DJ Tips

How to Be a Tik Tok DJ?

Jan 2022

When I joined Twitch in the summer of 2019, it was a ghost town for DJs. At that time it was strictly a community for gamers, and I only joined because I saw a way to repurpose it for my needs. I played a lot of outdoor b-boy shows, and friends of mine around the world wanted to watch the breakers breaking and hear the MCs MC’ing. I searched for the best way to livestream the shows, and Twitch struck me as the best bet. At that point, I was an anomaly: a DJ on Twitch? Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a Twitch DJ.

For DJs, Tik Tok today is what Twitch was in 2019: uncharted territory. Unlike Twitch, where you are competing with DJs who have a two year head start on you and have built up large and loyal audiences, Tik Tok has far fewer DJs at work. If you can get in now, you can get in a lot closer to the ground floor, and build the audience, and income, that comes with garnering large viewer counts.

So what’s the catch? There’s always a catch, right? In the case of Tik Tok, it turns out there is, and it’s a rather notable one. Unlike Twitch, and most other streaming platforms, not everyone can jump into the deep end from the get-go on Tik Tok. While anyone can create an account and share videos, only users with at least 1,000 followers can livestream. Gaining that many followers is no easy feat, unless of course you look good in a wet t-shirt. If that’s the case, skip the rest of this article, post one video, and you’ll hit 1,000 followers in the time it takes everyone else to finish reading.

Assuming you aren’t a sex symbol, you’re going to have to work to get those followers, and as is the case with most social media platforms, there is no short cut. You will have to create and share quality content on a regular basis. Tik Tok, more than any other platform, is about quantity almost as much as it is about quality. You certainly need high quality content, but one video won’t cut it. To get followers, you need to post something worth watching on a near daily basis. If you can do that, you should be able to build an audience over time, until you hit the magic number. And then you can join what is currently a very small community– that of the livestreaming Tik Tok DJ.

Now get out of here and get started with your new career as a celebrity Tik Tok DJ!

Recap

Is Heavy Hits the Best DJ Record Pool?

Jan 2022

Heavy Hits has been blowing up in the media lately. It’s not surprising, as we are among the top record pools in the world right now. Yes, I’m biased, but I believe I can back up what I say. But why listen to me? Check out what some other, not biased, folks have been saying recently:

The respected music resource Audio Captain recently reviewed record pools of all size and style, and had some great things to say about us, counting us among the best DJ record pools!

They aren’t the only ones. DJ Bros, a German site, also had some positive words to say about us.

DJ LoStax has a growing YouTube page, and he reviewed Heavy Hits in a recent video.

We’d love to hear your opinions about our record pool, so please share any feedback on our various social media platforms. And, if you have a blog, vlog, or site of your own and you’d like to review us, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions you have!

Sick Beats

Jan 2022

We all get sick from time to time. So far, I’ve been lucky enough never to have been too sick to show up and perform at an event I’ve been contracted to play, but one never knows what the future holds. Do you have a plan in place in the even that you wake up too sick to DJ?

This is an especially important situation to plan ahead for during the Covid-19 pandemic. In normal times, if you felt a little sick it would have been fine to show up and play anyway. But with special rules in place, you may need to show a negative Covid test in order to work. And even without any legal barrier to working, from an ethical standpoint, if you think there is a chance you have Covid, you owe it to your client, their guests, and the other vendors, to make sure you aren’t sick before spinning. You may be fine, but someone who catches it from you may not be, so it’s important to be diligent about health and safety protocols.

So then, what do you do if you are too sick, or test positive for Covid, at the last minute, and can’t honor your contract? If you are playing a night club or other informal affair, it may be as easy as calling your contact at the club and explaining you can’t make it. They will almost certainly have a list of other DJs, and will find someone to cover for you. But what if you have signed a contract to perform at a wedding, and have been paid a sizable sum in advance to do so? You can be sure the bride won’t have a roster of DJs at her disposal, so you calling her isn’t an option. Sure, you could simply call and tell her you are too sick, but not only will you be piling stress on her, and likely ruining her wedding, you are sure to receive negative reviews online from her and all her family and friends, and are opening yourself up to a lawsuit. Wedding vendors have been successfully sued in the past for damages due to ruining a wedding that can reach into six or seven figures. You don’t want to become another cautionary tale.

Instead of risking everything, have a plan in place for this eventuality. Your plan should include:

1. Network!

You should be doing this anyway, so you have DJs to refer jobs to when someone asks about hiring you on a day you’re already booked, and so those DJs can refer you. If you aren’t already, you need to start keeping a list of local DJs that you can call at the last minute if you are sick, or otherwise unable to fulfill a contract. Reach out to them, get to know them, buy them coffee, let them buy you coffee. You’ll make some friends, learn some new things about DJ’ing, and have people to reach out to in an emergency.

2. Join a local DJ Association

This is like number 1, but in overdrive. DJ associations will offer you many perks; so many that I will dedicate a future article to them. For now, take my word for it and join one. If none exist in your area, start one.

3. Club owners can be a resource

If no DJs you know are available, start contacting clubs and promoters. They all keep lists of DJs, and can likely reach out to a dozen or so on your behalf. Keep this as a last resort, as the DJs who primarily work in clubs tend not to be experienced with weddings and such, but someone is better than no one. Be sure to sweeten the pot, and let the club owner or promoter know you’ll pay their DJ more than his full club rate, and you’ll toss in a finder’s fee for finding you a DJ. At this point, profit and loss is not important– you need to find a replacement!

4. Always prepare your paperwork

You’ll find it helpful to have all the important information about a given job in one place: the names of the bride and groom and their family and the bridal party, the name and address of the venue, the timeline for the day, requests, and all that good stuff. You should be compiling this for your own use, but also in the event of an emergency it’s key to have a document ready to share that tells a last-minute DJ all he needs to know. You will be too busy finding a DJ to create one at the last minute, so get in the habit of creating one in advance for every show you play.

5. The Hail Mary

You can’t make it, and you can’t find anyone. What do you do? You turn to your best friend, spouse, favorite uncle, eldest child… anyone you trust. At this point, you need someone standing behind the decks playing music, and since experience, skill, and talent are no longer an option, you need someone you can count on to do the job you tell them to do. You may have to spend the entire day sick in bed on speakerphone telling them step by step what to do, but at least they’ll be there doing it. Best case, it goes off without a hitch. Worse case, you may end up with a disappointed client, and find yourself refunding their payment, and maybe even giving them more back than they paid, but that’s a far cry better than finding yourself in court being sued for the full cost of the wedding, plus damages. Get someone there who will do as you say, and at least you have a chance to salvage the day.

Videos

December Video Recap

Dec 2021

Heavy Hits is more than a record pool. You obviously know about our blog– you’re reading it right now– but do you know about our YouTube channel? It’s full of information and tutorials designed to help you become a better DJ or producer. Here’s a recap of what was shared on our YouTube channel this month.

First up, our resident YouTube creator DJ And One offers advice for getting organized when using Serato.

Next, he and DJ Ben Boylan talk about fielding requests at events.

Here is a great discussion about what lights a DJ should purchase.

And One and DJ Transit teach how to make a mash-up using Ableton

Should you sign with a talent agency?

What settings to change in Serato are discussed in this video.

A tutorial for making a New Year’s Eve edit

And most recently, And One discussed using a filter when DJ’ing.

DJ Tips

The Absolute Best Way to Organize Your Virtual Crates

Dec 2021

As the year comes to a close, I’ve been reviewing some of the questions I’m most commonly asked on Reddit and Twitch, and more than any other, the topic I’m always addressing is music organization. I know that subject matter has been addressed here previously, but that was before my time at Heavy Hits, and today seems the perfect day to offer some in-depth suggestions for keeping your music library organized. Late December and January are typically the slowest time of the year for DJs, which makes it a fantastic time to restructure your virtual record crates.

I use Serato when I DJ. It’s the industry standard, and, at least in my mind, far and away the best DJ software. if you use something else, you can still use the organizational methods I’m about to suggest, but you will need to go through a few extra steps. Feel free to ask any questions about how to do so in the comments section of any of our social media channels if you need more information about doing so.

The first thing to be aware of when setting up record crates, whether those that contain actual records or virtual crates of digital files, is that less is more. This is best illustrated by thinking of a traditional vinyl DJs crates. When wax was the only show in town, a DJ was limited in what he could bring to a gig, whether by space, effort, or budget. For many reasons, it was impractical, and often impossible, to bring more than four or five physical crates of records to a gig. As each crate holds about 70 records, that meant that at most, a DJ had access to 350 songs for an entire night.

I’ve seen DJs playing from a single playlist that contains more than 350 songs, and most DJs show up with 3,500 or more songs— often closer to 35,000 or more— at every show. While there are merits to having access to that many songs, it can also be detrimental. The human mind simply cannot keep track of that many songs at once. Moreover, it isn’t necessary. In the vinyl era, DJs played successful shows, and entertained large audiences, pulling from only a few hundred songs during a night. Even open format DJs were able to do this. I speak from experience. In the early ‘90s, I played at college parties, and at that time students wanted to hear a wide variety of music. I had to play all the current pop hits, along with indie rock and new wave hits, and the then-still-under-the-radar hip hop music, but the majority of what they wanted to hear were oldies. 75% of my sets then was music from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, along with a smattering of ‘80s music. I also had to bring hard rock, country, swing, jazz, reggae, Motown, and other music. College kids then wanted to hear literally everything. I managed to pull that off with 5 crates of records, and I never disappointed.

I hope I’ve made my case, but if you still think you need 5,000 or more songs at your fingertips, fear not. My method allows for that. So without further delay, let’s dive into the process.

Let’s look first at the big picture. We’re going to create a series of nested crates using smart playlists in iTunes. We’re going to limit the size of each individual crate to about 75 to 125 songs. Doing so is going to allow us to have very manageable crates to play from, but with the ability to pull out one or more levels and combine crates. That way, we aren’t playing from a list of 500 or more songs, because at that point it’s no longer a record crate, it’s a music library. We want a short list of songs that we know well, and that integrate well with the songs around them. If we need to change up the vibe, or transition into another style, we can pull back and see a combination of the crate we’re currently playing from and some related crates. This is the best of both worlds— a manageable crate to play from with the ability to instantly shuffle in another crate. Vinyl DJs never had it so good.

I can’t stress enough that no crate should have more than approximately 100-125 songs in it, and 50-75 is better. It should be easy to flip through a virtual crate the way I used to flip through a crate of real records. Once there are more than 125 or so songs, it’s hard to work with them as a whole. An ideal create is one where you can quickly visualize everything in there, and make instant mental connections and decisions about what to play, and when to play it, in relation to every other song in the crate.

Sometimes I DO want to view a few crate’s worth of songs at once, especially if I’m working in a particular BPM range and want either to cross over into a different genre, or jumble up styles for a bit. To facilitate this, I nest my crates in iTunes. So, for example, I have a crate called “Dance Pop,” and within that crate are two sub-crates, “Pop and Rock” and “Soul Disco.” Each of those two crates holds its own sub-crates: “Pop and Rock” holds “’80s Dance” and “Indie Dance.” Within those two crates are 7 more crates, some in the ’80s crate, some in the indie crate. That way, if I really want to, I can pan out, so to speak, and look at the entire “Pop and Rock” crate, and see all 7 crates folded into one mega-crate. Or I can go down one level and view the “’80s Dance” crate, and see two crates together, etc.

The basic idea is that most of the time I want about 100 songs in front of me. Sometimes I want to pull back and see 200 songs, or maybe as many as 700 songs, but only for certain transitional moments.

How do we accomplish all of this? We start by creating a series of smart playlists in iTunes. Choose “New” from the file menu, then choose “Smart Playlist” and make sure it looks like this:

Instead of “yourtag” you will enter the tag that indicates a song belongs in that playlist. This part is up to you, and depends on what sort of music you play. I play weddings, parties, night clubs, and all sorts of events, so I need a variety of music. My keywords include 80s dance pop, indie dance, edm, rnb, britpop, country, and a lot more. Keep in mind that keywords can be more than one word, so 80s dance pop is a single keyword.

Make a note of all the keywords you use as you create your crates, and make sure iTunes is searching the comments ID3 tag for them. Once you’ve done that, the next step is to go through your music library and enter the appropriate keyword, or keywords, into the comment tag of every song you want in your crates. This can be a time-consuming process, and in truth it is a never-ending process. I’m constantly moving tracks around and fine-tuning crates. Also, realize that songs can live in multiple crates. Many of mine do. All you have to do is enter the tag for each crate in the comments field, separating each with a comma.

For example, in the comments of “The Humpty Dance” I’ve entered, “80s rap, 80s dance pop, dance favorite.” That means it will show up in all three of those crates. This is a very powerful function of this method, and something vinyl DJs can’t do without buying multiple copies of the same record.

As you fill in your crates, keep in mind that you want to limit the size of each crate to about 100 songs, and try not to exceed 125 songs. If you find yourself going over that limit, you probably need to split that crate into two crates.

Once you’ve built your crates, the hard part is done, but now comes the crucial step: nesting them. This is the massive advantage to this method that I alluded to above, and something vinyl DJs are unable to do. In iTunes, you will create a series of folders into which you will place various crates. There will be one master folder– I call mine “DJ Crates”– into which all other folders and playlists go, and as many subfolders as you need.

If you play pop music, you may want to organize songs by decades. For whatever reason, people like to group music that way. You’d create folders called 70s Dance, 80s Dance, 90s Dance, and so on. Within each folder you’d place the applicable crates. In your 70s Dance folder you may have the following crates: Disco, 70s Pop, Glam Rock, 70s Funk, and maybe some others that you use. That way, any time you need to dial in and play a set of, say, disco, you can go to that specific crate, but if you want to play a set that encompasses all of the 70s, you can pull back and choose the 70s dance folder itself. Each folder is in fact a crate of its own; a crate that contains all the songs in all of the crates it contains.

You can also nest folders within folders. Maybe your disco and ’70s funk playlists are in a folder together that you call “Funky Disco” and that folder is in the 70s Dance folder. Now you can pull back and see just funk and disco songs together, or pull back a second time and see all the music of the ’70s in one place. All of the nesting is up to you. I can tell you how to do it, but you have to decide for yourself which playlists you’ll want to combine, and create the various levels necessary to do so.

Here’s a picture of my own crates:

Note how I have the ability to see certain playlists alone, combined with one related list, combined with 3 related lists, combined with 10 related lists, and so on up, to the point where I can see every playlist I have combined into one massive playlist. This is the goal.

The final steps are easy. Once you have an iTunes folder with all your crates in order, check the box in your Serato settings that reads “Show iTunes Library.” It’s that easy. Best of all, every time you start Serato it will refresh your crates, so you can make changes in iTunes whenever you want– I’m constantly updating and altering mine– and you will always have the most recent iteration of your crates when you launch Serato.

I hope you find this helpful. I am confident that this is hands down the easiest and most effective way to DJ using digital media, and would love to hear from anyone who has suggestions for how to improve my method, or wants to share what they believe to be a better method. And again, do not hesitate to ask any and all questions in any of the comment sections of any of our social media channels. I’m happy to help you get your crates in better shape for 2022 and beyond!

Not *THAT* Button!

Dec 2021

I know, I know. I know what you’re going to say. Hang on for a moment before you say it, and let’s talk it over. We’re talking about the button that dare not speak its name. But I’m going to come right out and ask:

Is it okay for a DJ to use the sync feature on his DJ software of choice?

I can think of many reasons to let Serato, or any other DJ software, sync the songs for you. First and foremost, it’s going to sound better, and your ultimate goal as a DJ is to please your audience. No matter how masterfully you mix, a computer is going to do better, and keep those beats in lockstep for as long as need be. This is especially true for older songs, with live drummers, which require constant adjustments to stay in sync.

Of course, a skilled DJ can make those adjustments, and it’s great if you can do it, but is it necessary to be able to do it in order to call yourself a DJ? And what about a DJ who can do it, but chooses to let sync do it for him? Is he a little more real, but still not real enough? When I started DJ’ing, vinyl was the only option, and I learned to mix tracks entirely by ear, with no visual aids whatsoever. I can match rhythm tracks played by the most coked-out disco drummers who ever drifted off a beat, in an era of drug-induced drifting off of the beat, with aplomb. If I decide to let Serato take over, am I now a fraud?

Letting Serato sync the beats for you also allows you time to do other things that you couldn’t do if you were spending time matching beats, and/or spending time keeping them matched during the mix. You can do far more with your EQs or effects, you can interact with your audience, or you can spend more time selecting the next track.

Sync also allows for far more creativity. Instead of spending time adjusting two drifting tracks to keep them in time, you can let sync do it for you while you layer in a third track, or scratch, or sing, or play a harmonica over the music. The sky is the limit for you, while your unfortunate sync-eschewing counterpart can only play two songs at once.

Ultimately, it comes down to a question of where one draws the line. If using the sync feature is not allowed, what else isn’t allowed? I touched on this briefly in a recent post about quantizing tracks, but to reiterate, most modern dance music is made on a computer, which means that it has a locked in, quantized beat, and is easy to mix. When you drop a song into Serato, it will instantly tell you the BPM of the song, to a fraction of a percent. It’s a simple matter to adjust the pitch until it matches the BPM of the track you are playing, at which point you have synced the songs. Is that really any more difficult, or “real,” than letting Serato adjust the BPMs for you?

Perhaps you think it is “cheating” to simply slide the tracks into alignment based on the BPM readout, and you must instead ignore those numbers and match by ear. Are you allowed to look at the waveforms, and see if they are aligned, or is that fakery as well?

And if you do mix the songs without looking to see if the numbers match or the waveforms align, well, maybe you’re still cheating, because even knowing the BPMs ahead of time gives you an advantage, so not only must you ignore the BPM readout and match by ear, to truly call yourself a DJ you aren’t even allowed to know the BPMs of the songs. You have to listen and decide which is faster or slower, and adjust accordingly.

Once you have the tracks aligned, you still may need to make small adjustments to account for subtle drifts in tempo. Are you allowed to use the pitch+ and pitch- buttons, or must you only use pushes and pulls to the side of the jog wheel to adjust the BPM? Or is even that forbidden, as a real DJ does it all by sliding the pitch adjustment up and down?

Next of course, you have to decide if a “real” DJ is even allowed to use digital media, for don’t the real “real” DJs only use vinyl? And honestly, if you want to truly be a DJ, how dare you use pitch control at all? The original disco DJs didn’t have pitch control, and had to do it all with pushes and pulls on the vinyl. Even at that point, you’re still faking it, because the true old school DJs, the real, real, “real” DJs, had to do it all on shellac, not vinyl, and honestly, can you call yourself a DJ if you aren’t using shellac on a windup system?