First time DJ'ing

[bioside]

I've been producing and promoting dubstep in Israel for about a year now, and am playing my first set at a club this friday...
Just wanted to know how bad (or awesome) your first set went down (if you weren't too high\drunk\scared shitless to remember...)

I'm just looking for some comfort stories here haha

EDIT: The stuff on my myspace is ages old...
I go by a different name now too...

[tripaddict]

i mc'd for the first set ever

i remeber thinking i was wicked .... and in all honest i was worse than shit lol

.... practice makes perfect got 13 yrs under the belt now ... n still learning

[ninjadog]

My first time Dj'ing in public was only a house party, but I was still nervous. There were other local Dj's there too, but when I saw them digging my tunes and mixes I felt at ease. When I dropped some sugar hill gang all the ladies were singing and dancing and it felt really good. I learned that people dont really care about how clean or techy a mix is, for the most part they just want to party. The feeling of people reacting to my music like that was an epic moment for me.

[bioside]

i just don't want to choke and have people throw shit at me
i forgot to mention that the audience is 95% people who have never heard dubstep before...
ninjadog that sounds awesome, tripaddict i respect anyone who has the balls to MC...

[hayze99]

I played my first big set to about 50 people about a month ago, and didn't get too nervous. I'd played to people before, but never a big crowd. I just saved 1 or 2 of my bangers for my first record played. That will get you hyped up for the rest of the set and hopefully the track will turn your nervousness into badassness. I tend to mix better when I'm infront of people than otherwise, just because I concentrate harder. The thing with dubstep is if you ever mix badly, its perfectly acceptable to just spin the record back. Look at Skream (and I'm sure a lot of people will lash out at this); every time I've seen him (may have just been because he was pissed), he mixfails about every 4 tracks, and just spins them back; nobody really cares.

Good luck man, hope all goes well.

[bedroom beats]

I managed to eject the wrong cd not once but twice ha ha

[bioside]

I managed to eject the wrong cd not once but twice ha ha

Ohhhhh snap!

[bedroom beats]

The unmistakable sound of silence in a club - oops

[tripaddict]

just enjoy it mate ... play tunes people you know will like .... get your mates round and ask their opinions on your set before you play it ... this always helps .... i dont think it matters if you preplan your set or drop some randomness ... if your running out of time to mix a tune .... you can always rewind/fadeout/stop the one tune playing and q/fade another in without people getting vexed .... with time and confidence you'll get better

i hardly ever mc live anymore ... on the radio from time to time but tbh i got bored of dnb + 90% of the commercial dnb that gets played here is wank there are exceptions tho

[999]

expect to be nervous your first couple mixes, i remember my hand shaking so bad i could barely put the needle down properly. then in a flash you realize you only have time for a another few tunes and you dont wanna step down.

youre going to enjoy it no matter what happens so just enjoy it

[bioside]

thanks everyone hope it goes down well...
the people here @ the forum are awesome!

[evil madmen]

My first real set was at my friends apartment, the whole crowd minus a few friends didnt even know what dubstep was. After I got going everyone was diggin it, dancing and shit, it was a great time.

[JFK]

Dont get too pissed before you go on.
Make sure you look up from the decks once in a while and engage with the crowd.
Dont worry about the mix being perfect everytime, fuck em.
ENJOY IT!!!!

[nowaysj]

My first time was at a party, friend was playing very accessible party classics. I got up and started playing some early true minimal techno, not this super swung sugary stuff. Cleared the floor after a track and a half. If ur dj'ing better play what they want to hear

[DRTY]

Just relax, don't worry about it too much or overthink it. Its just like mixing at your place but much louder and on a system you're totaly unfamiliar with infront of a load of people that are just waiting to criticise your mixing.











(last bit was jokes)

[chronicrecords]

My first time was at a party, friend was playing very accessible party classics. I got up and started playing some early true minimal techno, not this super swung sugary stuff. Cleared the floor after a track and a half. If ur dj'ing better play what they want to hear

lol , how long did u continue playing

[nowaysj]

45 Minutes

[planetshift]

I was really stoned @ a night in SoCal called Teslla Labs, and my dj partner at the time came up to me and said I should go up there and play out. I had never done it before and would be directly going out from my laptop. I was pretty high but I remember some weird sound issues because there was a limiter on my output squeezing the bassweight and most of the original tunes I had available were all clipping. but everyone danced to the MIA remix, that one's always been able to save my ass. lol! Just don't worry as long as you've practiced...cos lord knows I hadn't!

[lowpass]

Yeah I agree with that shaky hand thing, I remember needing 2 hands to put the needle down lol goes away after a few mins, and you don't get it back after the first gig so make the most of it

The worst feeling is clearing a dance floor

The best feeling is building a dance floor

tbh I don't give a shit about my own mixes, if the floor is building and people are into it then I'm happy

[eops]

I had played a bit but my first proper gig was for a friends 21st - It was in a field in Oxfordshire and there was a great crowd a big bonfire and pretty good soundsystem ... after that it went down hill... this was real early days of raving!

The bad news started when I saw where we were Djing - in a little shed with no lighting.

Well I say no lighting - actually there were five strobe lights tied around the entrance so what you actually saw was like a strange old black and white movie all jumpy and stuttering, the lights were spaced about in such a way that the decks gave the impression they were teleporting around in a circle as the lights strobed. I felt pretty giddy just going in.

Inside there were no technics but instead an antique DJ console with two rotary nobs instead of a crossfader!

Oh and none of the four DJs had headphones so we had to really stare at the strobing jumping flickering decks in order to try and place the needle as close to the groove as we could so it would start on a beat - the concentration involved with this coupled with the strobes made me feel really sick.

Unbelieveably the spirit of the times got us through - the music was so different to anything else at the time that everyone danced and cheered like I was grandmaster flash!

Now they would probably upturn the decks and insist on playing 80s hits off their iphones ...

Rave on & Good luck - it cant be any worse than that set up