DJ Stylus – The Vibe Conductor

[photo: matthijs rouw]

I want to talk about gain control today. Because it’s really out of control.

As DJ’s, we’ve spent hours, weeks and years honing the various aspects of our craft: mixing, scratching, blending, programming a set, reading a room, digging for new sounds, mastering various types of equipment, learning about different genres of music…

But truthfully, most of us fail at monitoring and maintaining optimal sound levels. It’s the one aspect of the craft that has been completely abandoned and I’m aggravated about it.

If you’re not wearing earplugs at any show or nightclub these days, you’re in for a brutal assault. A few years ago, I started leaving a set of earplugs in every bag that I use. My regular day bag, my dj bag(s), travel bags. With the type of schedule I keep, I never know when I might end up at a party, a show or a session, and I ALWAYS have to be prepared with plugs.

With most DJ’s these days, if you take a look at their mixer at peak time, the meters are slammed in the red, their gain knobs are maxed and their master volume knob might be topped out too.

Red means “Turn the volume down, you asshole!”

If there isn’t any dynamic processing in the signal chain, at best the music will sound horribly distorted. If there are compressors and limiters and they aren’t set right and/or you’re pushing them too hard, you’ll get that irksome pumping sound. At worst you’ll blow a speaker or two, or all.

Then you have people on the dance floor looking like this:

[photo: addicted2salsa.com]

These people are not enjoying themselves.

Understandably, many sound systems are poorly set up and maintained. They make it difficult to pump the music so people feel it in their chests and asses, but aren’t being assaulted. Note that I said “difficult” not “impossible”. Our own judgement and attention to detail are the best tools for creating an optimal experience for the folks on our dance floors.

- EQ your tracks as you play them.
Cut those shrieking mids or that rumbling sub-bass. You’ll often find that perceived loudness increases with clarity as opposed to simply cranking it up.

- Start your set with optimal gain levels.
This might seem so basic but it’s so misunderstood. Unity gain is generally marked on most volume controls as the 0 (zero) level. That means that the signal coming into the channel is the same level as the signal going out. YOUR JOB IS TO MAINTAIN UNITY GAIN ALL NIGHT. You should set your master and the front end processing (if you can access those controls) to allow you some headroom over the course of the night, but you should NOT use your individual channel gains for overall volume control.

Gain creep is a fact of life for the DJ. Over the course of a gig, the amount of distractions grows, the energy in the room increases, the noise floor increases as more people pack into the space, and one must compensate. But rarely is this done with any sort of specificity. For far too many DJ’s, louder is always better.

- Walk the room.
I regularly leave the turntables to assess the volume levels. Some folks find this odd. (“What are you doing out of the dj booth?!?”) If it’s a room I’ve never played before, I do this a lot. Few of us have the opportunity to always play clubs with optimal DJ booth monitoring, so it’s almost a given that the sound in the booth will differ drastically from the sound on the floor. YOU MUST ALWAYS BE AWARE OF WHAT YOUR DANCE FLOOR SOUNDS LIKE.

Please, all of you. You’re killing folks out there. People going home from parties with migraines and ringing ears. Sound systems being blown. Records sounding like crap because of distortion. We all want our parties to crank, but ultimately Bob Marley knew the way things should be:

“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain.” (Trenchtown Rock)

Brasil vs. Japan!

And despite the terrible editing and syncing in the dj’ing scenes, this flick was one of the main influences that made me want to be a DJ:

Andre Harris – “10 Things Not To Say To A DJ”

I mean, how is it that stupid people ALL OVER THE WORLD all end up reading from the same script when they decide they want to inflict psychic pain on you while you’re trying to rock the party?

I’ve built upon this with scores of my DJ colleagues and the uniformity of the stories is fascinating. Someone has to do a psychological study on it. I’ve collected tons of data first hand over the years. Is there some shared genetic defect in stupid people that is triggered by a nightclub environment? Does that have to do with the fact that stupid people are statistically more likely to go out to certain clubs? It’s like a perverse feedback loop of causality. Do they all get together in a huddle before they come to the club to maximize the annoyance factor of their strategy? Perhaps it’s a conspiracy waged by an international cabal of stupid people with the shared goal of driving all DJs into early retirement.

The one that makes me want to beat myself in the forehead with a ball peen hammer is:

“Everyone wants to hear it.”

AAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!

I’ve actually asked folks if they really polled the whole club to arrive at this assertion, just like in the song. Things usually go downhill from there.

I’ve grown pretty heartless over the last couple of years. My patience has been worn away to a cold, hard steely sheen, especially because there’s something about DJs that make people want to heap abuse on us in ways they would never dare in any other aspect of human interaction. Folks consistently say things to me that would automatically earn them a punch in the mouth if I weren’t behind the decks. Of course, I can’t do that, even if it’s warranted.

But woe unto the clubtards that approach me these days because I don’t hesitate to dispense liberal doses of non-violent face crack. And it doesn’t matter how fat your ass is and how much cleavage you jiggle in front of me. That will actually make me more likely to hurt your feelings. It’s funny to observe the strain on the faces of attractive women who can’t process the idea of a heterosexual man telling them no. Actually, that applies mostly to an environment where the primary goal of every man is to catch their attention.

Despite the effective coping mechanisms I’ve developed, I’m looking forward to sharing this song in a set. Thanks Andre.

UPDATE: Transcription! With notes!

10 things not to say to a DJ

1. PLAY SOMETHING GOOD…SOMETHING WE CAN DANCE TO! First of all, the DJ has to play for more than one person…so, what you may hate may be another’s favorite song EVERYTHING played here can be danced to one way or another.
(Stylus: How the hell do I know what YOU can dance to? I don’t know YOU like that. The companion to this one is “play something we know.” WTF?!!!!??? *facepalm*)

2. WOULD YOU PLAY SOMETHING WITH A BEAT? NOW COME ON LET’S BE SERIOUS! We know of NO song that is played in a club that don’t have some type of a beat!

3. I DON’T KNOW WHO SINGS IT AND I DON’T KNOW THE NAME OF THE SONG, BUT IT GOES LIKE THIS. Please Please Please Please don’t sing for the DJ! They have to put up with smoke-filled rooms and dangerous decibel levels all night. Do them a favor and DON’T give them a rendition of your favorite song.

4. EVERYBODY WANTS TO HEAR IT! Oh sure, I’m sure you went though the club and polled EVERYONE and now they sent you as their spokesperson, to request their favorite song. What ever get out of here…

5. I CAN GET LAID IF YOU PLAY IT! If you are GOOD ENOUGH, you can get laid to anything!! If you need ME to play a song for YOU to get laid, then you’ve got serious problems.

6. I WANT TO HEAR IT NEXT! The only people who can get away with that statement are the people that write the DJ’s paycheck! Plus more often than not, the DJ already has the next song already cued up and ready to go to the decks, we do not have time to look for your favorite song.

7. I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANNA HEAR…WHAT DO YOU HAVE? It’s a lot easier for you to go have another beer and figure out what it is you want to hear than it is for me to recite and name EVERY record I Have with me in the booth right now. Also don’t ask for a song list! I don’t know of any DJ that has an actual printed list of every song with them in the booth so like I said go get a beer hit the dance floor back up the bar.

8. HEY YO, NOBODY CAN DANCE TO THIS! It is not advisable to say this when the dance floor is packed (but, some people do anyway)! However, even if there is only ONE person on the floor, it STILL contradicts this statement. You’re just being rude. Have an open mind about music and go dance or just sit down.

9. EVERYBODY WILL DANCE TO IT IF YOU PLAY IT! Half the time I hear this, no-one goes to the dance floor except for the person that asked for it, and when they realize they’re the only one that wanted to dance to it, they bail off the dance floor. If you ask the DJ for a dance song and don’t dance to it, expect the DJ to ignore your requests for the rest of the night.
(Stylus: It’s not half the time. More like 100%. And I will call you out on the mic and note that “this bamma bothered me to play this song and no one wants to dance to it.”)

10. MOST IMPORTANTLY! If you’re at a club or an event that doesn’t play any hip-hop, don’t ask the DJ do you have any hip-hop? Just go outside to your car and turn on the radio or go home and watch MTV!
(Stylus: This is one of the worst and most common ones. Did you not know what club you were going to before you arrived?)

The “ho stroll” being my personal terminology for the mainstream gigs I occasionally play. Despite the fact that the money is always better than any of my gigs where I can be creative and play good music, the ho stroll gigs are becoming increasingly difficult. The last few of them paid for my birthday trip abroad and a bathroom renovation so I should be motivated to keep chasing that paper. But I’m struggling.

I basically have to play music I hate for people I can’t relate to. This nullifies my biggest asset, which is my ability to make an emotional connection with my audience, otherwise known as that whole vibe conducting thing.

It should be easy actually, because most of today’s popular music takes no skill to mix. Actually, you generally don’t have to mix at all. Most of the songs are mad slow and you just drop them on the one and folks go nuts.

To keep the ho stroll money steady, I have to stay current. Usually I just get a zip file from my WPGC connect. That’s much better than the days when I’d have to prepare for such gigs by actually wasting money buying the records. Of course those songs weren’t as bad as today’s songs either. Still, the instant playlist approach means that I end up not knowing the songs very well, so sometimes I have to break down and listen to the radio (nOva, you’re a bigger man than I.)

It withers the soul and makes my brain ache.

Occasionally there’s a decent tune. I’m not mad at the new Lloyd jont, with Weezy interpolating “Paid In Full”. But that appeals to my old school sensibilities so maybe that’s not a good example.

I was struck by the fact that The Dream has a tune with a good melody. The most classic way to make a solid song is so rare on commercial radio that when you hear a standout melody it’s an event. I can’t front though, T-Pain has crafted a few quality melodies. But the props I had ready for The Dream were soured when I heard the album version that has a refrain of “fuck that nigga” sung in falsetto. I recommend the radio edit.

And sometimes I feel like I’m the only one noticing things that should make everyone howl in disbelief, like hearing Too Short’s old ass (who I admittedly loved as a youth) drop these jewels…

I got ten bad bitches, actin’ retarded
I’m tryin’ to meet a few new ones
What’s up with you girl, maybe we can do somethin’
Do you drink, do you smoke?
I could tell by your purse and your shoes you ain’t broke
Hang with me, the first thing you do is get stuck
Take you somewhere, later on you’ll get fucked, beotch!

…sandwiched in between shout-outs from local high school girls. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever learn.

But the pièce de résistance (for now) has to be “Bust It Baby”. This one is actually worth an embed. First of all, I can’t believe this saga has three parts, one of which features Janet Jackson (to hell with you Jermaine Dupri).

I now offer an exercise in audience participation. What is the most coonerific facet of the video below?

- the song
- the “performance”
- the outfit
- the comments

Even my little sister – a millennial who generally digs such fare – was like “I have to draw the line somewhere”.

For the past 6 years I’ve had to deal with a lot of escalation of beef from the dj booth when I squash R. Kelly requests.

And the saddest part is that black women usually get the most indignant when I respond with “I don’t play the music of child molesters”.

A couple of times I’ve relented. And the joy in the room once I dropped the tune just made me feel terrible. Like a hypocrite.

I haven’t yet heard anyone whooping it up to “Not Guilty” (like ‘Tay predicted) but Jesus be my strength against a grand mal kirk-out if it does come to pass.

It’s much bigger than records at parties though.

We have to do better.

Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly’s absurd defense and find “reasonable doubt” despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly’s claims to innocence. *It is about our survival as a community*. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who’s Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Simmons

Organizations
The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

SHOWMANSHIP. Interplay. Creativity.

No push button dj’ing with explosions and gun shots all over everything. No safety net (the only safety net being the ability to improvise when something goes wrong… and something ALWAYS goes wrong on stage).

And I don’t mean a rap group with a turntablist who does his battle routine in the middle of the show. I’ll take the good ones over most modern day hip-hop shows but it’s not an integrated experience.

A DJ + an MC + a band + dancers. Hella rare in 2008. You definitely don’t need all of those ingredients but the most important part is actually putting some thought into it at the very least. Some personality & charisma go a long way.

Why do people pay money to see bammas walk back and forth across the stage shouting over each other and hardly engaging with the audience except to berate them or bully them? Is that supposed to be entertaining?

No wonder I rarely go to hip-hop shows anymore. And with record sales in the toilet, EVERYBODY has to tour these days, so the quotient of crap shows is shooting upwards.

And the “shows” that aren’t outright belligerent are really pep rallies. Most times if you hear that an act rocked their show, it wasn’t because their performance was particularly engaging. It’s because they have hits and everyone was excited to be in the same room with their favorite rappers yelling the lyrics at the top of their lungs. It’s a karaoke party. Admittedly, that can be fun sometimes (like the last time I saw A Tribe Called Quest) but in general I need a much more substantial experience for my concert dollars.

I guess I’m just old school.

And I’m fine with that.

Ladies & gentleman, gear whores and tech geeks… DJ Roger Troutman on the mix COMEONKICKIT!

Well, if he were white and used software and decks instead of a talkbox. Damn I miss that dude.

Anyway…

I’m coming in late on this one but lots of folks in the comments are clowning his skills on the cut. I think his chops are secondary to the creative possibilities. And for those I give this cat abundant props.

And now, a boon to anyone who will soon be looking to buy used turntables on the secondhand market:

I’m still adding to my collection but vinyl really is in death gurgle mode. The long goodbye is an emotional one.

And now a question to partygoers, might you be hyper-stimulated by a dj cutting it up on the decks and on a video screen simultaneously?

While we’re talking shop with each other, we dj’s constantly kick around war stories and share tips. The best of us intimately understand the complex psychological tightrope walk that a successful party rocking experience entails. The skillset isn’t completed by technical ability and encyclopaedic musical knowledge. The third and possibly most crucial element to good party rocking is emotional empathy. A good dj can pick up the emotional frequency of a room like an antenna was implanted in his/her brain. A great dj can then tune that frequency to one of their own choosing.

There are drawbacks to cultivating this sixth sense as a dj. When you’re that plugged in you can get easily get tainted. I’ve realized that whenever things are out of sync that may impede my ability control the room’s emotional energy, I experience heightened tension and anxiety. There are the obvious things like sound/technical problems but the subtle aspects are often more detrimental to my mission.

The pouty, salty chicks in the corner who aren’t going to enjoy themselves no matter how much fun everyone else is having make my job harder and give me a headache. You should have just stayed at home or gone to a spot that’s just like a trite rap video. Maybe you’ll be happy once you pay for the priviledge of standing in line for an hour, having your ass grabbed and some drinks spilled on you! Surly bouncers can sabotage me before folks even get through the door because insulted club patrons have harder hearts that are more difficult to win over. High drink prices are another culprit. I can see that wallet pinch on people’s faces and even worse I can read when they’re obsessed about that $15 they just dropped and are too frustrated to feel the music. And there’s always that person that thinks the dj is their personal servant rather than someone who is working for the good of everyone and is an artist in their own right. That stank aura of entitlement is quite contagious to other partygoers. Watch what happens the next time that one persistent prick starts browbeating the dj. They’ll inevitably be joined by copycats.

Basically though, whatever is troubling your soul when you walk into my party, most likely I’m aware of and really effected by it whether it’s significant (you lost your job) or frivolous (that b***h thinks she’s cuter than you). The sum of that bad energy is poisonous to a budding vibe and when it reaches a certain threshold it’s something that I become obsessed with conquering.

I’m of the opinion that it’s my job to make everyone happy if I can (sometimes it’s beyond my control) and I say I succeed about 99.99f the time. I can win over any room. ANY ROOM. That’s the standard I’ve set for myself and the reputation I have and it’s important to me. We all have varying tolerances for compromise as dj’s. Some jocks will acquiesce to every fool that pesters them in the booth. Others are militant and see it as offensive to their artistry to cater to tastes they perceive as lower than their own. I’m somewhere in the middle. I feel like I’ve reached a level where I can please a wide variety of people without selling out my principles. I once said that I would never play anything by R. Kelly so as not to co-sign on teen sexual abuse but in a moment of desperation at a gig I dropped a couple Arruh joints just to get folks to LEAVE ME THE F**K ALONE. I’m still conflicted about what I did.

To avoid crises of conscience and high blood pressure I generally don’t take gigs that are way out of my personal areas of interest – which is why I stopped hustling for those high profile mainstream club gigs many years ago… if I had to play krunk several nights a week I’d jump off of a building… let alone hyphy, snap music, Dipset or whatever other strains the niggalicious virus may mutate into – but if I have to switch gears while I’m in the trenches I’ll do what I have to do even if it’s not “my thing.” It’s funny when people think they know who I am as a dj are then surprised when I rip a crazy dancehall and soca set or figure out how to mix the newest radio jams with some old school classics. I’m always studying, y’all. I’m not easily defined.

So what’s the point? A fun night out is very subjective, as well as ideas of what “good” and “bad” music is. That’s why I can rock a party down to its foundation but I can never totally eliminate the potential for hating. And as long as that element of hate persists I can’t rest, even when it’s frequently unfounded. That’s the price I pay for the heightened instincts that make one a vibe conductor.

I’m not yet at a level where I’m so accomplished and so in demand that I can dismiss anyone who isn’t feeling me. But even if I do blow up I wouldn’t start thinking like that because it would go against one of the main things that makes me dope.