Blood, Sweat, and Tears: DJ'ing in Second Life (Part 1)

Well my friends today I'm proud to introduce to you what I hope to make one of my regular features that I call Blood, Sweat, and Tears. This will be where I will feature different posts of how to do different things within Second Life such as DJ'ing, photo editing, and who knows what kind of other stuff. To start things off I'm going to do an a look inside on how to DJ in Second Life as it is something I do a lot, and get a lot of joy out of. Without further ado I present to you Blood, Sweat, and Tears: DJ'ing in Second Life. 

As well feel free to send any feedback to my e-mail zephyr.windgate@gmail.com or on Facebook, and now to the article!!

Blood, Sweat, and Tears:  DJ'ing in SL 

DJ’ing in Second Life to most people seems to be a challenging endeavor, and many would love to actually do it because they want to share their love of music with the world. Sadly though when they try to ask for help they either do not get an answer back or they are pointed in the direction of going high end and dropping a ton of money on new equipment. Well my friends as a DJ myself, I learned my tricks and tips from friends and on my own experiences, but at the same time though there is really a lack of a clear cut guide of how to actually DJ in Second Life. That thought is what prompted myself to write this article, and I’m not going to do it hastily either which is why it will be a few different parts focusing on the basics of getting a good set up, the different ways to be a DJ, different types of ways to get your start, and a retrospective in which I’ll feature numerous DJ’s recounting their war stories of their very first big gig. 

So for now we are focusing on the different ways to DJ, and I bet you are asking yourself this question right now... 

What Exactly is a DJ in Second Life?

This right here I feel is something that causes a lot of confusion in Second Life, and even to a degree in real life too. To this end what exactly is a DJ? Is it a person who plays music in a club or radio station, or a person who mixes different tracks together in the attempt to create something new and fun? Well the answer to the question is a DJ is all of those things and more because as a friend of mine posted sometime ago on Facebook a DJ is a catch all for different types of things. So what this means is that each one of those things I described before is a DJ, and that means if you want to be a DJ in Second Life there most likely is a place for you in Second Life to do what you want to do.

To go a little more in depth let's go ahead and look at what each type of DJ does so you can gain a little bit of a better understanding of each of them within SL. For starters why not start with the DJ that you probably hear on a regular basis in Second Life the DJ who is playing music and talking with their audience in world. This type of DJ is actually a hybrid of the DJs you hear on the radio and in some cases similar to DJs like Deadmau5 and Skrillex who are mixing songs together and creating a new beat. The two types of DJs that are described are the radio DJ who uses their voice to entertain the audience and give them a memorable experience while playing music. An example of a radio DJ is just what it sounds like it's the people that you listen to on a regular basis on the radio (another term for radio DJ is radio personality). Now the other example is more of an artist approach to DJ'ing in that they will take songs and mix them with unique beats or other songs thus creating something completely new. Examples of these types of DJ’s are artists such as Skrillex and Deadmau5. Although yet another approach to DJ'ing within SL is that you make a playlist of certain songs that will try to evoke a certain mood or atmosphere, and even beyond that you have live mixing which is taking it one song at a time and changing things on the fly. 

As you can see being a DJ can be many different things whether you use your voice as your tool for entertaining or use the music to do the talking for you. Now never let anyone say DJ'ing is one thing or another because as a fellow DJ told me it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you entertain the crowd and have fun doing it. In that belief I think that is the true essence of being a DJ.

Stay tuned for next week as we will dive in further on DJ’ing in Blood, Sweat, and Tears!