In the last issue we discussed the 1st part of professionalism as an artist.  We dove into the artist’s general professional behavior and his attitudes toward professionalism.  I think that we laid a pretty good solid foundation to build upon.  I thought it was important to do that to understand the general behavior of a successful artist.  We now will move onto more meat on how to secure gigs that will help your career locally, regionally and so on as you expand your influence.  We will also discuss ways to hold onto the connections you desperately need to maintain your money making ability.  Hopefully we as a community are using some of the thoughts from the first part of this two part series.

This article is part one of a two part mini-series on professionalism as a performing artist.  We have had some discussions on the tastyfresh.com forums about goals and plans for the New Year; and it is only appropriate at this time to further dive into ways to increase our professionalism.  I do believe it is not understood properly and severely underutilized as a way to increase pay, gigs, connections, and overall artist prestige. This month we will discuss general professionalism and the artist’s attitude toward it.  Next month we will get in more detail about create ways to get the professional gigs you want and to hold onto the connections you desperately need to maintain making some money.

If you have been a DJ or live performer within the EDM circle you probably are pretty used to receiving criticism.  It not only comes with the territory, but rather is completely ingrained into the scene.  Most non-pro DJs will release mixdisks and unreleased non-completed tracks and ask for feedback.  They actually cry out for the feedback so they can get better; but when mixing live…oh boy.  It is a different story. Any DJ will tell you that one of their biggest complaints about DJing out is the clientele’s bothersome comments.  Can you play the music lower?  Do you have anything jazzier?  Are you going to play dance music tonight?  Of course these comments are made while you have at least one headphone on your ears.  Either listening to the next track or even performing the perfect mix.

Today, mobile DJs are taking on more tasks that require more setup consideration.  One thing that most mobile DJ’s need to consider in their budget or future purchases is lighting.  How you are going to control them comes into consideration depending on what gigs you do and your budget.  First for your lighting setup, you need to decide if you want to go with DMX or non-DMX controlled lighting.  Depending on the size of your budget, you can start with non-DMX lighting and then upgrade to DMX lighting later on.  If you already can afford and want to go with DMX controlled lighting, it is a good choice for lighting.

It wasn’t until about three months ago that I seriously started to consider taking my music from the studio to the stage in the form of a live performance. Until January, I didn’t start collecting the gear I would need for it. Here’s my number one issue, despite having owned a slick pioneer DJ setup for years, I never had the time or the burning desire to practice and therefore it left me as anything but a DJ. Given that and the fact that I did not own a laptop and all of my music was built from softsynths, I basically decided to write any form of performance out of my life. Then, Oneel and Fitzpatrick approached me about doing a podcast on BTUlive.com. All of the sudden, I felt as though everything had changed.

In this article I will show how I get ready to DJ with Ableton Live and also show one way to setup your DJ rig in Ableton.   The great thing about Ableton Live is just because this is how one person does it, you do not have to follow my setup exactly.  Ableton gives you the ability to setup your rig how ever you want.   We all think differently and Ableton frees us to mix the way we think rather than being stuck with 2 or 4 channels, a cross fader, and cue points.

If I said Ableton Live were like a Swiss Army Knife you might expect this article to be a laundry list of features.  So, I’m not going to say that.  A plethora of features doesn’t win the day.  Functionality and usability do.  Live is an elegantly designed audio program, built in such a clever way that it does a number of things well. Digital DJing is one of them.

Most people do not like to talk about money unless their day job directly involves sales or money. It is typically hard to bridge the gap from "Yes, I will play your event." to "How much are paying?" So, in this edition of "The Drop", we are going to talk about money. The Bible has lots to say about money and is clear about a worker's wage. Our obedience with money can and will effect our walk with God.

As you probably have noticed, there is no REAL Drop this issue. I sent out about 15 emails and private messages to people, and either they were not interested in writing a Drop or I did not receive any response. Because of this, there will be no official Drop this time out.

Clubs are there for profit. It follows that the most fruitful and opportunistic area to look at are where you, the DJ/promoter, can bring in a new type of music or experience and make the club money.