2:55
How long it takes to become good
On YouTube this video is called How Long Doe's It Take to Become a DJ What Is a Good DJ Define a Good DJ?
What this lesson teaches
He posted the question on Facebook and found it harder to answer than it looked. The video is him working out why, and the reason he lands on is the useful part.
Two jobs sharing one word
His list is worth reading as a checklist rather than a rant. There are DJs, he says, who are brilliant - at mixing, at remixing, at producing, in a studio and out of one. Then: would they know where to put the PA? Where the cables go? Do they have PL? Have they got a driving licence? Have they ever done a wedding? Have they ever had a piece of kit fail at one? What did they do - did they panic?
Every one of those is a real failure mode and none of them is about mixing.
There are two jobs here. One is performance: selection, mixing, reading a floor. The other is operations: owning, moving, powering and rescuing a working sound system in a building you have never seen. Most people practise the first for years and discover the second on the night.
What PL means
He asks whether you know what PL is and says you should. It is public liability insurance: cover for injury to other people, or damage to their property, arising from what you are doing there.
It matters because a speaker on a stand in a room full of drinking people is a genuine hazard, and because venues and wedding coordinators routinely ask for the certificate before they will let you set up. Turning up to a wedding without it is a way to not play the wedding. Most national DJ associations bundle it; it is not expensive and it is not optional.
The things you cannot practise at home
The operations list is learnable but only by doing it:
Where the speakers go, which is in front of the microphone line rather than behind it, and high enough to throw past the first row of people. How much cable you need, which is always more. What is in the spares box, which should include whatever fails silently - a lead, a fuse, an adaptor - plus one thing that can play music on its own if the main system dies. What you say and do in the thirty seconds after the music stops at somebody's wedding.
You cannot rehearse a power cut, a flat tyre on the way, or a bride whose timetable has just collapsed. You can only have had them happen before.
So how long?
The honest shape of the answer: the mixing takes months of regular practice to become unremarkable, and years to become good. The rest takes gigs, and nothing substitutes for them.
And his real point, which he asks rather than states: there is no finish line. Treating "good DJ" as a destination you arrive at is the mistake. The people who are genuinely good are the ones still revising their answer.
Contents of the video
Just bear with me a second please. Oi! Two tracks here, Phil the bass, the original mix and we have Funk Refuse, the original mix. I put a post on Facebook this morning and I think sometimes the simplest questions can be the most difficult to answer. How long does it take to become a good DJ, to become a pro DJ, to become the pinnacle of what you aspire to be? You want to be top dog. You want to be the best and you reach that point where you are the best. How long does it take? Can you ever reach that point? Is there a point to reach or once you reach that point is that it? What do you think? Now I've said there are a lot of DJs out there that are absolutely brilliant. They're good at mixing, remixing.
They're good at producing their own tracks. They're good in studios, out of studios. They're even good at doing the washing up. Well but are they any good as a mobile DJ setting up equipment? Would they know what to buy? Would they know where to place the PA because the big DJs maybe have the PA placed there for them. Would they know where to put the cables? Do they know about PL? Do they have any PL? Do you know what that is? You should know what it is. Have they got a driving licence? How long have they been a DJ? Have they ever done a mobile gig? Have they ever done a wedding? Have they ever turned up to a wedding and one of their pieces of kit has gone wrong? What do you do? What did they do? Did they panic?
Did they say they couldn't do it? Maybe they're going to the gig and all of a sudden they have a flat tire, they turn up late. Can they get themselves out of that sticky situation when the bride is pulling her hair out that costs a lot of money to do because the DJ was late? So questions must be answered. Answer these questions. How long does it take to become a good DJ? Or is there such thing as a brilliant DJ? Is there such thing as the top dog? Is there such thing when you can be number one and get that gold medal? What do you think? Practice and enjoy. Thank you.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
This video is part of
Related videos
-
WHY Vinyl and WHY Is Now the Time to Go Old School
He admits at the start that this one might annoy people, and some of it should be argued with. The practical half is excellent. The claim…
