What Type Of DJ Do You Want To Be? - Ep #2

In this episode we touch on popular DJ related questions and topics found on the web: open-format DJing, acclaimed skills, song selection, transitions between contrasting genres, common challenges, signature techniques, reading the crowd, creativity and individual style, software, how to stay current. We introduce these topics in general form as we will discuss them in detail in future episodes.
 
Nino takes the lead with some of the answers and provides the point of view of an experience DJ, while I (ILIA) share my two cents on each topic and elaborate on certain topics which I recently had a personal experience with. Through a fun and dynamic banter; we answer each of these questions and provide our experience as well as advice to anyone who welcomes it.


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Transcript

Ilia: 0:20

How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Clever DJ my name is Ilya and my name is Nino.

Nino: 0:27

Welcome back to our second episode. We are stoked to be doing this episode for you guys. We got another topic to talk about, so take it away, buddy.

Ilia: 0:38

Alright. So when I first approached you, when we were complete strangers and I knew that I wanted to do DJing, I wanted to be a DJ for a living. I didn't know exactly what it is I wanted to do yet as a DJ, do I want to be in clubs, weddings, or what is it really that I want to do? But I didn't really realize that I didn't have much of a choice when I approached you. Not at all.

Nino: 1:04

Well, not technically. I met you when I was DJing and wedding, right, but that doesn't mean I just do weddings.

Ilia: 1:10

But that is, I would say what? 80% of your venues, 80% of your clients are wedding clients. Yes, it's true. Yeah, so that's kind of where I didn't have much of a choice, because you told me when I'm ready, you'll take me on and we'll do weddings. Now, full disclosure, I'm still not doing weddings because I actually got a call today. I have an opportunity for a wedding in June, but I'm very busy that month. I have lots of plans and that week I actually can't do it, so I'm not going to take that opportunity, but there's going to be lots of other ones. I'll work with several DJs, but, yeah, it essentially. When I approached you, I didn't realize that's what it's going to be for the most part and I didn't really think about different styles of DJing. Honestly, that is our topic.

Nino: 2:07

It's different styles of DJing. What I do is literally open format DJing. You can categorize it as mobile DJing as well, because it's a little bit of everything. Open format is literally playing every genre, literally playing everything that you know and mixing it in a way that's you know for the crowd. You want to play it great.

Ilia: 2:37

Yes, and you know there's a club DJ. There's also open format in most venues, most kind of businesses like lounges, bars and there's. I think, in my opinion, the way I see it I don't know, maybe it's not like that when you have more experience but the way I see it wedding DJing is like its own category. It is, even though it's also open format.

Nino: 3:06

Yeah, it is, but you're playing for a more wider variety of people. Age ranges will be far apart from club. You know, usually club DJs will tend to stick to same age range, which is not the case for wedding DJs or mobile DJs, so they're playing pretty much for everyone.

Ilia: 3:29

Yes, and the way, the reason why I think wedding DJs are different, even though they're also in the mobile open format category like, for example, when I did that bowling alley, that was also kind of like a lounge, because at night it just turns into this wild place. It felt like I was a club DJ and an open format DJ, but it was still just like a very different experience than doing a wedding event, like when I come with you right, because at a wedding very often you're also the coordinator. You're also, even if there is a coordinator, they'll come to you and start asking you a bunch of questions and you have to be so much more involved with the plan and you know what more steps.

Nino: 4:15

It wasn't like that back in the day. You were solely a wedding DJ. You would just DJ take care of the music. But nowadays it's more of a hybrid. Now you have to be able to see a little bit coordinate, know what's going on, like a little bit of everything, not just playing music, stopping and playing right. It's more complicated. I wouldn't know.

Ilia: 4:38

Not yet, bro, but yeah, yeah it's, I literally just got into it. So, to those of you who didn't listen to us or watch our podcast, by the way, we are on pretty much every platform, every popular platform out there Apple podcast, spotify, just anything you can think of and we're also on YouTube. So if we're saying something that kind of didn't make sense to you, it's probably because you needed to see it to understand it. But we're trying to to to keep track of that. But, yeah, I, what was I saying? I have no idea, man, but you're talking about different types of DJing.

Nino: 5:21

So there's a turntable list or it's another type of DJing as well. It's more of like manipulating the turntables and records to make a new composition which is very, very it's like almost like the top tier of DJing itself. It's more like the art of DJing and that's that's where everybody aspires, wants to be. There's club DJing, which will you need to cater to a specific crowd or a specific genre if there's a type of night. But there's also hip hop DJs who solely just do hip hop. And, yeah, there's a lot of different types of DJs. So you can go deep house, you can go house, you can go EDM. So it's a vast, vast range of things that you need to cover, right?

Ilia: 6:16

yeah, yeah, so there's lots of different types of DJing, even if it's all within the same category of open format or non-opera format DJing, lots of different sub formats.

Ilia: 6:30

I don't know if that's even something you can say, but, yeah, what I was gonna say earlier to those who, for those who didn't, didn't see our first episode, our previous episode I am an absolute beginner, I'm just in the beginning of my journey, and we thought it would be interesting to to capture something like that, when an absolute beginner and a pro who's been doing this for about 20 years are kind of, you know, having this discussion about just so many different topics that a lot of people on reddit and on facebook and literally on every platform are talking about, and this is just something we never saw online. So today we're going to discuss different questions that we both noticed come up pretty frequently on reddit. That's one of the main places where I learn this craft alongside. This guy lives on reddit, I live on reddit. It is just because it's. There's just so much, so much information there, and then, you know, I bounce it off, you know, and I'm like, hey, I learned that, can you show me this? Or?

Nino: 7:41

hey, I heard that. Yeah, there's a lot of answers that are on reddit that you can't get from anywhere else, right? So it's, it's a good, it's a good platform yes, honestly definitely.

Ilia: 7:53

And we're not sponsored by reddit, as cool as that would be can you be sponsored by reddit? I don't think you can man. All right, so we have a list of questions. Yeah, we have a list of questions. So we already spoke about what is open format mixing and how does it differ from other DJ styles. I believe we kind of covered that right. The next one would be what are key skills required for a DJ specializing in open format mixing?

Nino: 8:25

she won't take that, the key skills for open format mixing. I would think that number one like with, with, with everything, like DJing in general, you need to be able to read your crowd and know what exactly they want. That's the thing. And when it comes to weddings and mobile DJs, even before you start DJing, you're already assessing the people around you who you're going to be playing for. Like. If you're playing for like a, like an auto show, you're already looking at the people, that demographic, how old the people are, what they're wearing and stuff. So you're already kind of like thinking of what to play right, genres, certain songs. So that I think that's very, very important for for for open format mixing to be honest.

Ilia: 9:22

Yes, and I think we kind of also semi-answered that question also earlier. But let's, let's continue. Can you explain the process of selecting and blending tracks in an open format mix?

Nino: 9:37

oh, okay, um, yeah, you take that one too well, I'm still figuring it out the process of it is is very.

Nino: 9:48

It only takes. It takes experience, of course, to to to know what to play right for for for certain crowds. In terms of blending the tracks, of course you want to make sure that the bpms are lined up. The energy is very important as well. You have to make sure that the energy matches the same song, or the the same couple of songs, that you're going to be playing. Um, what's important now is is key nowadays to keep the fluidity of the actual set. So it sounds good. If you want to take your sets to a next level, you got to get into key mixing, for sure yeah, which is something we'll actually talk about towards the end of this list of questions.

Ilia: 10:35

Um, next question how do you approach transitions between different genres and tempos in open format mixing? So that's, that's something that that I am still struggling with because, again, this is for a beginner, this is so much work to figure out how to go from a very like quiet and not quite a very slow and, I guess, not a very popular track to a banger like how do you really build it up? And in terms of the build up and in terms of the BPMs and everything, again, you take that one as well.

Nino: 11:13

Well, first off, you have to know your music right and to be a successful DJ, you have to know the ins and outs of music, like the energy levels. Well, if you've been listening to music like, you know that this is a banger right and you experience stuff when you play for certain people like, okay, this gets a great reaction from certain crowds, okay, this is not gonna work. This is gonna work for example, spear of the West right, you know that they're gonna work for this crowd, but it's not necessarily gonna work for this crowd because you know it's a different, totally off-crowd right and I'm talking about more wedding DJ stuff.

Ilia: 11:57

But yeah, so pretty much a playlist that works for you at one place is definitely not gonna work for you in another place, unless it just has a lot of the same dynamics in kind of people. That's the thing Appreciate the same type of music. But it's, it's. It's rare, it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't happen, but it's very rare.

Nino: 12:18

Every crowd is different, not not the same crowd.

Ilia: 12:21

Yeah, and we kind of we still answered a really good question here. Well, you answered a very good question here, but that's. Let's focus more on what we asked here, because we kind of like wandered off to a different question. Specifically, how do you approach the transitions between the different genres? Because it's I find it extremely confusing and really I guess it's all about skill, but there's not really a theoretical answer here. But I guess that's why we wandered off a little bit.

Nino: 12:57

So between all those genres there is no real straight-up answer. It's just it takes experience to weave through all the different type of genres with different transitions and stuff. So it's all experience.

Ilia: 13:11

Yeah, because when I read that question I already had the answer, even though you know I tell you you take that one, you take. I know the answer for that one already. Because I kept asking you hey, they want this song and then they want this or they want this genre, then one dish. I mean, how am I supposed, how do you even introduce it? Even not even the mixing part. The energy is gonna be so different. How do you make sense of it? And it's just it's experience. There's no theoretical answer for this, at least one that I found. It's just something that I keep seeing everywhere and I was asking myself too and, yeah, I think I think that's a very fair way to answer this question. Right, yeah, now next question can you provide examples of famous DJs known for their open format mixing style and their signature techniques?

Nino: 14:06

well, you can do this one.

Ilia: 14:10

I know you know the one that I kind of wanted to mimic, and I'm sure a lot of people want to, because it's so cool, it's new, it's, it's, it's. He's cool, yeah, james Hype. Yeah, the way he like his signature, like loop, and then the way he shortens it and just that hype, literally his name, just like it just goes so well with the, with his technique, the way it just creates that anticipation for the drop I always, always looked up to, to the way he kind of controls the crowd, the way he reads the crowd and it's it's almost like I mean, at this point, they already anticipated, yeah, but it started somewhere, right it's cool man, is he started out like a revolution sort of thing, right?

Nino: 14:58

so we, a lot of DJs, are copying his style, but you know, it's, it's inherent, it's his own style and everybody knows. Like, like, I want to be like James Hype, right, so it's cool. And then there's a lot of, like other DJs, that have their own signature. Like scratch bastard, he always scratches in phrase or whatever and it that sounds like amazing, right? So there's a lot of different mixing techniques and there's even with, like EDM, trans DJs, a lot of long-form mixing, well, taking out elements of one song and blending it into another.

Ilia: 15:34

So lots of different types and you can tell by by the the style DJing who it is really right, I mean, and that's that's amazing that these DJs have a signature and that's what I wanted to have. So I was like trying to kind of mimic and I realized that it's not about mimicking. You have to find your own style, which is something I'm still looking for.

Nino: 15:56

Yeah, well, everybody who starts off by copying someone right and that's, that's just a reality. But after a while you want to have your own style and own identity, because that's the only way for you to be known and have your own signature and make a mark in this industry.

Ilia: 16:17

Yeah, so somebody can talk about you, right and not, oh, he's just doing what James hype is doing, exactly, yeah, and honestly, like you're gonna only be able to copy so much, right, it's not, it's not really about copying and from from copying you always you, you can always turn it into your own.

Nino: 16:34

Yeah, innovate. That's exactly how it is anyway.

Ilia: 16:37

I remember the first time I was I managed to do that. It was actually after a gig and I told my buddy hey, chris, check this out, I'm gonna do what James hype does, and I wasn't sure exactly how he does it, but I kind of figured it out and I remember he was recording me and I still have the video somewhere, if I find it.

Nino: 16:53

I'm sure you have the video everything everything.

Ilia: 16:55

He records everything, but I just remember how happy I was and nothing really makes me this happy. This is that's why I love this so much. Next question how important is it for a DJ to read read the crowd when performing open format sets, and how do you adapt your set accordingly? We kind of spoke about it already, but if you yeah, how important I hits number one.

Nino: 17:23

It's top, it's, it's the number one thing of being a DJ like that's. That's, that's tops, more than just BPM mixing, beat matching. Number one is reading the crowd, it's knowing what they want to hear. If you don't know how to play for a crowd and playing what they want, I don't know your, your jukebox, literally so literally, yeah, actually I'll.

Ilia: 17:53

I'll speak about that last gig that I got from you because you had another gig. You couldn't do that one. What a great problem to have. Yeah, so that was the first time that I continuously was reading the crowd and at some point we'll upload segments of that, because I recorded. Obviously, I recorded my set, which is something I recommend to every beginner DJ. Everybody needs to record this sets. Record your set you're gonna learn your body language. You gotta learn your, obviously, your your mix. You gotta learn the mistakes you make, the way you interact with the crowd. Exactly, do you look weird?

Nino: 18:31

on camera their energy and then you can see how they react to, to certain songs you dropped. You can see, like there, if you could done better, if you could have played certain songs better, made them longer or shorter, but just by their back, body language, right, yes, yes and like and again like if you look weird on camera, it means you look weird to them too.

Ilia: 18:50

So not necessarily, no, not if you're like very like self-conscious about it, if you literally are doing things that you maybe shouldn't be doing and you're doing and it could be any what nail biting or nail but I've seen DJs nail biting. I've seen DJs maybe just like on their phone too much.

Nino: 19:10

I mean it's not weird, but it's it's incorrect watching, watching the screen the whole time instead of looking up. That's an. That's an important thing.

Ilia: 19:17

Maybe you're the way you respond to the request or crowd is maybe you're very tense and you don't realize really how your customer service skills are not where they should be.

Ilia: 19:27

It just it's gonna show you what they see when you're there, right the things that you're not very aware of yeah and see if your mix actually sucks or if it's yeah and, by the way, also record the actual mix on your Serato and or whatever you use, yeah, and then listen to it, because I listen to so many mixes from different gigs I had and I'm like, oh, you know, I killed that one. It was so good, it was perfect. But then when you watch it in video, like oh, or listen to it like the actual clean, you know version that came from.

Nino: 19:59

It wasn't as clean as you thought.

Ilia: 20:01

It was like holy that that is not, but they still liked it. You know why they liked it? Why? Because I read the crowd and I played what they wanted to hear. And again, if let's say and we always make that joke, right, like, like, don't worry, like you know they, they don't know that you're a beginner, so they won't notice the things that you notice because you're already a musician, you've been doing DJing for a little while, so you will notice certain things and you'll judge yourself right more than they would you gotta stay calm, cool and collected, man.

Nino: 20:33

Even if you're freaking out inside, you can't show it. You gotta have a stone cold face, honestly, or?

Ilia: 20:39

laugh with them, like I'm gonna mention this. We were at a wedding, pretty beautiful venue. One of his biggest clients, I think right, which one was? It was a Northridge in.

Nino: 20:51

Oh, northridge, and I mean your return DJ there, right yeah, we're on the vendor list there, so they recommend us all the time.

Ilia: 21:01

Not only did we almost run out of gas on the way there oh my god, was that the night yes, you know I'm gonna make a vlog on that.

Nino: 21:08

We have a long video. Oh my god, that was terrible man. I it was fun, it was really it was fun. At the same time it was really stressful, man, because if we run out of gas, that's it. There's no DJ. And the thing is it was a two, two and a half hour drive up north. So if you know your car, you know your car right. But I was like, okay, I still have like a quarter left of gas. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna find a gas station. But when you reach those verbs and and all forest area, I'm like, oh, I start to realize there's no gas stations around or they're closed or Google map.

Nino: 21:48

Google map says there's a gas station there, but there's nothing there yeah, and then when you're oh my god, we were on empty for what 25 minutes before we actually it was a couple dozen kilometers.

Ilia: 22:01

Yeah, it was, it was. It was over 20 minutes stressing I'm like, oh, my car, heavy like, we had so much equipment in the back and everything.

Nino: 22:08

So wedding yeah, it was a really big wedding.

Ilia: 22:11

So so that's how it started, and then this guy decides to scroll through his just like rewind the track, but the volume was up okay, this is at the wedding now you're talking about. You're confusing no, but I'm saying that's how it started. And then when we got there, already know the ceremony, ceremony so they're literally saying their valves and everything, oh my God.

Ilia: 22:36

And this guy goes like vroom, vroom, vroom. I'm like, oh, oh, everyone looked back. This guy is like pale and everyone's laughing. That was the best reaction ever and you, just you, played it out very well.

Nino: 22:49

Yeah, well, I was on my laptop because I didn't have a controller. I was just controlling everything on my laptop and I just accidentally pushed back on the actual track. So I was like, oh, I didn't notice that the volume was all the way up. So I was like, oh my God, Bairlessly I wanted to die.

Ilia: 23:05

But actually if I could do it again, I think, like if I could like decide for you, I think that was perfect, it was perfect for you, but no, it's not, bro.

Nino: 23:16

They loved it, they did, they loved it. They honestly loved it. It made everything better. I was very fortunate that there was a great crowd and they were just laughing at everything. Such a good crowd, it's such a great crowd. And that's the thing with those events up north. They're there to just party because they're not going back home. They're there at the there's cabins, there's the cabins there. So they stay there for the whole weekend. So they're going to get sloshed.

Ilia: 23:41

Yes, so we're kind of no, but I was all good. I still remember what I was talking about, Do I? No, I do, and I was reading the crowd. So at the gig that I was that I received from you know it was a last minute gig. It gave it to me what 24, like 30, something hours before the gig.

Nino: 24:07

And yeah, the client just reached out to me through Google and literally the day before I said, yo, are you available? And he happens to say, yeah, I am.

Ilia: 24:21

Yeah, so I was actually working the entire day, and then in the evening because I was doing overtime, of course and then in the evening I I prepared. Was it the evening? What time was it? Yeah, it was an evening. It was evening. Yeah, I prepared for a couple of hours and I was like what am I doing? I'm not at the level where I can just wing it, but I don't know, I felt confident and I feel like this is the turning point for me. I'm starting to develop now. That's why we wanted to start this podcast now, before I get much better. And then I'm not saying to prose but still not an absolute beginner anymore, right, he'll always be a beginner to you, but still, you know what I'm saying.

Nino: 25:04

Yeah, exactly.

Ilia: 25:06

And I remember the big. You didn't even get to watch the whole thing. We didn't have time to watch the whole recording, no, but it started very like what am I doing here? And you know, I was playing the music, I was surviving, nobody had anything bad to say, but it wasn't like super exciting and, like I said, if he was there and he played there for two hours and then he left and then I replaced him, maybe the night would not turn out the way it turned out for me because it would be hard to follow this guy. But considering, you know, they didn't have anything to compare it to and they're like just hoping that it's going to be a good night I remember it was a very important night for that client and I was already stressed out because there's so much on my shoulders.

Ilia: 25:56

And I remember I'm looking through the songs and I'm thinking to myself, ok, I'm going to keep this for later, I'm going to do this then and I'm getting into all of these extra details and I decided to keep all the best music for later. And then I forgot about like 10 tracks. That was about an hour in and then, when they started asking for specific music and I realized, oh, I actually didn't play it yet, like Danza Kuduro, how did I forget that track? Because I was keeping it for later. And between that and being nervous, you know, you forget certain things. So then I played it and I kind of told myself, just relax, you know this music, and I literally started reading them and this is the first time that I actually experienced it like physically, mentally. It was just one of the most incredible feelings when you realize that you both you and the crowd are on the same level. You, you understand each other like telepathically, and that is way more important than mixing it in a clean manner, beat matching or anything else.

Nino: 26:58

And you, you were telling me that always it is what you play, rather than how you display it, how you beat, match it or whatever. Right, it's more what you play. No, people are not listening to your mix, how you mix it. They just want to listen to something that they know.

Ilia: 27:12

And here's the thing I mean. I believe all the other stuff is also extremely important, but it's more like the icing on the cake. It's it's. It's important, but if you don't play the right music, you don't even have their attention. And you could be the best DJ ever in terms of like mixing and you know knowing how to move from this genre to that genre. But it's important to play the right music and then everything else comes after.

Nino: 27:34

Unless you're a bedroom DJ. Didn't you just play everything for yourself? Yes, pretty much. It doesn't really matter then, but yeah, it's. Every crowd is different. You play different sets for every crowd, not the same set is is is going to work for certain crowds, so yeah.

Ilia: 27:51

So read the crowds and adjust yourself to that crowd. So reading the crowd is super important, yeah good job and that cake. All right, thank you. So question number eight what role does creativity play in open format mixing and how do you express your individual style as a DJ? That's another question I've seen on Reddit and really everywhere. Again, we rephrased some of the questions, but these ones came up pretty frequently. You want to take that one?

Nino: 28:25

Well with creativity. It's your individual style that makes you shine as a DJ. So if you want to your, if you want a career in this, if you can get your own specific mixing techniques, scratching techniques, style, it comes, if it comes out, then you're golden right. The people will book you because of your style yeah, but how did you develop it?

Ilia: 28:49

I mean, you started so many years ago. In the last, maybe the last 10 years, you've been already at that pro title, like you already got that pro title right. How did you get to that point where you do what you do? When I see you live?

Nino: 29:01

Well, it's a lot about your, your tastes to what you play. It's not even just how you mix it's, it's everything it's in if you play certain types of music, certain types of songs. Not every DJ likes to play the same songs, right, and if they do, they have their own way of mixing it. Now, it's not necessarily going to be the same way for every DJ, so we have different ways of presenting songs and you know, I like to play a lot of like hip hop stuff, like dropping stuff. So I kind of made that transition a while ago. But I already knew. I already knew what I wanted to do and how I wanted to perceive myself as a DJ.

Ilia: 29:46

So you had an image, you had a vision for yourself, right, yeah, and between that and some of your idols, I guess you, you create your own product. And this is actually touching on the same points, or some of the same points, as you know, the like when we speak, when we were speaking about James Hype, or you know how do you create really your own style and creativity? I believe it's very important because, first of all, before I say what I was going to say, you can tell if the DJ you hired likes the songs that you chose or likes the genres that your crowd was asking for. Because unless, unless the person, unless the DJ is extremely professional, you will be able to tell that, oh, whenever you place this genre or these genres, it's fire. It's fire and like, yeah, so many more, like unique transitions, and like you can see him dancing more. Yeah, he just gets into it more.

Ilia: 30:42

So, and while it's very important not to make the event about yourself, what I learned is and I learned it firsthand Don't let the client decide for you what you're going to play exclusively. Give them. You have to, you have to allow them the option of giving you a playlist. It's going to help you. It's going to help you immensely, but don't tell them that you know you're only going to play what they want. And it happens. It happened to me with two clients, like I. Like I said before, september of 2023 was probably my first gig when I reached a certain level, a certain beginner level, where I could just go on by myself and I didn't need this guy to come with me. And that guy actually they they gave me a good list of like 40, 40 songs or something like that.

Nino: 31:34

Right, I'm sure they didn't give him like 500 songs.

Ilia: 31:36

No, that's the next one. So I 40, 50 songs and he was not as particular as the next client, but again, he was asking for certain things. But he gave me more creativity and that's. I guess that was a good, a good balance. The next client I was. I was a little worried about doing that gig by myself because it was a big, a big venue, it was a sweet 16. They were, their expectations were just out of this world, the stuff that they were telling me. And I'm like, wow, you know what I wish? They just gave me all the music, like she's. She's a 16 year old girl, so the rents will be judgmental.

Nino: 32:19

So was it the mom who gave you that playlist Both.

Ilia: 32:22

So I told them the mom's ill, but you know what, Like they're awesome, awesome clients, amazing clients. But at the same time they really took over and I got a Spotify playlist of I don't know how many songs 80, 90 songs at least and then they kept adding more maybe another 10, 20 songs. And then I got a Spotify playlist for the chair, like the chair game. I got the whole night dictated to me. Now I still played a little bit of my own music when I got comfortable there, and some people actually are enjoying what I'm doing, but reading the crowd was tougher for me. There, you were there actually.

Ilia: 33:07

Yes, he came to help me set up and also, you remain there for the gig, but I did everything by myself and you were actually there because we were testing the speakers. Yes, I just got my Yorkville's, my YXL 15s and he had my app Parasource 15s and I was comparing them.

Nino: 33:29

I made a YouTube video on comparison. You guys can check that out. If you guys yeah, yeah, yeah, chainless plug.

Ilia: 33:34

Yeah, but the funny thing is I was going to get those speakers. I thought, oh, I'll get like super professional speakers and they're not even the top of the line. There's the elite line, I think. And I was telling him you know, I'm going to get these speakers. It's going to make such a difference. Thank God I went for the YXL 15s.

Nino: 33:51

I had to. I had to convince you to take the 15s.

Ilia: 33:57

They were the right choice for so many reasons. First of all, the price, and they're not cheap. They're not cheap speakers at all by any means, and I could have gone for the YXL 12, the 12 inch. I went, I upgraded right. So Not only the price was more attractive to me, they have lots of great features. They even have a Bluetooth feature. If you want to take it, then you know, not as a DJ, but like just listen to it somewhere, you know, on the beach. But they fit into my car perfectly and I have two-door Civic so I, I can. It just fits in the trunk both of those speakers, and then I have still space on each side. It fits on my dolly perfectly with all my gear and my god, because I live in an apartment to carry them from my storage upstairs downstairs. Each time I'm thinking to myself the other ones, how much of their weight, oh, my god 65 pounds man, and then these ones 45, yeah, 45 pounds, and you know what I was telling him.

Ilia: 34:57

Who cares? Like you know, you have a couple gigs a week. You'll do it, it's gonna make it.

Nino: 35:01

Oh, you care, it's gonna make a difference, man, the size of the the your Phil Parisers are just they're massive. It makes look your speakers look like 12 inch speakers.

Ilia: 35:10

Yes, I remember you were doing you're doing a prom gig, right, and I came. I came there towards towards the end of gig. I think I came to get paid for something. Yeah, I think I think so. Or I came to return your QSCs. That's why I came there, because you gave me speakers, but what? I didn't have any yet. Hmm, yes, I came to return the QSCs, yen.

Nino: 35:30

Yes, yes, yes, and you gave me lights, I think for the yeah, I gave you my, my, I forgot my lights, yes, and he's like dude, I need lights.

Ilia: 35:38

And I'm just like, yes, he needs me, I'll go there, I know. I knew that they will come once in a blue moon. I need this guy yeah once in a blue so I Remember the end of a gig I'm like, okay, let's, let's do this. You know I pick up the pair source. You know I take it off the stand and I almost Just went backwards.

Nino: 36:01

Is this heavy?

Ilia: 36:01

you got to be a strong guy to be able to lift that over your head like I didn't account for, like how, like I locked my shoulders in certain way and there's like a bunch of 16 year olds right, whatever 17 year olds behind me. I was this close to just like squashing them like insurance claims, like oh my god, I was like no, I just like I gained my balance and it was close and nobody noticed. But I think he made. You may have no idea, I was like yo.

Nino: 36:33

And they were right behind me.

Ilia: 36:34

It wouldn't be like a close call, it would be like straight balls. I like right on them and I would like fall off the stage and Godlike. Anyway, they're very heavy and as great as they sound and again, you guys can watch the video. This guy has his own video YouTube channel for Any beginner here in Canada. I don't know, do they sell them in the States?

Nino: 36:57

Yeah, they do. They do. It's not as popular. Of course, they have long equate which owns your Yorkville.

Ilia: 37:05

Yes, in company and and that's our go to there's. There's another music store here, but long, long equate was my go-to place for anything music and Yorkville is the sister company of long equate, right, yeah, and they make their their, their speakers, and they are just meant to take a beating. And I remember actually somebody from from their office was at the same bar when I was DJing and and oh, just for privacy reasons, I won't mention his name, but he works with them and he's like, are you using Yorkville? So I'm like, yeah, it sounds good. And everyone was coming downstairs to check, check out, like the system, everyone's oh, sounds good. Like what are you guys? What's what's happening here? And it was just those speakers sound amazing.

Nino: 37:53

Yeah, you were using only one.

Ilia: 37:55

I was using what you're right.

Nino: 37:57

Yeah, it wasn't a big, it was a small room and I Advised you, just use one man to his overkill. You could have used to, but you'd have to turn it down. Yeah, but the one was was definitely enough for that room.

Ilia: 38:09

Yeah, with my OCD I'm like no, I need two speakers, but one was more than enough. It was I'm gonna say it as if I'm talking to the client give your DJ the free reign to to be at least a little creative. Because what I noticed is, if you don't, and and the DJ actually knows what they're doing it's it's gonna be so hard to to like robotically, just like play only what she wants.

Nino: 38:33

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense, it holds back here that the DJ from doing what they do best, right, if you give them a Playlist that they need to stick to? Oh man, it's just, it's not ideal. Yeah, we got it. We got to do what we do and we've got to pick songs according to how the people react.

Ilia: 38:53

So it doesn't make sense and a lot of times, a lot of times, not sometimes, not once in a while, I noticed that the playlist is only what the Brighton groom likes, or the birthday girl or birthday boy or the client likes, but majority, or at least Half, of their guests don't like or even dislike, like, like, really hate that kind of music. Um, I noticed that. Do you do? You know?

Nino: 39:20

It depends it depends on the crowd. Sometimes the Brian groom know what exactly they want because they went to school with them. They listen to the same music. It all depends. There's different, different situations. I found the other. That's their friends. That's for friends about family. Yeah, family definitely.

Ilia: 39:38

I can't tell what they like to that stuff.

Nino: 39:39

So you had to play other stuff for them. So you can't really tell the DJ what to play. You got to give them free reigns to to play what they want and put in their Own crowd.

Ilia: 39:49

Bangers play for the room what we do as as a living, yes, and my gig, one of my gigs this past December was a before before the gig you you gave me that we were just talking about was a corporate Christmas party downtown Toronto and Great clients, really nice, nice people, great office. But you know, they they were a little controlling with the music, not as much as that sweet 16 which, by the way, turned out amazing. Sure, I'm gonna do more events with them. And as soon as I started playing what I, what I thought was the right music, you know, I took that risk. Suddenly, you see the older people's like coming to the dance floor. So you're seeing that those four people that were drinking over there and not dancing at all, like moving, getting more, like, you know, more confident, and then come join the dance floor. You got to give the DJ the creative Freedom. Yeah, right, and that's why I believe it's a very important topic.

Nino: 40:51

Sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you, because sometimes they know exactly what they want.

Ilia: 40:57

Yeah, yeah and that's also where requests come in. You can be creative with those two. You got 50 requests. You don't play all 50 songs. You. You think about what's the best song to play, right? But yeah, I guess that's it for today. Let's move on. Man Are the number nine. Are there specific Technologies or tools that are particularly particularly useful for open format DJs, such as software, hardware or apps?

Nino: 41:26

Well, we use like, of course, for DJs, we use like Serato, like the software that we actually use to mix this tractor.

Ilia: 41:34

There is other record box, record box, yeah, the virtual DJ.

Nino: 41:38

So there's so many different softwares? Yes, they were. You use a lot of the softwares for More library stuff right, yes, I actually.

Ilia: 41:49

So that was my, that was my holy grail, my, my kind of savior. When I Go to a gig, right, well, now it's better. Now, now, more to the level, right, I'm more confident, but the first few gigs I was, you know what am I gonna play? Like what? If what? If they don't like this? I mean, I only have 20 of these songs.

Nino: 42:13

This guy, literally texts me at my gig and they ill. What do I play after this? Oh my god.

Ilia: 42:19

What's? The software is not telling me what to play and again, that's a Big topic. I'm sure we're gonna. We're gonna cover, maybe today, maybe another day. We'll see but it's music knowledge and my god, do you need that? That's like that goes together with reading the crowd. You have to have a good music knowledge because if you read the crowd, you know music. Logic can't read the crowd, so you need to know every genre, or more genres, need to know Vast, no majority of tracks within that genre.

Ilia: 42:50

Yeah, well for open format DJ yes, yes, but really like, I guess, any categories, you need to understand the music.

Nino: 42:58

Yeah, if you're doing club music and if you're doing just literally hip-hop, you have to know different Eras of hip-hop and know how to mix them. You have your own style and stuff. So I'm gonna say something in and out.

Ilia: 43:10

Makes you laugh all the time. Oh, my god, I don't know much about hip-hop music, the hip-hop culture. I literally started watching documentaries on Netflix. I even watched movies that I maybe seen in the past. What was that one straight out of, straight out of Compton bro? So I started watching anything that would teach me about, like the rappers, the culture, like, just like everything I can, the ins and outs, because I Need to take that in, because that's not something I was very interested in, but it's required.

Nino: 43:40

Everyone calls oh, I want to hear hip-hop, I want to hear it was in the 90s, or thousands around you, when you grew up.

Ilia: 43:46

Right, that's the thing it was and I wasn't born here, right, and then I moved here many years ago. But still, this is a different kind of it's a different country with different people who listen to different things and Just like the charts, you know, top 100 here will be different from even the US or UK, it's true, especially when you're not living, you know, in North America, it's gonna be even more different. As much as you know, my country was influenced by music from here as well, but here's the thing it was. It was extremely important to to understand and Understand hip-hop for many of my gigs and or many of the clients who called, and I decided to start watching Documentaries and movies and it really helped. But you're right, yes, it's, this mostly applies for it's open format. So who's biggie You're gonna start interviewing me now that? But yeah, actually, like I learned like the feuds and you know how it started and how it ended and it's just you know, you, just you kind of have to know certain things and you'll get it, man.

Nino: 45:00

Just it's just experience and just playing that stuff you learn to like it. No, hopefully you do.

Ilia: 45:04

I do like it. It's just that I don't live listen to read it the way you do. Yeah, love it, right, I do right, and even when I moved here 17 plus years ago, I had the opportunity to get into that, but that's just not what I was listening to. I was listening more to rock. I was listening more to, like the singer songwriter stuff I was listening to. It's about, yeah, like EDM, but like not hip-hop like I listen to. Like coldplay yeah, like coldplay, I love coldplay to, yeah, let's, but like I know a few songs, but like I didn't listen like, okay, my, like Hip-hop, rap, r&b, like I listen to some stuff the most, like the most. Like popular ories, yes, and even then, like I wouldn't know, like most of the lyrics I would just kind of like listen to it and like not really retain much. Yeah, right, eminem, obviously, no, he's top 40. Yeah, so like stuff like that, you know. So what was the thing here? Let's see.

Nino: 46:03

Technologies so Krate.

Ilia: 46:05

Hackers. So Krate Hackers, lexicon, dj the library for DJs these are the software that I use, the programs that I use to save me in situations where I'm like what should I play? Krate Hackers has this great feature where you can input the name of the song and it will tell you you should play this song next, or this song based on the BPM and or the energy, so you can tell what to go to next. But, to be honest, they still have a long way to go. We're not sponsored by them, so I'm going to say exactly what I think.

Nino: 46:41

You got all of them right. You got all of those softwares.

Ilia: 46:45

I use Lexicon for a little while. As great as it is. I just I use their trial. I'm going to purchase them later. I think I can learn a lot from you know, I can really organize my library using them. But a lot of the things they do Krate Hackers already does. But yeah, they do have some unique features.

Ilia: 47:04

Thing is, it wasn't just to find out what song to play next, it was also because most of my music came from this guy. So he gave me just a hard drive he had with lots of songs, because he knew that like to collect all this stuff will take me a long time and will be expensive, even though I'm on a bunch of record pools now and you know I'm collecting stuff, and I realized that that's another big topic. You cannot use someone else's music, no matter how well it's organized. Their logic won't be your logic and you won't find certain things where you think you should find them and you wouldn't even know really what's there. So Krate Hackers was helping me by telling me oh so you want all these songs from the Spotify playlist? Well, you have all of these tracks on this hard drive, on this folder. So instead of going folder by folder, I already know where it was Problem with Krate Hackers. It's pretty buggy so I had to. Always, every time I used it, I had to redo the same step several times because it would either crash or, you know, if you click on something you come back and the list is gone. But I used it because it really saved me in many situations. So hopefully they you know continue doing their good work and fix their bugs and stuff. It'll get better eventually.

Ilia: 48:20

I also used another one that was out of like pure fear, thinking what if, like one day, I crash and burn and I need something to save me during a gig, and that's called DJ Studio. Now I remember watching this YouTube video by DJ Carlo Atendido on YouTube and like that's majority of you would know this guy and he was promoting this software and says AI now can pretty much DJ for you. And I guess if you intervene enough with the software and don't just like throw everything in there and click mix, if you intervene enough with it, you know you have some manual creativity. With some manual intervention with it, then it's going to be pretty cool. It's more like a digital audio workstation meets a DJ software and the reason I bought it was.

Ilia: 49:20

I thought, hey, I'll drop all these tracks in here, they'll create a mix and if I crash and burn, I can play this mix until I kind of get back to myself and just like, relax, and I can, I can take over, I can switch to my own. To mix it manually again Doesn't work. First of all, the software is now where it should be. It's a really cool idea. It's great for people who want to create mixes for YouTube and stuff like that.

Nino: 49:46

I don't think so. It's not even there yet, man. It's very messy with the transitions and stuff. It was really bad. We're pretty bad, but it's going to get there and give it a couple of years, it'll get there. Very new technology.

Ilia: 49:59

Very, very new, and AI is a topic we would love to cover in one of our next episodes.

Ilia: 50:06

We almost did it today, but we would like to wait with that one a little bit. So another thing that I use a lot is record pools, and that's something every DJ should use, in my opinion. I mean, that's the way to get music legally and also get it at high quality, and you can also find mixes. You can just it's acapellas, even though acapellas right now are not as important to get on record pools, because you can use stems Right.

Nino: 50:36

Well, stems is fairly new. It's not the best. It comes out really good in some songs, but a lot of the older songs that were mixed differently just don't sound great in acapella yet. But it's getting there. It's getting there, it's definitely getting there.

Ilia: 50:52

Anyway, there's just a plethora of different like just so many different software, so many different programs you can use, and these are just a few of them. Anything else you use, oh, mixed in Key.

Nino: 51:04

Mixed in Key is a very good one when you were speaking about really elevating your mixing keys a great software to use if you want to elevate and get better at it, if you want to harmonically uh think your sets. It sounds amazing, like it separates you from all the other DJs out there.

Ilia: 51:25

Honestly, yes, so it's this is what I realized about the crowd. Unless they have lots of experience with a certain genre, they will not know that you are a professional DJ per se. They will just have a great time. They wouldn't know. Oh well, he does this, so that skill means that he's a really good DJ. They'll just realize that the night is much better. Yeah, and they'll. They'll think that. I saw often with people who use Mixed in Key. They'll feel that things are just more. It's more fluid. Yeah, more fluid. Yes, I tried using Mixed in Key. It's cool. It's a lot of work to like work that into your set, because sometimes you want to use a track at a different part of the night but then it should be there.

Nino: 52:16

Yeah, it's more about what you play and then, sometimes you can't even think about the keys. It doesn't make sense to play certain songs back to back because it just doesn't make sense with the crowd, because they're not going to feel it. But it all depends. It all depends if it's the same bunch of songs that you're putting together.

Ilia: 52:35

Yeah, but yeah.

Nino: 52:36

Mixed in Key is great. It's more for on a pro level because the people who are going to be watching you are going to be criticizing your actual set and listening for those transitions and the smoothness. So it's more for that right. I think, for more open format and stuff. It could be more lenient for that. The current stuff yeah, I'm pretty sure.

Ilia: 52:57

I'm still figuring it out, but yeah, so that's that's for that. And definitely, like one last point on this topic, get your music. Yeah, I deleted everything from my Serato playlist for my crates and I started recreating it based on previous, on previous events. You know I'm like, oh, wow, that's that playlist killed. It, killed that night. That was amazing. That this Latin playlist was amazing, or this one has lots of reggaeton and I just I started creating my own playlist, which my own crate list, which really made sense to me versus this hard drive that had like 100,000 songs that I don't know, most of them.

Nino: 53:42

Yeah, it doesn't matter how many songs you have. If you don't know the songs or how to play them, put them together. It doesn't even matter, right, yeah?

Ilia: 53:50

And different versions, different remixes, right, yeah, and lots of them were like oh, wow, that's that song.

Nino: 53:54

It makes it harder that way and you know what? What puts a stamp on your DJ like style is the songs that you play. There's certain types of remixes that you play will really put a stamp on what you, how, your DJ style is.

Ilia: 54:12

Now, I think, are we at the last question. We are question number 10,. We made it. How do you stay updated with new music across various genres to keep your open format sets fresh and engaging?

Nino: 54:27

Well, honestly, you talked about record pools. That's that's. That's the best way to keep up to date with a lot of music. Listen to the radio a lot. Spotify always suggests new music, bangers usually, and for me, the new stuff. I like to do a lot of like, like, like high school proms and school events and they school me Literally. They will request songs that you've never heard of. That if I, if I play, they'll go crazy over and I, you know, I find out maybe three or four months after that this song is big now I knew already from the prom. So it's like that's how that I get a lot of ideas for from from proms and from from kids, because they know what's hot and what's banging right now Would you say that also works for gigs like wedding.

Nino: 55:24

It is, but I find more if they're younger people. They're requesting stuff, yeah, but mostly it's older stuff that people already know. Typical wedding music. You know this typical crowd right. Unless you're getting like a really trendy couple with with that goes to clubs a lot, then you'll get the typical stuff, and then that's just experience and just research and find out.

Ilia: 55:49

Find out what you need to play Exactly.

Nino: 55:50

Exactly, you got to be immersed in music to find new music and you got to love music in general, to to, to get to know music.

Ilia: 56:00

You got to do this whole, this whole world of DJing. You got to be again and a lot of people are. Maybe they're doing this as a hobby, so maybe they want to agree. But if you want to do this for a living and you really want to start a successful business, you got to leave. You got to live it. You got to breathe it. Every time I call this guy, I hear you're always, you're always mixed, you're always scratching, so I got to practice.

Nino: 56:28

Man Always talk about putting that 10,000 hours of work or 10,000 or 1000 10,000.

Ilia: 56:35

That's the average, apparently. So that and and you know, reading articles getting updated, like getting updated like about, like pop culture and just like really living that lifestyle, and that's how you know in my PM, right, yeah, compared, I mean in addition to what you said and then just incorporating everything into your sets so you can play it whenever and however you want.

Nino: 57:03

Right For any crowd, literally.

Ilia: 57:06

Yes. So this concludes our list of 10 questions, 10 of the some of the most popular questions we found online that we want to answer.

Nino: 57:17

Amongst them, we probably answered another two, three, four questions that we didn't even kind of went, we figured away from the actual thing, but it was OK. You know a lot of, a lot of good questions, good answers in sight on our opinions.

Ilia: 57:33

Yes, and we'll probably do some something like that a couple more times. Again, this is just our second, second episode. We have lots of fun things planned for you guys. We're going to have interviews at some point. We're going to also take this podcast outside. We're going to go to different public areas where we can find certain type of people and will do contests, will do giveaways, will do trivia there's just so many fun things coming up. Also giveaways here right now on the podcast. We'll have live sessions even when we're indoors. Obviously, right, we'll just.

Nino: 58:12

there's so many fun things planned, so stay tuned right, because we don't even know what we will. We're not going to have a live plan, but you never know, it's going to change a little bit here and there, but we're going to go with the flow. We're still a little new to this, but we're going to keep you engaged and keep everything exciting and fresh, that's for sure.

Ilia: 58:30

All right. Well, thank you very much for joining another episode of the Clever DJ. We appreciate you being here again. And take it easy, guys.