Last Blog

Well this is DJ Scuilli's last blog. When I heard that we had to do this for class I was not looking forward to it. But once I started blogging I realized that I kind of liked it. I like getting what i knew and what I learned over the years to share it with you guys. I know I'm no the best of writers but i hope u guys liked and got something out of all the things i went thro and talked about in this blog. I hope to keep blogging and sharing new things and new gig that I go thro. I would say to anybody who is thing about starting to DJ is that if u want to do it then go for it. even if you don't have equipment start with what u have and work your way up. it might not be easy but in the end if u want it bad enough you ll get your name out there and you ll be getting gigs every weekend. If you guys have any question for me or anything at all you can email me at.. djscuilli@gmail.com

later
John
aka DJ Scuilli

That Time of the Year Again

Usually this time of your year i get gigs right after another. Its been this way every year since if been DJing. From the summer BBQ starting and the graduation parties this is a good month or two for me. Already this month i have 4 gigs, one ever weekend. When i get a gig or a call from somebody that is interested in hiring a DJ i right away get my book out. i have a little black book that I got about years ago to help me keep track of gig and peoples information. In times like this during the year, I go nuts I'm so busy , but I learn to keep everything organized. its very important that when u takes somebody information down for a gig that u have the times right, the location right, the name of the person who's hosting the party, as well as who its for. Losing these things and this information wouldn't be good for business Also I'm friends with other DJs and DJ company's and they give me gigs to if there unable to do them, like this month they gave me a 30th birthday party that was on the same day as another big gig that that had. last year i also handed out flayer's to high school kids hoping the get some more business doing graduation gigs. This really helped last year so I'm going to continue to do it this year. I'm looking forward to the gig i have lined up for this month and hope everything goes as plan lol

New Music

Some people thing being a DJ is that you just have to go to a party and play music and that's it. People think its easy money. Well what people don't know if that DJs have to do a lot of work outside there gigs too. I would that that I have come up with a routine that makes me make sure that I'm getting the top hit songs when they come out. If a DJ goes to a gig and doesn't have the top hit songs that people wants to hear a lot of people are gonna be mad and not happy. So what I do it every week I check a number of things to see what new songs came out that week. I make a list then before a gig or before quizzo I get the songs. What really helps me to know what songs are on top is "Billboard Top Charts". I go on Billboard just about once a week and see what the top 10 or 20 songs are and i make sure that i have them. Also I have a App. on my phone that when a song is played on the radio is can listen to it and tell me what the song is.. Id the song and save it for me. I use this a lot of I'm in the car or out and anew song or a song that i never heard of before is playing ill use my phone save the name then at the end of the week get all the songs that are in the library. Over all its very Important to stay up to date with today's top hits, the best way to to come up with a routine like I did, because if you think about it, theirs always going to be new songs.

Scratching

Scratching is something that some DJs thing that if u cant do then you shouldn't call your self a DJ. In today's world with all of the new songs and new ways to mix music and make it your own, knowing how to scratch is a must. Iv been DJing for years now and I can do it but i wouldn't say I'm great at it. The first things that you have to know is the times of songs and when to do it. I would say that's the most important thing when it comes to scratching. theirs a couple different ways to scratch but all have the same importance with times. To start your going to need to turntables ( digital or vinyl ) to scratch on. the easyest way to lear is to load up a song that has a lot of high vocals and one side and play a song on the other. while your song is playing u have to use the crossfader and sractch the other turntable and move the coss fader back and forth.. soo when happendes is that while the songs playing your moveing the cross fader so that bother songs and playing but your scratch ing the high vocals over the song. this is the easyest way to learn I think. Once you have the cross fader down and how to scratch, then you hould start to try to get timeing right only scratch in the times thats needed or that would sound good and start to scratch faster or slower in one scratch. i know it sounds hard but once u get used to it and know some moves u can do with your hadn it can be really great sounding.

Now a lot of the famuse DJs today they scratch a song while its playing to loopit and to play diffrent parts of songs at the same time. Me, I'm not very good at this. This takes a lot of time to master and you have to really knnow your music and whats goign to play and when. Say you are playing a song that starts with a beat. You start the songs spinning. then you cue up a nother song that has a vocel in it. What you do it while the beat is playing on one song u rewind the other turntable to repate the vocle in perfect timesing with the beat. Like I said this is really hard but very cool sounding and fun to do.

Speakers

Being a DJ for a good bit of time now really made me realize the difference in sound due to different speakers or if there feedback or with mics. When I first stated i had really bad old speakers, I'll say the only good thing about them was that they worked lol. As my business got bigger and i began to do it more i had to get a better speaker system. After going through a bunch of different speakers and subs I finally bought the "Martrix B-52" system. What I like about this system the most is that everything was in the package. It was a combo pack. The system came with a 15 in. sub and two 12 in. combo speakers that plugged into he sub to the amp then from there went right to my computer or Mixer. For medium size halls and pool parties and all these were great speakers, and to this day i think that there once of the best sounding speakers out there.

About 2 years after that I had some extra cash and i thought that I should improve that sound of the system even more. I looked into combo speakers that had amps in them, individually. After spending 800, 400 each speaker, I bought two 12 in. 2 way combo power speakers. Now when I go on gigs running 3 amps at once, one in the sub and one in each speaker, I can have up to 4 speakers and sub going all at once with no feedback at all. Lets just say that it the system can get very loud and really kick lol

Innovations Vol. 1

This past summer I thought it would be cool to make my own Mix CD. Like a lot of the DJs that I listened to they would have there own mix CDs like say "Ultra Dance 01 Mixed by DJ Richy Rich" or something like that, so I wanted to see what I could do. So I started to come up with ideas. The first thing I wanted to figure out is what I was going to call the CD. I wrote some things down and looked some words up and I came up with the Name "Innovations Vol. 1". I picked this because the word innovations mean new things and new things coming to be invented. or something like that.

After I had the name the next step was to pick the song that I was going to mix together to make up the CD. This is probably what I took the longest with. I really wanted to pick a good mix of different but popular songs that people would attract to. In the end I came up with about 13 songs that I wanted to use, some were dance remixes that I was excited to use in the CD. Once I figured out how to arrange the songs in the Order that I wanted I knew is was time to go to my DJ hardware and start to figure out how I was going to mix them together to make my mix CD.

I practices using The NS7 and the Itch program to mix the songs. I remember working on it for hours and hours at a time. Once i was done mixing the songs together I began to add DJ samples and drops. Things like a beat sample that was needed in between two songs or a rev. crash that I used to make things a little bit more exciting. Once the end project was done after going back and fixing it even better then before like 5 times it came out really good.

Once I was done making the CD and the audio part of the CD. I start to make designs in photo shop of what I wanted the cover of the CD to look like. For me this was Farly easy. I had a picture in my head of exactly what I wanted the CD to look like. When I was done everything I began to make copies and hand my first Mix CD out. I learned quick that people really liked the CD, especially the remixed that I made on the album.

Chairman of the Board

Frank Sinatra is probably one of the greatest male artists of all time. He sung all across the US. From Vegas to Atlantic City Sinatra was well knows and had his own way for people to like him. He had a voice of his own. I honestly think no one can replace him or his songs. The greatest part of Sinatra is he is from good old, our home state of New Jersey. He was called old blue eyes. I would say that my favorite hit of his was, My Way. It’s a song about a man who is nearing death. He is comfortable with and takes responsibility for how he dealt with all the twists of his life while maintaining a respectable degree of honor. At least that's what i get out of the great song.