That's it, that's the post.

Longer version:

I'm a full-time creative freelancer for 15 years, so luckily, I got plenty of experience useful for DJing: How to negotiate money and conditions, only taking gigs that fulfill at least one of the big three (passion, clout or money - almost no gig fulfills all three) and how to protect my own time and sanity from people demanding too much or not giving a shit about the arts.

I know my taste and how to stick to it, even though I'm still working on being able to fully transfer it technically into my sets. I also know that AI cannot reply the soul and love I put into my work and that I don't want to go viral with my sets because I prefer to actually work on getting better at playing music.

Since I started DJing last year, I've played around 10 public gigs, including weddings and birthdays, some of them paid, some of them I gave away for free as gifts. Luckily, I have a very big network and live in a very open minded city where lots of people truly appreciate creativity and I got really good feedback from everyone after every gig, which I love, because my goal is to share happiness with others, especially in these demanding times.

After every gig, I realize: I love doing this. It is so much fun. Unfortunately, some of the gigs I played turned out to be annoying: People telling me what to play, hosts not trusting me and giving requests in the middle of the set, men explaining CDJs to me even though they know less about them than I do, crowds only reacting to the most banal songs they already know and taking years to start dancing even though the music is on fire. Especially weddings are extremely stressful if the people getting married want the day to be "perfect", whatever that means (more stress for everyone involved, I assume?). Finding that out is life and part of the deal.

But I've come to the conclusion that - unlike my other work which pays the bills monthly, as DJing is still a side gig for me - that I want to stick to my why. And my why that got me into this is: I DJ for fun and for the love of music, not to provide a service. I want to make people smile and dance. I want the whole room to have nice energy. I want them to wake up the next day and feel lighter and less stressed. And I cannot do this in stressful contexts where people try to tell me what to do and/or control what I play.

I am sharing this because often I see people in this subreddit who seem unclear about their why. And as someone with lots of experience in related fields who's still learning, I thought I'd share my why. Cause I keep going back to it whenever I ask myself if I should do something or not. And I'm also more protective with cooperations to be happy with my choices and to humble my ego.

What's your why?

It's honestly pissing me off how demanding they were becoming. I was expecting to just play some tunes for their afterparty but turns out they want us bring my partner's full PA setup for their 600 capacity wedding hall and stay there for 8+ hours excluding the setup and teardown. Then asked us to dish out ~$600 in Uber rides and transport all the equipment ourselves knowing we don't have a vehicle. My said friend figured the trasportation part out somehow but I'm not happy with the overall entitlement at all so far. But unfortunately I've already ignored too many red flags and it's bit too late for me to back out now.

What are some of things I should be discussing with them prior? I feel like I got screwed over because I didn't confirm how long I'm expected to be there and now they want me to stay until 12AM for the takedown. At the moment I'm trying to confirm the overall timetable for the day so I can figure out how many songs I need to prep for each occasion etc. I'm also feeling like I really should've came up with a contract of some sorts considering the several grand of equipments like the PA speakers and my XDJ but I'm bit lost on where to even start.

I apologize for the shitty writing just a bit too overwhelmes right now. Honestly if anyone could give any advices in general please I would really appreciate it. Thanks everyone.

I have a Pioneer DDJ-FLX4 and I'm looking for my first speakers. Right now I've just been practicing without proper speakers, and my budget is really low (under $200 if possible).

I mainly want something for practicing at home and maybe the occasional apartment or very small house party. I know I won't get club-quality sound at this price, but I'm looking for the best value that I can upgrade from later.

I'm okay with buying used if that's the smarter option.

I was thinking on getting back into djing and looked what was available entry level wise and saw 2 options which spoke to me: the Traktor mx2 and the flx4 which you all probably know.

both devices cost roughly the same.
the mx2 seems like the better value proposition for me like way better than the flx4. not only you get the pro software Traktor 4 for free, the features of the device itself speak for themselves. the only downside is I heard that pioneer seems to be more of a standard in clubs so you won’t have the muscle memory needed if the opportunity arrives to work somewhere where you can’t bring your own gear.

what do you guys think? i like everything I saw about the mx2 and it seems like a more fun device to me which I think is important to consider. but I also don’t want to learn something if the system will be useless to me later down the line. sure the djing basics are essentially the same everywhere but still many features are slightly different on both so getting them down to muscle memory is important I think.

the only feature I think would be nice to have on the mx2 is the keyboard feature where you play the cues like a piano. maybe I’m missing something else

thoughts?

I recently got a gig doing some work with my local hockey team, announcing and doing some DJ work for the games. I’ve been using Rekordbox and building a library of tunes, but I come from the radio world. It seems I’ve reached the point where a DJ controller is inevitable. I’ve been looking at the Pioneer DDJ-FLX4. Am I in the right wheelhouse? Any advice would be much appreciated!

I just got this 5 days ago. I’ve used chat GPT and went through 10 steps it gave me and no luck. I accidentally pushed the release FX button, and when i went to turn it off it started blinking. I pressed it a third time and it just went solid again. I tried shift + On/Off and it didn’t work. Now i’m just stuck with the button either blinking or staying solid. I don’t even really know what this button does im new.

Tried shutting everything down and it still turns on. Rekordbox says it’s triggering for deck 1 so it’s not just a hardware issue with the light

I’m reaaaaally a stickler on mixing in key, and trying to expand my current library based off of key signatures I lack. Any way to search for tracks specifically by key??

I've recently started DJing (for 3 months) Neurofunk DnB on a Pioneer FLX4 (2 decks), and I'm trying to improve my overall skills.

One thing I'm struggling with is introducing the next track without losing the energy of the current one. Sometimes I feel like I need to load the next track while the current one is still an important part of the mix, which can make the energy drop.

I'm curious how experienced Neurofunk DJs approach this on a 2-deck setup. When do you usually load the next track? How long do you typically keep double drops going? Do you maybe have any other techniques that could help to improve this? Hope anyone understands these questions...

Looking at the Rockville xl and a flight case. I’m about 6 ft and don’t want to hunch over all night. Also looking for something like 47 x 24 or larger

Bonjour , je viens ici a la recherche de conseils concernant la manière de traiter les sons .

Ayant récemment changer de contrôleur , j'ai désormais accès a Rekordbox, aux hot cue et bien d'autres choses qui ne nous intéressent pas ici .

En fouillant internet j'ai trouvé que Lexicon DJ était très bon pour analyser, créé les beatgrid , trouver les tonalités et placer les hot cue en mode automatique.

Alors pour les tonalités et les hot cue c'est pas mal (certains sont à améliorer mais sur plusieurs milliers de tracks c'est des dizaines d'heures de gagnées

Mais pour l'analyse du BPM et du beatgrid c'est une catastrophe, j'ai des bpm doublé hors du range ( des morceaux a 150bpm , affiché 150 dans la tracklist mais 300 en lecture avec un beatgrip qui du coup est doublé, les hot cue faux de fait , et c'est très déroutant / désagréable.

J'ai voulu rendre ma vie plus simple et elle est devenue encore plus compliqué que avec l'analyse de RB et ses beatgrid décalé une fois sur trois .

Est ce un problème de paramétrage de lexicon ou juste lexicon est nul et il faut utiliser autre chose ?

Précision importante , toute mes tracks sans exception sont en FLAC , pas de MP3 pourris télécharger depuis youtube

Sooo I wanna start DJing idk ANYTHING. Is this a good thing to buy lol I saw it at a pawnshop now I’m wanting to start. It’s a Denon dj sc liv4 they want 900**. Is this the right way or can someone point me in the right direction for an absolute beginner please.
I put wrong price I retrd