only did like high or low so you could change your sound a little bit with that was not really great and no crossfader. So even the development of like cross faders that were actually in the middle of your mixer not like Old School dot that mixes that with this big and it would have the cross-strait on one side of the mixer in the middle and even later on like special scratched mixers, like pioneer has their S9 and before their djm 909 mixer which was specially made for Scratch DJ's, but I digress let me go back. I have the same record on both sides if I want to make a loop. I have to play one side. So that's a lot of manual labor. You really have to physically do that. That was the only way we could do loops now. This is a lot of fun. So I love doing it. I still do it even I'm playing in clubs, but there are points when you want to have a loop to do like a mix so you have one song it has that special part you want to use that part to mixed into the next song. You're going to need to put it on Loop in that case. I can't use this technique because I need to mix my next track. So devices like this hat loop. I think the CDJ 500 already have Loop, right? Yeah. There you go. There you go. So even that Loop so using Something I love to use I was falling behind when it came to certain situations same thing when I was playing at a festival and I was still using real vinyl and a lot of these were you can see DJ and this was a big stage, but the the whole stage was pretty Hollow not solid. So when you're playing with vinyl you get all the rumble the feedback. So I needed more volume. I have to turn it up and everyone's looking at me like what's this DJ doing? Because the next guy comes in with on cdjs Bang. Volume and it makes me look stupid when it's not really my fault. So the limitations were there but I love that feeling so when we got the DVS, so using your turntables with DJ software, I could now still use my favorite device. But now I also had all of the extras so I could loop I could see everything on the screen. I could easily search for tracks. I did not have to bring all my crates of vinyl for me. That was like the ultimate Solution to all my problems and it allowed me to be more creative. Today's podcast is brought to you by bands. Oogle benzoyl 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 Jewels easy visual editor know all the features you need for professional website are already built including tools to sell your music and merge commission-free mailing list tools to grow your fan list and send newsletters and integration to Pune. Content from all your online services including Twitter Instagram and SoundCloud are used bands oogle to create the share the 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 now to take you back to what we work on like we looked at each other like every once in awhile, there's a development and a lot of especially older DJ's will say This is complete nonsense. This is cheating. This is the death of DJing. I remember when I see DJ came out a lot of vinyl visas were like you can't do that. That's like sacrilegious. This is real that's a piece of plastic all nonsense, but that's how people viewed it. You have heard that many times. There you go. So you caught hell from a lot of DJ's who are like, what are you doing? I know you was vinyl DJ. What are you come to tell me now? We're going to play with CD. What's up? Yep, you know what nine years later. 99% of them are using sync now if there's anyone in here who would like to have a discussion with me about sink. It's not going to happen. This is a discussion that's been going on for too long where you have a lot of DJ's that might look at you with a controller and be like, yeah, you're not a real DJ you sink you let the computer do everything. I've heard that a million times as well using my DJ software with turntables. They see a laptop in there like you're not these A the laptop is doing everything well. My first reply was always like okay, that's that's cool. You feel that's doing everything so Is that laptop making the song selection? I don't think so is the laptop choosing when I do my transition from one song to the next I don't think so is that laptop having the interaction with the crowd that's going to be you. It doesn't matter if you're using a CD or controller or vinyl or DVS. That's you. That's What Makes You unique as a DJ. That's what's going to give you your own style your song selection the way you interact with the crowd. How you mix records we can all in here everyone in here can take the same 10 songs and we can all mix those same songs. The mixes are not going to sound the same. You might use your EQ different than I do. You might start with a special loop at the beginning do something different than I'll do it. So that was never an issue to me and especially the sink that's people still talk about this. I mean sink has been around for a very long time though. So every time we get one of those developments, you'll hear people say stuff like that. You killed vinyl. I mean vinyl still around you can still buy my mean as a club DJ. I don't think using real vinyl if your best option because a lot of music is not available on vinyl vinyl is still here same discussion with needles you have new technology. Now that will allow you to use your turntable, but you won't have to use your needle you can put a little device in the middle on top of your vinyl that's going to tell your laptop exactly how the vinyl is moving so you can play DVS style, but you don't have to have a Idle on your vinyl. You killed needles. I've heard this forgetting about all the vinyl lovers that we have out there who are actually collector still buying vinyl who will always need needles. I use DVS, but I still have 15,000 pieces of vinyl. I need needles to play that vinyl even if it's 20 years from now because I'm never getting rid of my collection. So I'll always have needles so in my opinion technological developments are something that can be good to spark new creative things. A lot of people unfortunately don't take advantage of it and they're deejaying very basic. That's why for a lot of people they view new technology as something that's taken over and is had a bad influence on DJing. I can't really agree but it is a fact that a lot of people take this wonderful device right here with all of the options. It has they'll put in a flash drive. And basically the only thing they'll do is go to their hot cues of they're prepared songs and they might use a loop every now and then and that's it when you can do so much more with it now. Luckily. We were talking about Laidback Luke for instance. You have DJ's who actually use their equipment and Chucky when you start you let you know like he Was how to work that equipment and I've personally always try to look for the challenges in new equipment. Are you familiar with Red Bull freestyle? It's a DJ competition. It's been around for I don't five six years something like that. It's basically a DJ battle meets DJ competition. So it's not like a scratch battle, but every DJ gets 15 minutes in that 15 minutes, they have to perform for a crowd. They have to let that crowd dance and they have To use at least three or five different genres of music and they can use all sorts of equipment now that will push the boundary and now you see DJ's coming out preparing their own edits using tone play. I don't know if you're familiar with that. They'll find one piece in a song and they'll use that in different tones using like for instance on the controller using tan plate. What's it called? No, but like with Pioneer on the control, you can also like used if using a different Keys. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, but that's the thing. You can be very creative with what's out there. That's what I love about it. That's why I'm a fan of the new technology because every time you see something new you're like, hey, okay that No, no, but that's the thing. Not everyone uses it but people just assume because they see my laptop or see your controller that you're probably using sync. But even if you were using it, there's nothing wrong with that. I would advise who plays with sink in here because my only advice to anyone playing with sink is make sure that you also know how to beat match by ear just in case you run into a situation where sink is not working or if you're going to play a set of old soul and funk We get some of this food. Yeah, but for instance if you use if you play a set with soul and funk that's not quantized music. Those are live musicians. So those drums are not 100% steady. Sometimes a little bit faster sometimes little bit slower sink is a bad idea. It's not going to work. No, so at least be able to know how to beat match by ear. So you can choose whatever you want to use. Yeah, look if we're going through the whole let's say the timeline. I was just going through I've had failures starting with this could be a scratch on the record. Record messed up, but you didn't see it yet. You're playing in a full club and all of a sudden or they could be like a speck of dust on your needle and all of a sudden your needle just get goes all the way across that record. Yeah that can and will happen. If you're using some type of CD player, if you're still using a with CDs, I've seen plenty of DJ's why CDs that CD might be damaged that is not working. I've been in clubs where you had cdjs Yes, and they were not treated well and certain of the buttons were like sticky or just didn't work at all. You were hitting start and it's like okay, you know, yeah, like really like people have pour syrup on it and but something can happen, you know, that's why I don't drink anymore. I want to be safe in the booth, but these things can happen or a crossfader. It's just damage. So even when you move it to the Decide you're still hearing that side these things can happen with any type of equipment or you have sink and you hit sink and nothing happens. If you don't know how to match the Beats by yourself, you could be in serious trouble. So that's basically I always try to get this message across because they get a lot of questions about equipment and especially beginner DJ's who get told by other DJ's that you need to start using cdjs because what you're using is not good. Or you need to start on vinyl. Otherwise, you're not good. So just please I mean probably most of you have been playing for a while and hopefully you don't pay any attention to what people are telling you if you're happy with your current device use that if you feel you're getting the most out of yourself using that device use that but keep your eyes and ears open to see what is being developed because like you said like the dynamic analysis, I didn't even know about that. Yeah, but it's so that really it. Liza's the whole song and it knows how to BPM fluctuates. Yeah measure, and it does that for you automatically. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. See that's exactly what I'm talking about. I DJ's who have spent hours weeks mutts using Ableton to take all of these old soul Funk records and warp them to make them exactly fit the beat with right. That's a lot of work because they wanted to use those tracks and I didn't want to go to the trouble of actually staying on point with that mix so they would do that. And now you have a development that will allow you to not have to do that if you want to use Choose sync and just touching one more thing. And if anyone has a question, let me know right after this. Like I said, I've also touched on a little bit about recording but as a DJ nowadays, especially if you want to move beyond the bedroom, it's also important that you're out there actively promoting yourself. If you want to do more gigs technology has made that a lot easier as well. I used to spend four nights a week standing outside clubs with Flyers actual physical Flyers at the end of the night to make sure I gave everyone a flyer of one of the parties that I was organizing myself because I wanted to create my own gigs. I've started to do parties, but you have to go out there to promote now. I can go to Facebook and I can put in 50 euros and it'll go out to more people than I could ever reach in front of that club. But also recording your mixes now, you have it a lot easier than it was back then getting it out there Distributing. It is a lot easier also for a lot of DJ's. I don't know who's producing as well and here. That has become a lot easier as well. I mean you still need to have the musical talent, but the amount of equipment that you used to need at home and I started like way back when I had like just a Commodore Amiga and like the little sample thing that goes in the back and using a fast track or software that you can only like Loop stuff with now I can make 10 times better beats right here my phone and take it home and then finish it in the computer and I can post that on SoundCloud. Voice is now even with SoundCloud if you use SoundCloud Premier that will distribute it for you to iTunes Spotify. You name it? I just tested that last week and I took four of the Beats. I do a lot of Beats that I give away for free on Soundcloud just for mixed practice and scratch practices, but with SoundCloud Premier you can now also distribute and I did that with forward to beats and they're now on these are Spotify title Apple music you name it? And premieres like I think it's like 10 euros a month. I mean that is a difference because of the developments the the threshold The dimple has gotten lower. It's easier for everyone to begin. You don't have to go out and spend a lot of money to buy vinyl to start DJ. I know DJ's people told me like I saw them this week. They weren't a DJ yet. I saw them in the club next week and they were DJ because I had a flash drive full of music. I mean we didn't we have to go through that process. So it's a lot easier now so we have more DJ's but how many of those DJ's are actually either talented or have the entrepreneurial skills to promote themselves. So yes, there's a lot more so that's why it's even more important as a DJ to be unique and to stand out and we really have to see ourselves as a product and use more of a business mind to make sure that we get ourselves out there. So that's just the change of time and I'm not saying that that's great. But fact is it's not going back to the way it was so we have to live with that change and find our own path. In that that's us that's that's every DJ can relate to that. Yeah, you can't go to a club and enjoy yourself is there's a bad DJ if you're just standing there having fun talking to someone and you hear a bad mix your ears going to get up. Yeah, but that's that's the burden we have as DJs. You can't really turn that off. Yeah. It's Most definitely we all have that yeah same thing. You can probably hear there's like a DJ mixing within the first two or three beats. I can hear which song on it is and I'll say it to someone else like that song. Look at me over you talking about and then when the mix is done and that track comes into looking at you, how did you know that like, yeah we can hear. well, that's I think I'm cursed in the same way because if you want to be the most successful, you have to focus on that public and not on other DJ's but as we love our craft, we still value like the respect from other DJs and not just other DJ's I have respect for the art form so I could not like Perform below a certain level it would not feel right to me. And to be honest. It's no fun to me. I mean, it's real easy to take a couple of tracks and just do play every song. That's the hit just make the clean mixes and that's it. That's no fun to me. That's not why I became a DJ so I always want to make sure that I'm playing in a way that still likes my passion. But of course your number one job as a DJ is to rock that crowd. So it's actually a challenge to make sure That you can still rock that crowd and at the same time put something of yourself in there. And even if there's only a most of the times it's going to be like only three people in the crowd that actually see the you see what he's doing because most people won't notice most people that go to clubs are not really checking what you're doing. So same thing for me when I'm busy like you see one or two of these people from the sidelines. The rest of the crowd not but they're looking at you like that's that's it. But I'm not just doing it for him. I'm doing it because that's that's what makes it fun for me. Otherwise, I wouldn't do it anymore. So I feel you. So that's what it's all about for me and I get this question like more often and I can understand why people struggle with it like if you play You want to play stuff you like but you want to make sure that the crowd is having a good time. You have to find that balance. I could never I've told people many times and for every DJ this is going to be different. I cannot play songs that gorilla. I cannot play songs. I don't like I can't I respect DJ's who can like you have mobile DJ's wedding DJs that will play in front of crowds and they will have to play. Every type of music they'll have to play Van Halen to France Bauer to Drake and you name it. So a lot of respect - that's a hard job playing all of that for me personally, I can't do it. But I have to realize that with the choices I make I'm going to either limit the amount of gigs I can do or expand it in my case. It limits the amounts of gigs. I can do. I don't play every type of music certain songs. I will never play. I know if I play everything I can get more gigs, but that's not why I did this. That's not why I'm still doing it after 25 plus years. If you kill the thing that gives you that fire, then it's over and I've done certain gigs corporate gigs where I was just sitting there after the gig like this was horrible and I decided then and there. Okay, I'm not doing these types of gigs again. I got paid probably five times as much as I got paid in clubs, so money-wise. It was great. But the feeling it gave me that was the first time I didn't like DJing I was like, Okay, I got to stay away from this even though it pays five times as much if I do five of these gigs, I don't love DJing anymore. I'm not gonna let that happen. No way to be honest like in this day and age, I don't DJ and clubs as much partially because I'm really focusing on all the video work I'm doing but also because there's not a lot of gigs that appeal to me like a lot of the most popular music now especially here is not me. Isaac I really enjoy so I won't enjoy playing it. So again, I know I'm limiting Myself by not doing it, but I have to follow this right here. So I'm not playing as many gigs as I used to play just because of that but even if I don't play in a club ever again, I'll have this and this and that at home and I'll still enjoy myself at home and I'll make my money some other way, but I will never never never allow anything to kill the love that I have for. This you will come across the our skis cases where you can say, you know, he well in that case like you had to go through a lot of music and I've done the same thing. Like I said, my oldest son is the same age as you are for the last five years. I always come to the school to DJ on the last day of school. They have like a little barbecue. And before I was there they would like have a CD playing 10 times in a row same CD. So you hear the same songs 10 times so first Year, I was there I was like, hey, I can take care of the music. That's okay. But I knew this would be these are kids from Age 4 to 12. That's not my normal demographic and I spend a lot of time downloading all the kids stopped Winters and all sorts of songs only to find out that they requested at least like 50% of the songs. They requested were not songs that I had there. So now we have technological developments coming in once again, and for the last Three years. I've been playing there with a controller. I use software called DJ by algorithm. Why because they have Spotify integration. So I'm not even spending one minute to prepare songs. I'll let them come up and they can request anything Spotify will have it 99% out of the times and load it in and play it but at that gig I don't feel it is about gay because I can flip that switch and no this is for these kids. I see the fun. They're having they give you great feedback and I'll let him tell me what do you want to hear? Okay, and then I'll DJ it in my way. Request songs I've never heard before and I'll scratch those songs in and then play so I'm still having my fun. But again if it wasn't for those type of developments. You would have to spend way more time to then do something and it's still not working. Same thing with vinyl. I spent plenty of gigs where I came in with three crates of vinyl. They told me it was going to be hip hop gig. I came in go through my collection take out all of these hip-hop tracks three crates full of vinyl and then the entire crowd was basically not hip-hop. We don't have that problem now anymore. Oh so different crowd. Okay, I'll go into a different folder stuff like that alone is enough for me to say I love the developments and I don't want to break my back anymore with crates. Anyway, you know, I mean nowadays you see that DJ spinning track for like 20 seconds, which is absolutely ridiculous. You'll hear the intro and then I'll go to the next song but I mean if you do it as like a intro but I've seen DJ do that like Ten tracks in a row because that song oh, it's gone again, like wait, wheres the song like so fast now about because I was playing hip-hop and R&B. That's basically especially during the high part. You play one verse one course next song. So yes, the song will play for maybe a minute and a half. So we needed a lot of vinyl. And now I have all of it in in the laptop. So yeah, that's that's so that's basically it. That's what I wanted to share with you my personal experience with just how technology has influenced DJing and I feel you can still be a great DJ and I think it's only better because everyone of you has the choice to use whatever they want to use and if you feel vinyl and turn the tables are the way to go they're still available so you can play that way or you can play this. Way and even if someone wants to use just a laptop. I mean, I'm the only way I look like this is to meet that would be no fun. If someone wants to use just a laptop and they can rock a crowd. More power to them it will never be my choice. But yeah. Well, that's that's why address it in the beginning because I saw everyone's using controller. That's why I mentioned it a couple of times like don't let people tell you anything about it because it is a fact you have in certain clubs. I don't know in the Netherlands, but I know in the u.s. You actually have like certain clubs and certain events. Would it not where they're like, no controllers. I've seen events where there was like not an open mic, but open DJ event. You could come and play on the flyer. No control. So there's a definite bias against controllers still which to me is absolutely ridiculous. That's what I love about Red Bull freestyle, which I mentioned because they allow anything like last year kipske from the Netherlands from the draft. Actually. He took part in that as well two years ago and he came in and he had one turntable and he had a synth and little patch Bay and using something totally different like one. Turntable in Old battles, that would be like no no. No, you can't do that same thing that you can now with at the new DMC you can use the rain 12 controller they allow but at certain events and at certain clubs, they'll say like I think there's one big Club in the UK as well as digital DJ tips that item about that a year or two ago. They would not allow controllers as well. That's it's absolutely ridiculous to me. I've seen a guy do like a real scratch set with two tape decks. He had them open and he was moving like the wheels back and forth and it sounded great. So I'm like whatever you want to use. Yet and on top of that. We've all seen probably plenty of DJ's using the most amazing high-tech equipment and they sucked so You know, that's all I can add to that. We've all seen that so it's not about the equipment. I've seen DJ's who could not mix. I know one guy. He's not a real DJ, but he back in the days in Paradiso in Amsterdam. He sometimes used to DJ. He was the host of a radio show and he couldn't mix so he didn't mix. He just dropped it every song. Kill that party because he played the right tracks. So every new song was a bank. Okay, no makes you just waited for a while. And of course at the right point so after a hook, Next what killed it not a single mix in his entire set so he could have done that with a tape Deck with a turntable with a CD player wouldn't have mattered. The technique would have been the same play go but that was way better than what I see some guys do on this or like we just discussed before I started people who are just play back in there set, you know what it is. I totally agreed that I would never do it. But then again if you compare it to artists who come to perform, but their playback in their show to me, that's the same thing like if I pay money for an artist. I want to hear them sing or rap and not the album. I can listen to the album at home. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming.
Welcome to season 2, episode 5, 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. I talked about the influence of technology on DJ'ing and the DJ culture, using my own personal experience. Feel free to jump in the comment section and join the conversation when you see a question that you can answer. 