u/bicykiller

Hey fam! Recently had a gig where they provided some dmx lighting trees and we thought "let's use the lighting feature in rekordbox!"
After upgrading to the pro account, finding and assigning the lights, nothing worked. The guys were stumped and so was I but ran out of time and had to start playing anyways.
The lights were on and functioning as usual but weren't showing any signs of communication. So I'm wondering, have any of you experienced this? Is it software or hardware? I think it could be a nice addition to sets in the future. Thanks!

This may be long... and let me preface by I do not consider myself a professional by any means, but I have been practicing and playing at home for about a year.

I just did my first paid gig, a 5 hour rave themed birthday in Minneapolis. Yeah, I was panicked too! I accepted the gig under the condition that I was not going to get into wedding/open format vibes. The host agreed and said she only wanted heavy, loud bass. Ok great. So where to start?!?!

At first, I was going mad trying to make a magical playlist that would do it all and it was making me crazy. I wasn't feeling it.

Little did I know, my recent trip to EDC would be the answer.

What I love about EDC is that it's a giant rave but with tons of different vibes and genres. So I created an outline that I thought would kinda walk the midwest moms through a musical journey. And it worked.

First two hours was curated house music, pulled from top 100 and various playlists I liked. While one song was playing, I was skipping through finding the next... similar bpm? key? let's go. I was doing hot cues on the fly by noticing the length of waveform based on my beat jumps. The floor was empty for the first 1.5 hours besides the occasional "look I'm on the dance floor!" but I expected this and just focused on listening to and playing good ass music.

Ok, it's 9p... time to drop Minneapolis's favorite, Prince... I would die for you packed the floor with newly drunk and high party goers! Then flipped into 2000's trance, this was inspired by EDC again hearing Tiesto, Oakenfold, and Bluestone, made me remember some of the very first electronic songs I ever heard. Throw in Airwave, and all the classics too.

By this time, I have pretty good feel of the room. They just wanna let loose but were still a little worried about what others thought of them. I killed my lighting tree and had just a few lazers and haze... this was perfect.

I moved into my Rave Hits playlist I had made and kinda selected what I thought would keep it going. The floor got emptier and emptier... damn... BUT I was having so much fun playing this music on a loud ass system so just kept it going with what I liked!

I had one guy that kept walking past the booth saying "Play some metal" and one request for "80's" which I just said, I'll see what I can do.

My peak was mostly dubstep which I kicked off with a gag that Subtronics did with Vanessa Carlson which packed the floor with people singing along "I would walk 1000 miles, just to seeeee yoooooouuuu", then BOOM hit them with subtronics afb1 and then a playlist of dubstep that was INSANE! They loved it and I did too, it was my favorite part of the night, the floor was shakinging, everyone was DOWN. This is also when I got the most nervous double dropping, mixing mid songs, but it happened and I cant even remember it lol! Like I blacked out.

After that sweaty section, they start singing happy birthday which I fade out the music and load the first closing song fred again places to be messie remix and hit play right after "tooooo youuuuuuu" played a handful of fred again, tourist, the blaze, and wrapped it up with sultan and shepard Zima and the very last song, the host's one request, Innerbloom which was a magical ending. I put on some ambient droney stuff like what fred did at the end of his USB2 sets and walked away and used the bathroom for the first time that night!

It wasn't perfect but no one noticed. My computer crashed, but just took a moment to thank everyone and to tell a story about the birthday girl. I also played a full song with the bass OFF... didn't realize it until I was bringing in the next track, but again, no one noticed!

Now, here's what's interesting... I spent sooooo much time worrying about people watching me, what if I mess up, what if I dance dumb... when I joined the party afterwards, NO ONE knew who I was! Like literally, "you were the dj?!?!?!" it was kinda awesome and humbling. If this story helps anyone get over the fear of doing something like this, just know that no one cares! Play good music, set the vibe and you've done it. I had an outline and notes of where I wanted to go but pretty much freestyle it the whole 5 hours. I will say eventually I could "feel" the music and when/how to transition... and it was like magic. I think this is what good DJ's understand and execute so well.

Man, this is a lot of rambling just to say the youtube idea of a DJ isn't real life. Trust yourself and your music. I literally got paid to play music I like on a dope system really loud.

What's everyone wearing shorts wise? ALD seems to only offer mostly athletic or denim variants at the moment... the linen one's are the only one's I'd wear. Do I just need to get with the times, LOL.. any other shorts recommendations?