Inspired by a question on Plurk, I thought I might explain what separates the “DJs” (quotes on purpose) from the DJs.

First of all, let me welcome you to the year 2010, which is far beyond the early 2000’s where 128 kbit or less were acceptable due to slower internet connections. Nowadays, 128 kbit MP3 is a bag of shite. Decent audio quality starts at 192 kbit (OGG) or more (MP3). We are talking about music here, enjoyed with high-quality home entertainment equipment and/or great headphones. I’m not talking about cheap desktop speakers, plugged into poor-quality sound cards. If you haven’t got decent equipment yourself, or can’t afford to buy it, forget about the whole DJ’ing idea! A cheap in-world stream offer, WinAMP plus broadcasting plug-in, a cheap head set, and questionable music downloads are not suitable.

A Bad Example

Let me start with a bad example. Surely you’ve seen similar DJs in SL yourself.

The worst DJ I’ve seen so far in SL was playing on a 96kit MP3 stream, was apparently using WinAMP (or something similarly unsuitable) with a fixed playlist, did not try at all to smoothen the sound levels, apparently used some probably illegal and seriously down-sampled songs, did talk a lot (with noise of passing cars, and wife or g/f in the background), and the stream disconnected three times in half an hour (at which point I left, because it was unbearable). He blamed SL for that. So he’s also a liar, because the viewers connect straight to the stream server. They only pick up the stream URL from the SL servers, but then bypass it altogether. Looking at the stream URL, he apparently ran the stream on his own computer, not a server, with a dynamic ADSL IP address. At home, in other words. As the club was surprisingly crowded, the upstream bandwidth of his ADSL connection was obviously saturated, which led to stream disconnections and short gaps. (And no, the cheap streams you can buy in SL aren’t much better.) Anyway, enough geekery. This is just one quite impressive example of so-called “DJs” (quotes again on purpose) in SL. It is a bit frightening that there seem to be quite a lot of these in SL. So if you want to become a DJ in SL, be prepared to compete with these folks. You may know that you can do better, but your customers (aka club owners) may not be aware of it. It’s probably best not to depend on SL income as a DJ. (You would need to be absolutely outstanding anyway, if you wanted to cover all the costs of your equipment that way.) Do it for fun, and only for fun, but be eager enough to perform well. Charge only to separate the “I want it all for free” folks from serious club owners.

Equipment — The Basics

As a DJ in SL (or internet radio, which is technically the same), you can expect that many of the club visitors will have decent equipment. You can’t torture them with low-quality pirate tracks, which you’ve downloaded from questionable sources. Your audience wants great quality, smooth sound levels, no gaps, and — if you talk — a clear voice without any funny ambient noise.

Having said that, I should point out that being a DJ in SL is not cheap! At the very least you need:

• a quality stream on a server with enough headroom in performance and bandwidth
• high quality music material (original CDs, or high-quality files/purchases, for example from iTunes)
• decent mixing software with high-quality effects on a computer which offers performance headroom
• multiple audio out connectors (to allow for monitoring / pre-listening while other songs are on-air)
• if you plan to use voice (think twice!): a high-quality microphone, a hardware or software compressor for consistent levels, a very quiet room or excellent noise reduction built-in (ideally both)
• RL DJ’ing experience helps a lot (but isn’t a requirement)

At this point it should become pretty clear that a DJ, who wants to earn money with it (or at least cover their costs), can’t afford to perform on a tip-basis only. This is a catch 22 situation, though, because most club owners in SL are not willing to pay, because they have no clue how to run a club as a business. They never took into consideration that they can’t expect others to perform free of charge, just because they don’t have any financial means themselves.

My equipment for DJ’ing in SL, just to give an idea: MacBook Pro, Traktor Pro DJ’ing software with external controller and 4 Audio-Outputs, stream on my own physical server in an excellent data centre in London, Sennheiser Headphones, all Songs from my own CDs (384kbit MP3) and/or iTunes (at least 192kbit AAC). Software, Headphones, Audio-Outs and Controller cost altogether about £1,100. This does not include a microphone, because I don’t like to babble in SL. Plan another £200-400 for a suitable mike and compressor, if you need to talk. The MacBook is being used for my RL work as well, so I won’t count that in. And the songs obviously exceed this amount by far, and the library keeps growing.

The Software

It absolutely doesn’t matter whether you are on Windows or OSX, because excellent software is available for both. But before you think further, make sure your computer has got enough performance to offer, and is stable. If you have to run SL on the same machine (I do it, so it does work ), reduce all performance-eating features in SL to a minimum. Make sure you computer has got enough memory, so that it won’t start to swap to disk (that may kill your audio stream or cause gaps).

As mentioned before, I’m using Traktor Pro myself. This isn’t a cheap software, but it does provide excellent value for money. At the very least you need a software, which comes close to using real turn tables or CD decks, a mixer, and a bunch of effects. Your software must allow to route audio to different outputs, and it must provide monitoring facilities. For techno/dance DJ’s it is also crucial to have speed synchronisation (while keeping the pitch), snap-to-beat, loops, samples, and more than two decks available. For Rock DJ’s that is not very important, but sometimes nice to have. In either case, your software must show the wave form of a track (unless you absolutely know every song by heart). Otherwise you will be prone to fading too late or early, causing gaps, or talking over at the most unsuitable positions of the track.  Never rely on auto faders! Period. Some songs have trailing silence, causing the auto fader to kick in way too late. Some songs end with a big bang, while your next song starts loud, too. That must not be destroyed by any fading. Ideally you can trigger semi-automated fading by click, or have a very precise mouse/touchpad. Nothing is worse than an a hanging mouse while fading in/out or changing effects. External hardware controllers with faders, knobs and switches are even better.

In the effects section, the very least you need to have is compressor/limiter and auto gain. Your input material never has the same sound level. But your output should come very close to that. Also it’s very nice to have reverb, hall, and gater/fazer effects to create an authentic atmosphere.

Music always has got a very strong subconscious element to it, which influences how it is perceived, without actually being able to tell, why that is. Open-air sounds different than a factory hall. A bar has got different acoustical characteristics than a single small room. You may want to reproduce the atmosphere with the right effect settings to make it feel more realistic. Use it sparingly, though, and don’t change the general characteristics during the set.

Most mixing software has got equalisers built in as well. Only touch that for the monitoring output (your very own sound experience), or for “flat” tracks to enhance the dynamics a bit. Be very careful, though! It may sound great for you, but might be horrible for someone else. SL and internet radio are different from RL clubs. You need to leave the final sound finish to the audience, because they are not sharing your headphones, speakers, amplifiers etc.

Nothing Beats Experience & Flexibility

Whatever your software and hardware equipment, know it by heart! Practise a lot! Record your (training) sets, and listen to them a few days later again. Learn from your own mistakes.

Also, be prepared for your performance. That is, pre-select some tracks which you might want to play, and which fit into the theme of the club. Keep a whole bunch of other options available. But be also prepared that people might request songs, which don’t fit into your “plan”. Don’t play them, unless they fit into the theme, and you can smoothly include them. Often, song requests make one person happy, but may not be desired by the rest of the audience. Think twice, if you want to go down that route.

Remember that the job of a DJ is not to show-off or to be the hero of the day. A DJ’s job is to make the masses move their butts and have a great time. You can’t always predict which songs will be best. That develops during the set. The set may actually take a totally different direction than you thought it would! Hence, you can’t play fixed playlists or pre-recorded sets ever! While that is ok for internet radio, it’s not ok for a live performance in a club.

To club owners: If a DJ refuses up-front to play any requests at all during their performance, you can start taking bets whether or not the DJ performs live or plays prepared fixed playlists or mixes.

Right. Long text. Sounds a bit like a lecture, I know. But being DJ is not that easy, not in RL, not on the radio, not in Second Life. If you are a true music lover, and have the means to afford the right equipment, the rest may come more or less naturally though. Again, do it to enjoy yourself in the first place, not to earn cash.