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SmittyDJ
Contributing Member
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 736
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire
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 Posted: Thu, 17 Aug, 2006 15:38 Post subject: Is it easy to play in clubs? |
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Hi i have been DJ'n for nearly a year now, i can mix quite well and hopefully in the next year or so i want to be able to play in a club somewhere. Could anyone tell me how i get an interview or whatever to be able to play in a club? Is it easy or hard getting a DJ set in a club? I don't want to be playing in a big popular club because 1. i know i won't get a place and 2. im not ready, i would like to just be able to have say an hour set in a small club? If someone could give me some advice then it would be a great help  |
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TigerLand
Moderator
Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 6316
Location: East Belfast,Northern Ireland
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| Posted: Thu, 17 Aug, 2006 16:57 Post subject: |
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Mate start with the house partys and then hopefully it will progress to friends that are running nights at community centers or even clubs.Get your name about with your locals and friends and friends of friends.Let your name get about so when you do partys and stuff people will come cuz they know the tunes you play and like what you play.
Ofcourse putting your mixes on the internet is always a good thing, might get you noticed quicker by event organizers 
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SmittyDJ
Contributing Member
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 736
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire
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| Posted: Thu, 17 Aug, 2006 20:55 Post subject: |
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ok cheers mate ill give it a try :  |
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TigerLand
Moderator
Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 6316
Location: East Belfast,Northern Ireland
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| Posted: Thu, 17 Aug, 2006 22:26 Post subject: |
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Just flood as many sites as you can with your mixes,thats what i do
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sly
Just popping in
Joined: 22 Jan 2007
Posts: 8
Location: chicago, usa
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| Posted: Sun, 04 Mar, 2007 18:52 Post subject: guerrilla marketing 101 |
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make copies of your mix (tailor them to the style of the bar/club/venue/promoter that you're targeting) to hand out. keep them short (around 30-45 minutes, for those short on time & attention span). hang out round the booth & chat up the dj's that you like/respect/want-to-work-with locally. get to know them & ask ALOT of questions about how they got where they are. remember, people love to talk about themselves. hit up every site that hosts, board that posts, & group that's involved with your style of mixing. surround yourself with other dj's looking for the same thing. there are other bedroom dj's looking for a break, too, & create an idea for a night to pitch to a venue. you may not fill a room yourself, but, the combined efforts of 3 or 4 could provide the draw for a promoter/owner adventurous enough to take a chance. hope this provides a start, good luck!
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dj teknovibe
Junior Member
Joined: 19 May 2007
Posts: 36
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| Posted: Wed, 13 Jun, 2007 10:10 Post subject: |
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You can't just start playing in a big club, it doesn't work that way. I started playing at people's aprties and then went onto play in clubs and at raves when I was good enough at mixing that not 1 record in the mix set is out of time, not even for a second. When you can mix seamlessly then ur ready to start TRYING to get a set at a club. Club sound systems are big, very, very loud, and the dj monitors at clubs and raves aren't always very good so the dj can't always hear exactly what he's doing when mixing. The monitors are either just crap quality speakers or need to be used with a bit of eq so the dj can hear what he's mixing clearly. As well as that some clubs dont even use dj monitors so the dj has to try and listen to whats coming out the sound system, and belive me, after 14 years of dj'ing, I can tell you that is a dj's worst nightmare cos the levels of bass from the subwoofers totally cover the mid/high frequencies that are coming at you in the dj booth.
Then there's the fact that if you make 1 little mistake or mess up, all the people will be looking at you, and the organiser might not have you back again to dj there. By mistakes I mean things like a little accidental knock of the decks and the needle scratching which kills peoples ears and show you to be a novice, then there's not being able to see the record properly due to heavy amounts of fog from the fog machines, or strobes making it hard for your eyes to see which part of the record you're at when its playing. Then there's making sure you concentrate at least a little bit cos the record might get past the point at which you'd normally mix it out and mix another record in. This happens easily when mixing at a club seeing as there's so much to think about and so many things can go wrong, all it takes is a little bit of distraction from someone asking you, the dj something and its "damn, I gotta get this next record mixed in now, have I got enough time, the record is running out"
Do what the guy said and start playing at parties 1st. But a little tip, its not what you know but who you know. Big clubs wont let you dj there unless they know for definate that you're gonna rock the house, and 95% of the time, clubs and rave organisers wont let you dj there unless you've been dj'ing already regularly at other clubs or raves OR you know the organiser very well and they know if you're good enough at dj'ing in front of a crowd under the kind of pressure a club or rave can be put under.
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Nino
Contributing Member
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 148
Location: In a pineapple under the sea
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| Posted: Wed, 13 Jun, 2007 17:55 Post subject: |
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I had my first ever gig in a club, I was messing about on the decks in college and someone asked me to DJ at a one off night they were putting on at the club. It's a bit harder due to the lighting and pressure but if your mixes are tight then you should kill it! Try and go to as many "open" nights as you can and take on as many gigs (no matter how small the venue may be) as possible. If you manage to get a set at a club or pub don't drop too many of your favourite tunes, try and bring a wide range of music as possible and play the style of music that the punters are in to. If your not sure what kind of music they normally play at the club go and do a bit of research by going to it a few times before hand to have a listen and get a swatch of the equipment that you'll be using. If that's not possible then play a few different styles and see what the crowd reacts the most to. Make sure that you make your mixes stand out from the rest and try and drop some banging remixes that people may not have heard before. Hope this helps mate!
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DeeJay_Mc7
Just popping in
Joined: 11 Jul 2007
Posts: 8
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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| Posted: Wed, 11 Jul, 2007 22:07 Post subject: |
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It's very different. You will find that a lot of clubs have places to sit down...and when people get tired of dancing they will sit down. BUT! Listen to this: This one party I always go to, the DJ is the motherfreakin' shizz. When I stop dancing, I feel as if I've been shot in the legs over and over again. What you want to do as a DJ is pretty much keep everyone dancing...no matter how much their leg hurts.
One thing I learned the last time I DJed: NEVER play your own choice of songs. Songs that you listen to daily on your computer might not be right to play at a club. Also, if you really like a song that isn't popular yet, DO NOT PLAY IT! That's what radio stations are for. THEY are the ones that make songs popular.
Always have older songs that everyone will "Wooh!" you for. Examples are "Clear My Throat" by DJ Kool. That is such a huge club banger lol.
When you are already have your next song cued up and ready to be played but someone just happens to request a different song, don't immediately say you will play it. Say something like "Let me look for that" or something, play 3 or 4 different songs, then when you finally play the requested song, say on the mic something like "This song goes out to (try to get the persons name) by request", and THEN play the song.
Read the crowd. That's probably the most important thing. If you are playing something that everyone is dancing too, find a song that is almost the same (e.x. 2 Step / Walk It Out) as that will keep everyone dancing in the same rhythm. Of course if you are a more experienced DJ and are hot-cue pro, you can loop a section of the track and mix in the other song.
Hope all this helps. I have a gig this Saturday for my brother's Latin Party at a club downtown and some of the things I said above were things other DJs told me to help me. |
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TigerLand
Moderator
Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 6316
Location: East Belfast,Northern Ireland
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| Posted: Wed, 11 Jul, 2007 22:37 Post subject: |
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Good info that DeeJay_Mc7,thanx for that 
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DeeJay_Mc7
Just popping in
Joined: 11 Jul 2007
Posts: 8
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
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| Posted: Wed, 11 Jul, 2007 22:58 Post subject: |
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Yeah I do what I can lol. Do you guys have any tips for me that I don't already know of?
When I use the clubs setup...they have me using a rackmount thing which feels really cheap because the sliders bounce up again...like with the volume sliders if you hit them from the top-down, they go all the way down and bounce up mm 15%. I also despise mixing with only volume controls. Crossfader all the way. Hopefully my local RadioShack has RCA to XLR cables so I can plug my own stuff in.
One thing I have a lot of trouble with though, is cueing songs. When I do it, it just feels too much like I've put the mixer to auto-crossfade. When I do it on Traktor, it sounds great -- but that is because it's my own music selection. I don't know if it's right to do what I'm doing...but when I play on Traktor I sort all the songs by BPM and work my way up. But with a lot of songs that are hundreds of BPMs apart, they can still match up perfectly. It IS still possible to get a perfect beat match even if the two songs are, say, 80 BPM and 130 BPM right? I know this has got to be true lol.
Another thing that my cousin always tells me is that I cut too fast. Say for example Walk It Out is playing and I'm about to start playing 2 Step. I cue 2 Step up for like 3 seconds (usually the part where the bass riff starts) and then cut to it. A lot of times it sounds good...but sometimes it feels rrrrreally off because although the 2 songs are on the same BPM range and I adjust volumes accordingly, it's almost the same as stopping the current song and playing the next...as the two bass/drums are completely different.
So... any tips for me guys? lol |
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TigerLand
Moderator
Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 6316
Location: East Belfast,Northern Ireland
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| Posted: Thu, 12 Jul, 2007 8:03 Post subject: |
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| DeeJay_Mc7 wrote: |
Another thing that my cousin always tells me is that I cut too fast. Say for example Walk It Out is playing and I'm about to start playing 2 Step. I cue 2 Step up for like 3 seconds (usually the part where the bass riff starts) and then cut to it. A lot of times it sounds good...but sometimes it feels rrrrreally off because although the 2 songs are on the same BPM range and I adjust volumes accordingly, it's almost the same as stopping the current song and playing the next...as the two bass/drums are completely different.
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See the above, i always called that dropping bricks cuz the track is just dropped in without being mixed. Have to say ive never been the type to mix in a track at bass riff but ive noticed a lot of people doing that and it sounds just as good,i just prefer to mix each track from that first beat.
Also see this comment you made *Also, if you really like a song that isn't popular yet, DO NOT PLAY IT!*
Thats why i hate dj mixes that have all new tunes in it, you only like maybe 3 or 4 of the tunes in the mix and it gets boring.
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iamnoiseporn
Just popping in
Joined: 11 Apr 2008
Posts: 12
Location: UK
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| Posted: Fri, 11 Apr, 2008 20:46 Post subject: |
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whenever you go out clubbing carry a promo cd with you
if possilbe get some cards printed with your contact details on
chat to promoters at nights (easiest way to do it is ask at the door, often they're the ones taking the cash)
PUT ON YOUR OWN NIGHTS! that's the easiest way, basically just booking yourself. if you're lucky you'll make some dollar too!
put your mixes up everywhere on the internet (you can start with my site below!)
get yourself a regularly updated myspace/website
get experience playing in bars and at house parties
hope all that helps!
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