So I'm Part of a local youth organisation (I'm 18). I dj outside of the organisation in the bedroom. However last night we did a halloween party and i got to do the last 30 mins (sort of ill explain later) The most part of the night was done by boring staff members making sure that everything was how do you say - spick and span and what they liked was played.
Anyway last half hour the boss comes and says hey DJYamAtree (I don't won't say say my real name) hasn't had a go yet let him on. So me and one of my best mates (who doesn't DJ) Grab the laptop which was running virtual dj and no controller through one channel of a mixer.- I forgot how hard it was to mix without a controller. So we start banging out the more modern edm - all the stuff you'd find in a club that these teenagers are to young to go to for another few years but know the lyrics and melodies to anyway - we were just pressing play when one song finishes I tell her how to press play in virtual Dj and when to press it and drag the crossfader over with the mouse etc. So I start looking at the external mixer (the audio was routed from virtual Dj to the one channel only remember) when mixing over tracks i start hitting the effects because beat matching was impossible with no headphones and the worlds worst laptop trackpad I have ever used. so yeah if its not right ill just put a bit of an effect over it. What the hell its only a few 13 - 15 year olds they like stuff like that anyway - well I did when i was there age and they weren't complaining.
After a few tracks we were doing well. We got a few people dancing and I even managed to get a song (all of me - tiesto birthday remix) where i would cut out part of the lyrics and the 4-5 people that had been dancing would continue singing through it. All in all it was very good. In the whole half hour we only managed to accidentally clear the dance floor (all be it there weren't exactly that many people on it) once. (can blame my poor selection of a track that was to old for the younger ones to remember for that. apparently pendulum doesn't age as well as I thought)
anyway when I finished the night I realised that even though the mixing was shocking because there was a crowd that kept dancing i wasn't as critical as i am when I'm mixing in my bedroom and theres no hype or crowd to try reading etc. Is this a common thing among Djs that without a crowd it can become hard to select tracks and you become critical of yourself?
TL: DR;
Even though I wasn't mixing properly and everything was off beat because of cr*p equipment i was less critical of my mix because there was a crowd. Is this a general thing among DJs?
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