bagpuss
I've done two gigs this weekend (Fri & Sat), they were only short sets but it's caused a shock to the system. I don't know how you guys feel, but I'm now convinced that DJ'ing is a bloody hard job.
Friday night was just defeaning, I had to have the headphone levels very loud in order to sync perfectly, I left in a cab at 2:00 with soar ears feeling totally drained and a bit low, wishing their was an easier way of making a living. Saturday night I enjoyed myself more, but today I feel wrecked, I didn't even have a single alcoholic drink. But the exposure to the sound system, other peoples cigs, and general stresses of DJ'ing, really have made me think twice as to whether this is something I want to do for much longer.
It's good money, but it's not easy money (I was under the impression that it was when I started), thankfuly VDJ takes away some of the stress with its useful Database feature, but I don't know, I'm going to have a rest from it for a few days and think things over.
Feel free to cloud my judgement, but the hours are unsociable, it's hard work, it doesn't feel like it's doing my health any good (exhausting), very competitive and always requires further investment, just a few of the factors that have bothered me this weekend..
Friday night was just defeaning, I had to have the headphone levels very loud in order to sync perfectly, I left in a cab at 2:00 with soar ears feeling totally drained and a bit low, wishing their was an easier way of making a living. Saturday night I enjoyed myself more, but today I feel wrecked, I didn't even have a single alcoholic drink. But the exposure to the sound system, other peoples cigs, and general stresses of DJ'ing, really have made me think twice as to whether this is something I want to do for much longer.
It's good money, but it's not easy money (I was under the impression that it was when I started), thankfuly VDJ takes away some of the stress with its useful Database feature, but I don't know, I'm going to have a rest from it for a few days and think things over.
Feel free to cloud my judgement, but the hours are unsociable, it's hard work, it doesn't feel like it's doing my health any good (exhausting), very competitive and always requires further investment, just a few of the factors that have bothered me this weekend..
Posted Mon 28 May 07 @ 12:16 am
Dj Xeo
cigs are soon to be outside only for us UK lot, so thats one off your list.
if the SPL is realy starting to do your head in try some of the better ear plugs. i have 2 good friends who have been in the touring sound business for a long time and they both swear by this certain brand (cant remeber it but ill ask them if your interested). cuts down the SPL but the clarity and tonal qualities are still there (basicly it wont fuck up your ability to mix, hell they have been wearing them while in charge of the FOH mix for some massive international artists, so they cant affect it at all.) also there are some good noise canceling headphones out now, im starting to see more DJs mixing with shure style in-ear ones now too, something to look into if your finding it that bad anyway.
cant comment on the rest of it cause its not my profession! just put it down to a bad week and put off making any life decision for a few weeks just because now is the worst time to judge how you feel about things.
if the SPL is realy starting to do your head in try some of the better ear plugs. i have 2 good friends who have been in the touring sound business for a long time and they both swear by this certain brand (cant remeber it but ill ask them if your interested). cuts down the SPL but the clarity and tonal qualities are still there (basicly it wont fuck up your ability to mix, hell they have been wearing them while in charge of the FOH mix for some massive international artists, so they cant affect it at all.) also there are some good noise canceling headphones out now, im starting to see more DJs mixing with shure style in-ear ones now too, something to look into if your finding it that bad anyway.
cant comment on the rest of it cause its not my profession! just put it down to a bad week and put off making any life decision for a few weeks just because now is the worst time to judge how you feel about things.
Posted Mon 28 May 07 @ 12:33 am
DJ Marcel_1
I agree with XEO: try full cup niose cancelling earphones. They Help Quite a bit in a club. If the booth has a booth monitor try that instead of using earhones. Most of the time the booth is in a different accoustical environment than the rest of the club. This does strange things to sound.
Posted Mon 28 May 07 @ 2:38 am
KregCZ
I agree with you Bagpuss; DJing can be draining!
I use to Spin 5 days a week, I now will only do 3 at the most.
Loud music, especially bass will beat you up.
Most people don't get this; you are getting hit with some hard pounding sound waves.
That can destroy your nerviest system. Just because you can't see them, that don't mean they can't hurt you. The ones that can hurt you the most are the ones you can't even hear like those low 15Hz bass sounds that you only feel.
Also the stress of spending 4, 6, or even 8 hours of concentrating on your mixes, looking for your music, being social, dealing with managers and request, can all suck the life out of you.
Sometimes a drink or 2 could help.
I sometimes take a small bit of anti-stress medication, just to relax me for a gig.
I also make sure to get lots of sleep before I do a gig.
I will usually take all of Sunday to recover; I sometimes will sleep all day.
Another tip about your monitors is: the closer they are to you the less volume you need to block out the main system and some plexey glass around your booth can deflect some of the sound from the main system.
If you are working a 9-5 Mon-Fri you might try to just do Saturday Don't kill yourself it will showup in your mixes.
That's part of the reason some of the big time DJs only work between 1-4 times a month.
I know that at one time Junior Vasquez was only doing 2 shows a month, and even had sleeping quarters atached to his own personal DJ booth. All other DJs including Paul Van Dyke had to use the warm-up dj booth.
I use to Spin 5 days a week, I now will only do 3 at the most.
Loud music, especially bass will beat you up.
Most people don't get this; you are getting hit with some hard pounding sound waves.
That can destroy your nerviest system. Just because you can't see them, that don't mean they can't hurt you. The ones that can hurt you the most are the ones you can't even hear like those low 15Hz bass sounds that you only feel.
Also the stress of spending 4, 6, or even 8 hours of concentrating on your mixes, looking for your music, being social, dealing with managers and request, can all suck the life out of you.
Sometimes a drink or 2 could help.
I sometimes take a small bit of anti-stress medication, just to relax me for a gig.
I also make sure to get lots of sleep before I do a gig.
I will usually take all of Sunday to recover; I sometimes will sleep all day.
Another tip about your monitors is: the closer they are to you the less volume you need to block out the main system and some plexey glass around your booth can deflect some of the sound from the main system.
If you are working a 9-5 Mon-Fri you might try to just do Saturday Don't kill yourself it will showup in your mixes.
That's part of the reason some of the big time DJs only work between 1-4 times a month.
I know that at one time Junior Vasquez was only doing 2 shows a month, and even had sleeping quarters atached to his own personal DJ booth. All other DJs including Paul Van Dyke had to use the warm-up dj booth.
Posted Mon 28 May 07 @ 5:17 am
Tear Em 'Up
I worked club five nights a week for five years back before CDs. Try carrying around 25 cases of LPs everynight. It is hard work, but fun work for me. Often people see a good proffesional DJ and think its an easy job. Thats why he's a good proffesional, because he makes it look easy. If you enjoyed mixing for a large crowd, dont give up. If you think you might want to cut back then cut back. There are a lot of bedroom/livingroom/garage DJs with tremendous talent that just want to do it for fun. Keeping up with equipment purchases and technology is a nessecary evil of the job. But everything is going thru the technology boom so you are going to find that any where. You will get used to it if you love it. There are going to be hundreds of things that you are going to get hit with as you spend more time DJing. ALways keep a positive attitude, no one likes an angry DJ. Care about, but do not get too close to the regulars, they might have issuse too big for DR. Phil, let alons a simple DJ. And for God's sake stay away from drugs while working (I say never use them but this is a personal choice and I am not preaching here) they can cloud your judgement and your mixing will sound like s&^t. I hope this advice helped.
Posted Mon 28 May 07 @ 2:16 pm
we all have these nightmare trying gigs.....and i swear they travel in 2's or 3's.........it can be discouraging
so far, i have always felt like it was them not me......so i don't really think about quitting or cutting back ...
if something's really hackin' at me (think the strip club) or really wildly pain in the ass weddings i will give some gigs away for a few days or weeks and reduce the workload ......then back to the trenches
here's a recent example of a nightmare gig .......i have a communion party in philly very nice irish pub
kids in there sunday best , beautiful day.....mom works there , is getting her drunk on big time .....she has hit on me b4 but now, low and behold she's married ?? and hittin' on me in front of hubby........i'm thinkin' omg, i may have to duke it out w/ hubby in front of a bunch of people i have entertained b4??i pull him aside ,say look she's had too much , and i'm not looking for trouble.....we hit it off...i get him to agree he'll sing some sinatra at some point , he's all happy.....i'm playin' a lindsay lohan ?? video for the kiddies who are all happy but i see everything in the midst of freezing..... my backup system is hooked up and ready so i fade down the video and launch audio only in the backup.....i pull up a few trax to last me a half hour then i'm gettin' ready to power down the main system and reboot and see what happens..... when lil miss t&a moves the table i'm using to block my only outlet from being unpllugged and she unplugs me ...everything !!!!!!T!@#$%^&*(*&^%$#@!( you can't fix stupid )
fortunately i get hubby to do his sinatra thing while i'm rebooting EVERYTHING ..........after i get back to normal ....about an hour later somebody on there staff caused a circuit trip......unbelievable......i pluggged everything into one outlet which is normally to be avoided but there was no alternative......when i got done i had a parking ticket !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@! i try to take away from that about the only thing that i think you can which is how nice, prepared , and smart was i under lousy circumstances ??? and ask myself that , as opposed to did i do something wrong ?
so far, i have always felt like it was them not me......so i don't really think about quitting or cutting back ...
if something's really hackin' at me (think the strip club) or really wildly pain in the ass weddings i will give some gigs away for a few days or weeks and reduce the workload ......then back to the trenches
here's a recent example of a nightmare gig .......i have a communion party in philly very nice irish pub
kids in there sunday best , beautiful day.....mom works there , is getting her drunk on big time .....she has hit on me b4 but now, low and behold she's married ?? and hittin' on me in front of hubby........i'm thinkin' omg, i may have to duke it out w/ hubby in front of a bunch of people i have entertained b4??i pull him aside ,say look she's had too much , and i'm not looking for trouble.....we hit it off...i get him to agree he'll sing some sinatra at some point , he's all happy.....i'm playin' a lindsay lohan ?? video for the kiddies who are all happy but i see everything in the midst of freezing..... my backup system is hooked up and ready so i fade down the video and launch audio only in the backup.....i pull up a few trax to last me a half hour then i'm gettin' ready to power down the main system and reboot and see what happens..... when lil miss t&a moves the table i'm using to block my only outlet from being unpllugged and she unplugs me ...everything !!!!!!T!@#$%^&*(*&^%$#@!( you can't fix stupid )
fortunately i get hubby to do his sinatra thing while i'm rebooting EVERYTHING ..........after i get back to normal ....about an hour later somebody on there staff caused a circuit trip......unbelievable......i pluggged everything into one outlet which is normally to be avoided but there was no alternative......when i got done i had a parking ticket !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@! i try to take away from that about the only thing that i think you can which is how nice, prepared , and smart was i under lousy circumstances ??? and ask myself that , as opposed to did i do something wrong ?
Posted Tue 29 May 07 @ 12:39 am
bagpuss
Thanks for your contributions so far chaps,
I think I've worked out a large part of the problem: the common cold, that would explain why I was particularly battered by the sound system and felt a bit low, something so simple but I didn't recognise that at the time of post.
But I'm always off and on with DJ'ing, it's one of those career paths with huge pluses with some pretty big minuses too, one thing I don't like about club DJ'ing is dealing with the management, it seems to be a profession which attracts bad people, not the kind of people you can trust, and trust is something which should come first in business, these guys will let you go on the drop of a hat (a whim), when you have a mortgage to pay, it's not a good idea to rely on such money, I see why so many people choose the mobile route.
I think I've worked out a large part of the problem: the common cold, that would explain why I was particularly battered by the sound system and felt a bit low, something so simple but I didn't recognise that at the time of post.
But I'm always off and on with DJ'ing, it's one of those career paths with huge pluses with some pretty big minuses too, one thing I don't like about club DJ'ing is dealing with the management, it seems to be a profession which attracts bad people, not the kind of people you can trust, and trust is something which should come first in business, these guys will let you go on the drop of a hat (a whim), when you have a mortgage to pay, it's not a good idea to rely on such money, I see why so many people choose the mobile route.
Posted Thu 31 May 07 @ 12:00 am
Dj Xeo
you're paying a mortgage bagpuss?
Posted Thu 31 May 07 @ 12:50 am
bagpuss
No but I'm planning on getting one soon.
Posted Thu 31 May 07 @ 1:07 am
mp3jrick
Bren,
I understand both problems here.
Now picture yourself arriving 3 hrs early to put up a truss system with a full array of dmx lighting, video camera, 1 or 2 screens with projectors and massive sound system.
Then change your clothes and play for 4-5 hrs and then tear it all down and drive 1-2 hrs home.
Then do it again on Saturday night.
That is what some of us do on a pretty regular basis.
It will condition you in time, it's mind over matter and the party high will get you through.
The volume and particularly the bass will definitely mess with your head and it usually keeps me awake after a gig for 1-2 hrs despite my eyes closing.
I usually pop a little sleep aid on the drive home to help bring me down and after 8 I feel pretty good.
http://www.hearos.com/
Try these.
I use them in the studio when I need to feel the beat, but live usually don't.
Another bad thing is using phones with one ear.
Seems my brain can't eq the level so I listen hard with one ear (thanks to the weak vdj monitor channel) and this causes undue harm with some ringing in my open ear to the sound system.
So be careful, you get only one set of ears.
I understand both problems here.
Now picture yourself arriving 3 hrs early to put up a truss system with a full array of dmx lighting, video camera, 1 or 2 screens with projectors and massive sound system.
Then change your clothes and play for 4-5 hrs and then tear it all down and drive 1-2 hrs home.
Then do it again on Saturday night.
That is what some of us do on a pretty regular basis.
It will condition you in time, it's mind over matter and the party high will get you through.
The volume and particularly the bass will definitely mess with your head and it usually keeps me awake after a gig for 1-2 hrs despite my eyes closing.
I usually pop a little sleep aid on the drive home to help bring me down and after 8 I feel pretty good.
http://www.hearos.com/
Try these.
I use them in the studio when I need to feel the beat, but live usually don't.
Another bad thing is using phones with one ear.
Seems my brain can't eq the level so I listen hard with one ear (thanks to the weak vdj monitor channel) and this causes undue harm with some ringing in my open ear to the sound system.
So be careful, you get only one set of ears.
Posted Thu 31 May 07 @ 2:00 am