Thinking about this last weekend

I was thinking a bit more about the set I spun this weekend, trying to get a feel for why I felt so disconnected. Of course, after a night of sleep it was fairly obvious: the setup.

When I got to the party everything was all set up. The DJ stuff was set up on a kind of balcony overlooking the main room. This has a few effects, all centering around me not really being able to hear what is going on well. With DJing you listen to what is currently playing and then in your headphones listen to the track you want to bring in. You can match up the beats that way. Now, if you don't have a speaker close enough to you the sound lag makes it harder to match up the beats. I get around this by doing most of my mixing in the headphones. I can also listen to the live channel in my headphones, it just makes it more difficult. As a result, when I was done I was exhausted. It is something I never even thought of there being an issue with really, since all the other parties I'd been right near the speakers. Live and Learn.

The second thing that caused me issues is more difficult to explain. When I'm spinning I get very focused on what I'm doing. I hate when people interrupt me constantly (interruptions now and then don't bother me as much). At the party I was in a fairly trafficed path. There were people always talking around me, interrupting me, etc. It just constantly pulled me away from getting fully focused. I think this was a bigger issue then setup actually.

Now, on the plus side. I think despite these things I did actually spin a pretty decent set. That was a good thing.