- The weight of great sounding 18" subs
- Missing out on Saturdays with my family
- Never knowing if I'm really "good enough" to keep doing what I love doing.
That will probably never change you just get more used to it
- The weight of great sounding 18" subs
- Missing out on Saturdays with my family
- Never knowing if I'm really "good enough" to keep doing what I love doing.
I did my first DJ gig just about 1 year and 1 month ago to the day. So I'm a 1 year veteran. At the young age of 46, Here is what I have...
Dis-likes
- The weight of great sounding 18" subs
- Missing out on Saturdays with my family
- Never knowing if I'm really "good enough" to keep doing what I love doing.
- Don't use 18" Subs. There is literally ZERO reason to even use them other than your own audio Pleasure fulfillment! ...Maybe a Big High School Dance or big College Event warrants using an 18" Sub or two of them, but how many gigs each year do you do like this?
- I use 12" Subs, and about 60% of the events I do, I don't even use a Sub.
Missing out on Family time with Saturdays - You have two Options. Only take events that come in on Fridays, Sundays, and the rare week day events. You will earn far less money unless you are in with a venue or multiple venues that just happen to be good at booking Sunday thru Friday events. The 2nd option is to limit the number of Saturdays you book each year. If you limit yourself to only booking say 20 Saturdays a year...That gives you 32 Saturdays a year to be off and spend with your family. You won't ever be given enough time to block specific Saturdays off before you book one for most family event engagements, but limiting the number of Saturdays you do book to 50% or less of all available Saturdays through out the year will give you a nice balance of Saturdays to spend with family. I use to book 38 to 45 Saturdays EVERY YEAR prior to 2018. I think I booked like 29 in 2018, and then about 25 in 2019. Then 2020 came, and after 2020 I will never book 38+ Saturdays a year again! Moving forward I won't book more than 26 Saturdays a year!
For the third one - Honestly, after 22 years I am less "Vein" or Up Tight, or Worrisome about my Skill, or Self Image. I simply work how I want, and what I am comfortable doing. If others have a problem with how I work, or how Good I am as a DJ, they can go kick rocks because I don't care what others think much these days. I have mellowed out a good bit with that since Covid. I expect myself to mellow out even more as I get older.
Dealing with drunks is another thing that I got tired of which is why I won't do bars any more (That and the pay is AWFUL)
I got to say your issue with using 18" subs for me is a bit much. Some events we don't need to use subs. Others we do need to use them. We have done events in very large rooms that you can't do an event without at least one sub. For me it's better to have it and not need it, then to need it and not have it. Let me also that some of those events were not for a school dance. I remember another DJ doing a wedding reception in a hotel that we were doing an event in. The room for that reception was a huge ballroom. One of those that can be sectioned off into 3 separate rooms. That was a large crowd in that room. So no getting away with not using a sub and in that large room with that many people you definitely would need to use 2 as a minimum.- Don't use 18" Subs. There is literally ZERO reason to even use them other than your own audio Pleasure fulfillment! ...Maybe a Big High School Dance or big College Event warrants using an 18" Sub or two of them, but how many gigs each year do you do like this?
- I use 12" Subs, and about 60% of the events I do, I don't even use a Sub.
Missing out on Family time with Saturdays - You have two Options. Only take events that come in on Fridays, Sundays, and the rare week day events. You will earn far less money unless you are in with a venue or multiple venues that just happen to be good at booking Sunday thru Friday events. The 2nd option is to limit the number of Saturdays you book each year. If you limit yourself to only booking say 20 Saturdays a year...That gives you 32 Saturdays a year to be off and spend with your family. You won't ever be given enough time to block specific Saturdays off before you book one for most family event engagements, but limiting the number of Saturdays you do book to 50% or less of all available Saturdays through out the year will give you a nice balance of Saturdays to spend with family. I use to book 38 to 45 Saturdays EVERY YEAR prior to 2018. I think I booked like 29 in 2018, and then about 25 in 2019. Then 2020 came, and after 2020 I will never book 38+ Saturdays a year again! Moving forward I won't book more than 26 Saturdays a year!
For the third one - Honestly, after 22 years I am less "Vein" or Up Tight, or Worrisome about my Skill, or Self Image. I simply work how I want, and what I am comfortable doing. If others have a problem with how I work, or how Good I am as a DJ, they can go kick rocks because I don't care what others think much these days. I have mellowed out a good bit with that since Covid. I expect myself to mellow out even more as I get older.
I will also say that eventually you reach a point to where you still like being a DJ, but you don't LOVE everything about it like you once did when you were much younger. I'm in it more for the money at this point, then the actual love of being a DJ, and the high you get from getting people to dance, and having an awesome mix of music. Honestly, events have changed a bit in many cases...dealing with planners, and the entitlement of SOME clients, their parents, and even some guests ends up getting old. Dealing with drunks is another thing that I got tired of which is why I won't do bars any more (That and the pay is AWFUL)
You just got the wrong bar gigs I do very well on the easiest gig of my life every Friday
Maybe, I am sure there is probably a bar somewhere that the owner/management and staff are just great people, AND the customers are real cool too. And the load in/out is super simple, AND the gig doesn't go to 1:30 or 2 am or even later. AND the pay is not peanuts...If I could find a bar like that LOCAL to me, I probably would like to have a routine gig there.
However, EVEN if the place hit on all points...I don't think I would want to work EVERY Friday night. I don't think I want a weekly gig at this point. I actually enjoyed being off today. I went shopping. I came home. Didn't have to worry about getting ready to go do a gig. A good friend called me out of the blue and I was able to talk with him for almost 90 minutes (We hadn't talked since June). I made dinner. and am now relaxing drinking hot cocoa
I think if I did go for a routine bar gig, I would want like a twice a month type of deal...not every week. Every other week would be sufficient for me. And the times would have to be right...like 8 p.m. to Mid Night or 9 p.m. to mid night, or 8 p.m. to 11 p.m....I wouldn't want to be out too late since I will often have a wedding to go do on Saturday. I could do a 1 am end time, but would prefer not to! I guess I'm probably asking for too much with a bar gig...Too picky, but I'm at a point where I don't need bar gig money, and am simply going to be real choosy if I even decide to get back into doing them. I know one thing...I'm not driving far to do one so There is a real finite number of places that would even be considerable for me.
For example, the bit rate debate years ago. Yes, if you listened to a higher bitrate song through headphones and compared it back and forth with a lower bit rate identical song, you'll notice the difference. In a real world scenerio, with ambiant noise and nothing else to compare to, never.
Same goes for bass. Lugging around duel 18" subs for wedding just never seemed worth it to me
In my opinion, I believe some djs worry about things that make no difference whatsoever to clients.
These gigs are readily available, I have several bars I play on a regular basis that would be exactly what you described, one I have been playing at for 30 yearsMaybe, I am sure there is probably a bar somewhere that the owner/management and staff are just great people, AND the customers are real cool too. And the load in/out is super simple, AND the gig doesn't go to 1:30 or 2 am or even later. AND the pay is not peanuts...If I could find a bar like that LOCAL to me, I probably would like to have a routine gig there.
However, EVEN if the place hit on all points...I don't think I would want to work EVERY Friday night. I don't think I want a weekly gig at this point. I actually enjoyed being off today. I went shopping. I came home. Didn't have to worry about getting ready to go do a gig. A good friend called me out of the blue and I was able to talk with him for almost 90 minutes (We hadn't talked since June). I made dinner. and am now relaxing drinking hot cocoa
I think if I did go for a routine bar gig, I would want like a twice a month type of deal...not every week. Every other week would be sufficient for me. And the times would have to be right...like 8 p.m. to Mid Night or 9 p.m. to mid night, or 8 p.m. to 11 p.m....I wouldn't want to be out too late since I will often have a wedding to go do on Saturday. I could do a 1 am end time, but would prefer not to! I guess I'm probably asking for too much with a bar gig...Too picky, but I'm at a point where I don't need bar gig money, and am simply going to be real choosy if I even decide to get back into doing them. I know one thing...I'm not driving far to do one so There is a real finite number of places that would even be considerable for me.