One of the gifts of being a professional DJ that works with a MacBook is the ability to obtain music quickly and efficiently when needed for a gig. Recently I had a situation where I needed music for a high school graduation party that the family who booked the gig are from another country. No problem. They requested music from their country, which I had a small library of but not really enough to produce an excellent night of music for them.
Years ago when DJing an event like this, the professional DJ would have had to either spend lots of money buying individual or collections of music to meet the needs of the host, play the wrong music or not take the gig. Today it is different. We can obtain music we need to meet specific needs of the event directly from the Internet; all we need is an internet connection and a credit card, and bang, we have the music we need in a matter of minutes!
Historically, this has been the most stressful part of the preparation for a wedding or event – making sure we have the correct music for a professional DJ gig. This is much easier for a club DJ since they know what their audience likes and grooves to. A specific event needs a more diverse library. Often the client who booked the gig has one vision for what will be best for their event and the guests are wanting something different. This has been mostly eliminated through the use of fully collected music library on a notebook computer.
Tonight’s professional DJ gig will have the correct music fortunately. I have the music the family wants, especially the young lady who just graduated from high school as well as her parents. I will not have to deal with the nightmare of producing music and then not being able to meet the requests of the guests. I will be prepared for whatever genre or style of music they desire. I remember the days of bringing with me six racks of 12″ and two racks of ’45s’ vinyl hoping to meet this same need. Should be a fun night!
