04/21/2026
There’s an objection DJs get used to hearing … “How hard is it to just push play?” Sure some DJs are sick of hearing it but it doesn’t bother me. We have millions of people who have become accustomed to the instantaneous satisfaction of the internet doing what they want with a single tap. Streaming TV shows, movies, games, and music - it’s so easy. You do it at home all the time. How difficult is it to perform the same function in front of an audience?
There is a lot more than pushing the play button in a DJ’s life. There’s also a cray button and a slay button. Kidding. But there should be. 🧐
There is a play button but there are also hours and hours of curation and planning before a gig, knowing the vibe and lyrics and tempo and sound of a song, reading and working a crowd, making seamless song transitions, public interaction with clients and guests, and vendors and other DJs, and so on into the infinite bliss of the starving artist stereotype. When planning an event or a party, people don’t think of these things. To be honest, they shouldn’t have to. It’s a DJ’s job to do their work so well that their audience thinks they are just pushing a button.
The software DJs use - Serato, Virtual DJ, or something else - all have more features than any single person will ever use. These tools are designed to make playing music easier for DJs and make us all sound cooler than we actually are. It’s also helped me become a better DJ than what I was when I started DJing in 2003. I’ve been honing these skills to varying degrees of success in the time since the pandemic ended. Beat matching, pitch-shifting, scratching, effects, loops, stems, etc. It’s so much fun. (ps: scratching is not my forte - I still need a lot of practice there.)
All this to say, I learned how to do a new thing today that gets me one step closer to completing an idea I dreamed up a couple years ago. Sampling. Dude. It’s a huge world of possibilities. Now I just need to figure out how to export my samples so I can use them in GarageBand. I also need to learn more about how to use GarageBand but that’s a whole extra story.
Anyway … thanks for letting me geek out for a moment.
