It's been a while since my last blog on DJing in Second Life, so I thought it was a good time to get back to this. Before I jump in though, I suppose it's time for a little personal info :).
First, I don't just want to ask you to believe me when I say I know what I'm talking about (most of the time :) ), so let me give you my credentials.
- Over 15 years DJing in SL
- 6 years as a DJ Manager
- 2.5 years as a club owner
- I've trained over a dozen successful DJs
- While I can't really put a time on it because it was always "as needed" I've also hosted a ton.
- I was inducted into the Second Life DJ Hall of Fame in 2018.
- Inducted to the Second Life Honorary Hall in August 2023.
So as you can see, I'm not just some ditz that suddenly got a bee in her bonnet to write a blog about DJing. I have a lot of experience at this, and I have a pretty good grasp on what works and what doesn't.
Now a little on why I never voiced before. As you know from my first blog on DJing in SL (You DID read my first blog, RIGHT?!), I was a voiceless DJ in SL. Now as I said in that blog, I have my reasons for not voicing, and now I'm going to share them with you. There are actually 2 reasons that I've never used voice to DJ in SL before. One is that I have a speech impediment - I stutter. It used to be really bad, but over the years I've learned some techniques to help me control it in a lot of situations. Unfortunately, trying to have a conversation online with lag, accents, and everyone talking over each other, or trying to voice live during a set while DJing are definitely NOT 2 of those situations. So as a result I've never had a voice conversation online, and I've never used voice in my sets when I DJ (with one exception). The other reason is that my setup prohibits using voice effectively. I stream my music from another PC (our home server) which I run by remote control. This was something I started doing way back when I started DJing because my PC at the time would crash if I tried to stream and run SL at the same time on it. So anyway, while that is a solvable problem, it would require a lot of work to move my whole music library over and re-do my database, and I never had any incentive to tackle that job due to the stuttering. Not to mention I like this setup, it's worked well for me and it's kept my music streaming a few times when I've had the crashies.
That was how I did my sets up until about 2 months ago. In fact I do still use the same setup, but I found a way that I can work around both problems (And no I didn't hire an actor to stand in front of the server and voice for me!)
Ok I'm sure you're all wondering what this magic solution I've found is, and I'll tell you all about it a little later (I know, I'm evil!), but first I want to expand on my chapter from my first blog on adding voice to your SL DJ Toolkit.
Chapter 1 - Using Voice Effectively
First off, let me say that everything from this point on is my opinion, and my opinion alone. You will have no trouble finding experienced, top-notch DJs that disagree with a lot of what's coming next. That's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, and this blog is not targeted to ace DJs that have been DJing and using voice effectively for 10 years. They already know what they're doing and don't need my advice. This is for those of you who are just starting out and want some advice on how to be good at this. That being said, I'm going to start off by telling you two things:
1) While I do not consider voice to be the be-all end-all of SL DJing, most club owners do not share my opinion. Lots of clubs insist on the DJ speaking, even though it's not all that important in the grand scheme of things. While you can have a DJ career without using voice, you will have far, far more opportunities if you do. So with all that being said, if it's at all possible you should definitely add voice to your toolkit.
2) You should not even attempt to use voice until you've mastered every other aspect of DJing from my first blog. You should be able to engage with the crowd, and deliver a fun and entertaining set, handle requests, and run events without ever using voice. Unless of course you decide to go with my technique that I'm going to tell you about later (Yes I know, I'm being evil again!). That can get you using voice sooner without impacting your becoming proficient at everything else that goes into being a good DJ.
Ok I know what you're thinking. If voice is such a valuable tool, then why shouldn't I jump in and start using it right away? Well, because using voice is a catch 22. It can definitely enhance your set. It can also derail your set if you do it poorly. Learning to DJ effectively is hard. It takes time, practice, and experience to be good at it. Learning to use voice effectively is even harder. If you try to do both at once, chances are you're going to end up being lousy at both of them, and you'll end up not being a very good DJ.
Don't believe me? Start paying attention to what the DJ is doing when you go to clubs (this is something you should be doing anyway if you want to be a good DJ). Here's a few mistakes you're going to see from the vast majority of DJs (I mentioned these in my first blog but they're definitely worth repeating):
1) DJ Blabbermouth - I mentioned this one in my first blog. You're DJing at a dance club, you're not Howard Stern hosting a talk radio show. The worst thing you can do is get on the mic and endlessly monologue while everyone in the dance club are looking like fools dancing around to your incessant droning. Note: There are exceptions to this. Some DJs are SO good on the mic that the limit for the time they should be spending on the mic is MUCH higher. These DJs are rare though, and if you're just starting out, that's not you, so don't babble.
2) DJ Stompy - This is another one of my favorites, and another one I mentioned in my first blog. There's nothing more annoying than a DJ that constantly feels the need to stomp on the music and throw in his $.02 on something in the middle of a song. I think you could get away with this once in a very great while, but most DJs that do this do it constantly.
3) DJ Snooze - This is the DJ that you never hear from in local chat. He just falls asleep in between mumbling something on the mic every 15 minutes or so, and doesn't lift a finger to help his host keep chat in the club going.
4) DJ Interruptus - This is the guy that feels the need to blabber on the mic after every single song (or every other song almost as bad), constantly interrupting the flow of the set.
5) DJ Mumbles - This is the one that has you reaching for the volume knob every time he talks because either he's mumbling, or his gain is so low you can't hear a word he's saying, or he sounds like he's whispering in church.
6) DJ Um - "Hi everybody, I'm DJ... um... Um, and, coming up I've got some, ...um... Aerosmith, and some, ...uh..., AC/DC. Please remember to ...<cough>... tip my host... er... Megan!"
Ok, you get the idea right?
7) DJ Huh? - Ok I'm going to expand on this one a little, because in some ways it's not fair. And in some ways it is. This is the DJ for whom English (or whatever language the club uses) is not his first language and he speaks with a heavy accent. Now this isn't fair because clubs demand DJs talk, so he has to do it even though it's not his native language. However, there are things he can do to make his use of voice more effective.
8) DJ Distraction - This is the one who is constantly shouting at his kids, or shushing the dog, or chasing the cat off the desk, or yelling to his wife, or whatever in the middle of his voice overs. This one really makes you roll your eyes.
9) DJ Noisy - This is similar to Distraction, except he may actually be focused on what he's saying, you just can't hear him because the wife is listening to TV in the background, or the neighbor is cutting his lawn, or there's roadwork going on, or the dog is constantly barking, etc.
I could probably think of a few more, but you get the idea. It's very, very hard to do this right and not fall into one or more of these traps. I actually saw a DJ that was a combination of 1, 3, 4, and 7 the other day. This DJ spoke with a heavy accent, would speak after every single song, would talk for at least 2 minutes every single time, and wasn't contributing at all in local chat. Needless to say I left that place in a hurry. So this is why I think you should wait and become good at the other aspects of DJing before trying to add voice to the mix. If everything else is automatic, you've got a better shot at learning to do this effectively. If you're trying to remember how to work your downloader, struggling with multi-tasking, trying to learn the ins and outs of your broadcaster, and a million other things while you're trying to learn how to use voice, you're not going to do it well.
Now I'm not going to keep you hanging here, the point of this is to help you use voice in your sets effectively, so I'm going to give you some tips on how to avoid the traps listed above.
1) DJ Blabbermouth - This is an easy one. First off, script out what you plan on saying ahead of time. This requires preparation, and if you just try to wing it you won't do it well. Secondly, put hard time limit of 1 minute on your voice overs. Some should be longer than others. Your introduction at the beginning of the set might run 30-60 seconds, and your goodby at the end. Other than that, work on being concise. Not everything has to be on voice, so make extensive use of local chat. Practice what you scripted and see how long it takes. Not only will practicing it make you sound a lot more polished when you do it live, but this is a great proofreading technique. By the time you get to your set, all of your voice bits should be clear, concise, and polished. And remember - If its more than 60 seconds, you're talking too much!
2) DJ Stompy - This just requires some discipline. While I did say you can get away with this now and then, honestly you should set a policy for yourself that you are never going to do this. There is nothing you have to say that's so important that it can't wait until in-between songs. This one doesn't really require any practice or preparation, it's just something you need to be aware of and make up your mind to never do. Exception: It's ok to voice over the beginning of the song to introduce a request rather than do a voice break in order to keep the flow going. Just keep it short ("Here's a request for Karen!" is about all you want if you do this), don't jump in in the middle of the song, and don't make a speech!
3) DJ Snooze - The real trick here is not to unlearn everything you learned in the first few weeks when you start using voice. It's important to remember that voice is just one tool in your toolbox, not the entire thing. Be active in local, and use local chat for the bulk of your communication with the guests. Keeping chat flowing and the energy level high in a club for the duration of a 2 hour set is a monumental task, and very few hosts can pull that off on their own (I've known a few, but that's for another blog). If you learn to work as a team with your host and stay active in local chat, you've got a much better chance of pulling that off. Commit to being active in local chat, it's part of the job, and it's a very big part.
4) DJ Interruptus - This is another discipline thing. Discipline and planning. You can't be a kid with a new toy when it comes to voice. If you remember what I said in my first blog, the music is your number 1 most important tool, and every time you jump on the mic you interrupt the flow of the music. Now one thing that helps here is to use background music when you talk, this not only gives you better continuity with the music, but it also gives you a visual cue on how long you've been talking. This one comes down to creating a schedule for when you are going to do voice overs (allowing some wiggle room for spontaneity, but don't be spontaneous after every song!) and sticking to it. Unless you're a very gifted speaker you should probably not be talking more than once every 15 minutes, and every 20-30 minutes is better. This is a repeating theme, but make use of local chat. The most effective DJs are the ones that balance their voice overs with heavy interaction in local chat.
5) DJ Mumbles - This one comes down to practice, practice, practice. You should get some help with this one, find a friend who is willing to listen to you and give you honest feedback on how you sound. I don't mean what your voice sounds like, your voice is your voice. What I mean is are you speaking loudly enough? Are you speaking clearly enough? Are you speaking too fast? Are you speaking too slow? Are you fading in and out? Is your background music too loud? These are all things you need an impartial opinion on. And tell whoever agrees to help you to be brutally honest. It may sting hearing that you're talking like mush mouth, but it will help you understand what you need to work on to improve.
6) DJ Um - Scripting and Practice. Every time you speak on the mic you are public speaking. Have you ever heard of a public speaker who goes out there without a prepared speech? Write down what you want to say, and either practice it until you can recite it from memory, or just read it directly. This is one I'm sure I'll get some pushback on from experienced DJs as reading your bit DOES make you sound a bit robotic and less natural. If you have the ability to go on the mic and just wing it and get your point across without stammering or stumbling, move on, there's nothing for you here. if you're stumbling and bumbling your way through your bits though, scripting and sounding a little robotic beats fumbling and bumbling 10 times out of 10.
7) DJ Huh? - This is all about understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses, and unless you're Ricardo Montalban if you're trying to DJ in a language you're not extremely fluent in, talking on the mic is not likely to be one of your strengths. That doesn't mean you have to abandon it, but it does mean you should be focusing on other tools in your bag of tricks, and minimize your time on the mic. Avoid long speeches at all costs. Focus on being very concise on the mic and not overly frequent. This should satisfy the requirement of club owners that you use voice without exposing a weakness. As time goes on you will probably become more fluent in the language through frequent use, but for the time minimize your use of voice and focus more on using local chat to communicate.
8) DJ Distraction - DJing a 2 hour set is mentally exhausting. You have to try and keep track of what's going on in local chat all while juggling the music chasing down requests, dealing with constant IMs, greeting guests, running events, and making your voice cues. If you're running around dealing with chaos in your house, there's no way you're going to be able to manage all of that effectively. Commit to your set. Make sure all possible distractions are dealt with ahead of time as much as possible, and make sure your family, girlfriend, roommates, or whatever understand that you will be busy and are not available except for an emergency for the next two hours.
9) DJ Noisy - As much as possible, secure your environment. While you can't always 100% control noise in the world around you, you can do your best beforehand to minimize it as much as possible. A little common sense and some flexibility goes a long way here. If there's something going on outside that's loud that you can't control, then it would be prudent to cut way back on, or eliminate entirely your use of voice for that set. If you do voice, keep it very short and do it during quiet times. I know this sucks, but sometimes a strategic retreat is your best option.
Ok there you have it. 9 common voicing traps many if not most DJs fall into, and some steps you can take to avoid them. Now look, let's be real here. You can do everything on this list, and do everything right to the best of your ability, and that still doesn't guarantee that will make you the best voice DJ in Second Life. A lot of this also comes down to natural talent and ability. Some people just have that fantastic voice, or that gift of gab, or incredible personality, or even professional training that allows them to do this on an entirely different level. Maybe you are one of those DJs. But even if you're not, if you take your time and learn to do this properly you can absolutely make using voice an effective weapon in your arsenal.
Chapter 2 - Cherry's Magic Solution
Talking live on the mic isn't for everybody. Maybe you have a speaking challenge like me, maybe you're very shy, or maybe you just don't want to do it for whatever reason. And let's face it, talking live on the mic is terrifying. But there is another option. It's a bit of a compromise, but I think it's a good one. So what's this magic solution?
Pre-Record your voice bits!
The first time I ever used this technique was way back in 2014 when the original Heroes closed. I was selected as the DJ for the final set at the club, and I was extremely emotional over being selected for that honor. I wanted to do something special, and I had never spoken on the mic before so I wanted to do a spoken goodbye to everyone at the end of the set. Due to everything I detailed at the beginning of this blog I knew I couldn't do it live, so I came up with the idea of pre-recording my goodbye speech. I pulled it off and it was a big hit! So why didn't I just keep doing it then? Honestly, creating this thing was such a horrifying experience for me that I swore I'd never do it again. I literally had to do 40+ takes on this before I could finally get through it without stuttering or crying, and in the end I was only able to do it when my husband helped me by holding my hand and letting me focus on him while I was recording. So as a result, my use of voice while DJing became a one-off, and I never tried it again.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago. Now I'll be honest, I really didn't have much incentive to try voicing again. I'm already in the Hall of fame. I'm currently and will remain semi-retired as a DJ. I only do a couple of sets a week at my friends club, mostly for my good friends and a few club guests, and none of them give a crap whether I talk or not. So why did I decide to give it another go? 2 Reasons (There always seem to be 2 reasons don't there?), 1. it IS a valuable tool and one that I'd like to add to my bag of tricks. Even though I'm semi-retired I still always strive to get better at this. 2. I don't like not doing something because of fear. I was afraid to try this again, and I didn't like that feeling. I know there is no way I can ever do this live, but I thought maybe without the stress and emotion of doing the final set at the beloved club I'd managed for 6 years closing maybe it would turn out better. It did.
You see, this isn't talking live on the mic. While I do struggle with stuttering, as I said above I do have some techniques I use to control it, and while those techniques will never work in the high stress environment of talking live on the mic, they absolutely can and will work in a controlled, stress free environment where I can script my bits and do as many takes as I need to get it right.
So how is it working out? Well I've only just started, but the reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and I'm excited enough about it to write this blog about it even at this early juncture. Now this isn't a holy grail by any means. It's a bit more work, and you do sacrifice some spontaneity by recording vs. speaking live. You also gain a few things though, and for me its the only option so I think the trade off is worth it, especially if you're just starting out or struggling with the voicing traps.
Ok so what are the pluses and minuses of recording vs. speaking live. Well the benefits are fairly obvious. You can pre-record your longer bits and it also eliminates a LOT of the traps I went over in chapter 1. You can eliminate stumbling and bumbling, background noise, distractions, talking too long, and talking too frequently (to some extent, if you make 30 of these things for each set you're still talking WAY too often), and it will keep you from stepping on the music as well.
What are the drawbacks? Well, it IS quite a bit more work to prepare your voice bits ahead of time, and you DO sacrifice a little spontaneity. Once you have everything set up though you can easily record a short bit and import it into your broadcaster as easily as you can download a song and import it. It just takes a little more time so the timing might not be as spot on. And if you record your bits during the set all of the traps come back into play. Also you have to give your voice bits a name if your broadcaster displays your song titles in local chat. I was calling mine "CherrySpeak", but I've since just turned off my song title display in my broadcaster so the voice bits integrate a lot more smoothly, and it makes playing "Name that Tune" WAY easier :).
So where do I go from here with this? I honestly don't know. I do plan to continue using it, but I haven't really settled on how much yet. I still wholeheartedly believe that voice is massively overrated in SL. I may settle on 0-4 clips per set, and whatever I do during the set (requests, dedications, special hellos, whatever). Yes zero is still an option. I made it all the way to the Hall of Fame without using voice, so I'm not going to suddenly become overly reliant on it. But it's a hell of a nice tool to have in my bag of tricks, and for some sets it's invaluable, such as explaining the rules of a contest we're running.
Ok I'm going to end this here. I'll bet you've never before seen anyone who can babble so much about babbling! I'm going to leave you with this: If you want to know more or have questions about my technique, chat me up in-world or just leave a comment below. In-world will get you a MUCH quicker response though, my name in-world is Cherry Breiz. Or better yet, just come to my set and see for yourself! I DJ at Villains club, Wednesday 12-2 and Friday 2-4 (SLT). There's a pick in my profile picks with a LM for Villains.
Lastly, if you want to see a truly GREAT voice DJ in action, then go catch a set by DJ Rabies at Wet Willies. Rabies is a Hall of Fame DJ (I know, I nominated her!), and she rivals DJ Az as my "Best of the Best" when it comes to talking on the mic. Now I'll be honest, Rabies has a TON of natural talent, and the vast majority of DJs (myself included) can never hope to be as good as she is. That being said, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. If you want to be the best you have to learn from the best, and Rabies is without doubt one of the best, so go catch her act. Tell her Cherry sent you, she might give you a cookie <wink>. Here's Rabies' schedule and a LM to Wet Willies
♥Monday at 2 PM with host Lucas
♥Friday at 12 PM with hostess Dal
♥Sunday at 2 PM with host Lucas
♥Only at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Wet%20Willies/107/127/22 ♥
Ok that's it for me, DJ CherryBomb over, out, done!
XX- Cherry -XX
