Nexeus Fatale

The past four years has been an interesting, wonderful and exciting ride. There has been so much that I’ve done that I never expected to do when I stared DJing online four years ago. I’ve meet so many interesting people, joined so many interesting topics, every now and then I get a story about how what I’ve done has affected someone (which shocks me the most). The friends, “family”, and people I’ve loved throughout this process has made every single moment worth it. Four years ago, I would have never, ever, thought that anything I’ve done, accomplished, achieved, would come true.
As I think and look back on the past four years, I realize that although I’ve made mistakes but I don’t regret them (I may feel sad about them, wish I hadn’t made them, but no regrets). With the mistakes I’ve had great experiences and have learned a lot, the good about being an online DJ, taking it seriously, and being dedicated to it outweighs the bad 10 fold. There have been a few things I’ve learned that I wish to share; I feel these lessons not only apply to being an online DJ, or just a DJ period, but to life:

1. Take risks – when I’ve succeeded it’s been because of a risk. I’ve put myself, my wallet, and my passion on the line so many times and I would do it again. Taking a risk does not mean you have to be not in control, taking a risk means try something new, get out of the box that you may be stuck in and try a new idea. If it works, great! If it doesn’t, maybe it just needs some fine tuning.
2. Listen to your critics and your friends, then listen to your self – this has been the best advice I’ve ever been given. Listen to those people who hate you, who don’t think you are ever going to make it or succeed. Befriend some of them even, they will help you out, point out flaws that you may have, and help you to work on them. Your critics will teach you about yourself. Listen to your friends, ask yourself what they like, what they don’t like, they will always be your supporters (and we all need support!) Your friends will pull you through the hardships and rough times. Listen to yourself, sit back and listen to that voice inside of yourself that tells you where you should be headed, what should you be doing, and where you will end up. Listening to yourself keeps you honest, not with everyone else, but with the person that matters most. You.
3. Trust yourself, period – this is harsh advice, while friends, family, significant others may have the best intentions, the only person to truly trust is yourself. If you don’t trust yourself, you will not trust anyone else. You CAN do it, you CAN succeed if you put your mind to it. Make the impossible, possible by trusting in YOU.
4. Stand your ground – regardless of who it is. Stand your ground if you feel right about it. I’m not saying be an asshole and think that everyone else is wrong, what I’m saying is bend, don’t break. Listen to other opinions, thoughts, and even if you feel that they are wrong, listen to them but don’t let them change who you are. Know your position and stand on it. If you don’t have a position, then be firm on that too.
5. Be yourself – nothing, at all, that I have ever done as a DJ has been out of character. I’ve always been myself, I’ve always been honest and upfront, and I will always be just that. If you don’t like my music or don’t like a particular song I love, great! If I look funny to you or seem a bit weird, that’s fine. It is all of those things that make me who I am. I’m not going to change my look, what I do, how I do things because one person doesn’t like it. I’m going to keep to myself, my style and just be me, regardless of where I am.

It’s been four years to the day that I’ve been DJing and it has been an amazing ride so far. I’m nowhere near done though. There is still much to accomplish, to do, and to set out for. I would like to thank everyone who has been a part of these four years for a great amazing journey, and I want them to continue to hang on. There is still oh so much to do!

A good portion of my calendar has been focused on pounding out two mixes, or samples of my DJing style. Coming from an online background this concept was at first foreign to me, but now it’s quite standard for a DJ to have a mix for a promoter or a bar to listen to. For the past several months, I’ve made a conscious effort to make my mix, but I always hit the same wall, there’s no crowd, there’s no sound system, no atmosphere. Just me and my bedroom.

There’s a lot of expectations when I make a mix. Sometimes I would focus on a friend who I know really wants to hear it, sometimes it is for a specific crowd or audience, sometimes it is for myself. Each mix I approach differently, struggle with, and then try again.

Some tips about making a mix that represents your style:

1. Pre-select your songs: pick and choose your songs before you play them, understand what you want to do, and where. It makes all of the difference opposed to being caught off guard 15 minutes after recording your mix.
2. Know your audience: this is the same rule for when your doing a gig, know who your audience is going to be. Is this a promoter, friends and family, yourself. Each of these force you to do something different with your music, for a promoter you may want to play more recognizable music but for yourself you may just want to fool around with things and hear how they came out.
3. Listen to your mix when you’ve done it: a perfect example, I just finished doing a mix that I’ve dubbed my “garbage mix”. Personally, it’s a piece of crap. I made a lot of mistakes in it, blending in music late, not overlapping songs properly, putting song segments together that don’t work (at all!). Even through it’s a horrible mix, there are things that I did very well that I will put into the next version of the mix.
4. Listen to a mix that your trying to emulate: what helps is listening to other really good mixes or compilation CD’s that mirror the style you are trying to emulate. Compare it to your mix, what did you do right, what did they do better.
5. Try, try, try, again!: Go back to your mixing studio, and try it all over again, from scratch, and see how it sounds like.

Now, it’s time for me to go back to listening to some of these compiled mixes… and hear the cursing from my friends who I dropped my garbage mix on!

In the DJ community, turntables are being replaced with laptops, and even iPods. Several DJ magazines have begun to cover this trend, but I find it humorous that for me, I seem to be doing the reverse, going from the desktop to the turntables (although they are CD). Regardless, there are plenty of great tools to use a laptop to DJ with both online and offline (a topic I will be writing about soon…)

In the meantime there are a few good resources in the mean time and articles of software programs that allow you to DJ without buying all of the expensive equipment. Here is one recent article from download.com (a part of the CNET network), and another article from PC Magazine. Although no book exists for what a Desktop DJ (a term I’ve coined to talk about those who DJ using their laptops or desktops online or offline), a really good book that talks about DJing is How to DJ Right: The Art and Science of Playing Records. These three resources help begin to get your feet wet in DJing digitally, and I highly recommend reading them if your interested.