Confessions of a virtual DJ

Among my geekier hobbies (of which, admittedly, there are many), playing DJ in virtual world Second Life is probably the geekiest.

What’s more, like any good geek should do, I take it all rather seriously.

A lot of thought, time and effort go into ensuring my sets rock from start to finish. Yes, the ‘club’ I spin at is entirely made of pixels, but I’m still quietly pleased when those who frequent it via computers all over the world tell me they’ve enjoyed hearing me play a bunch of tunes for a few hours.

Truth is, like most things I do in life, I just want to do the absolute best job I can when I take to my little pixel DJ booth. Whenever I do, I’m always reminded of an off-the-cuff remark made in some ‘How to stream music to Second Life’ video tutorial that I can no longer find.

‘Just because you stream music doesn’t make you a DJ’

As soon as I heard that line it struck an immediate chord with me; the main reason I started spinnin’ choons in the virtual world in the first place had much to do with my increasing despair in listening to a bunch of really bad Second Life ‘DJs.’

In some snobbish, completely pompous way, I felt I owed it to the universe, at least the one created by Linden Labs, to show them how it was done.

On the occasions that I’ve had the opportunity to do a full, proper DJ set in the real world (as in, not just sticking Spotify on in between bands at gigs), I’ve always worked by the philosophy that there’s a few simple things any good set needs.

My Second Life avatar spins tunes. Looks just like me, right?

The most important one of all is that a good set should ebb and flow smoothly, starting with a bang before settling into a solid groove that constantly drives the whole thing toward an epic, almost euphoric crescendo of your biggest crowed-pleasers, each one with a reason to follow on from the last.

Indeed, any mixing between genres, no matter how closely-connected or far apart those genres happen to be, should be so subtle that they’re hardly noticeable at all.

If you really feel like your crowd are the kind of broad-minded folk who want to hear European house and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid in the same set, then by all means throw them both in there, but there’s ways to do this in your mix without the jarring, quite ugly clash of noise that transpires when such divergent styles are played literally one after the other (trust me on this one, I’ve heard it.)

The job of any DJ, whether real, virtual or made entirely of Plasticine, is always to entertain those around you via the medium of music. Whilst this counts for much more back in the real world, it’s still something I like to keep in mind when entertaining my cyber friends. Without going too much into the reasons why geeks like me even think about hanging out in a virtual world like Second Life, it’s probably fair to say that a lot of it has to do with escapism.

There’s nothing wrong with that of course, people find escapism in all sorts of things; films, books, TV shows, Xbox, or, yeah, creating an avatar that looks a million times better than one ever could in reality and playing around on the Internet.

Point is, people have many options available to them when they want to use their free time to escape from reality. If they chose to spend time hanging out with you and other avatars, then it’s a pretty cool thing if you can make their moment of escapism more enjoyable by playing stuff they like in a solid, competent mix. More than that, I’d perhaps argue that you’re duty bound to ensure they have a good time as a way of saying ‘Hey, thanks for being here instead of watching The Big Bang Theory repeats on TV.’

Of course, you can always say that to them on the air.

The weird thing about Second Life DJ shows, in this blogger’s opinion anyway, is that they’re like a strange cross between a live show in the real world and a broadcast radio show, and just try make my links (or, as it’s often crudely known in Second Line Doing Voice).

In a real-life show, taking to the microphone after every couple of songs can actually do more harm than good to your set, especially once you’ve got a packed floor and a rambunctious crowd who came to rock to music, not to hear some idiot yelling at them over the microphone all night long.

Back to Second Life however, and for reasons I still haven’t fully figured out, people expect to hear you talk. Thus, whilst some DJs chose to throw very short links between each songs ‘That was Boom Danga Whatsit by European House DJ, I’m DJ Notaclue and this is Paranoid by Black Sabbath’, I’ll usually save mine for a brief burst every twenty minutes or so, making sure that I do three things:

• Make my links entertaining
• Say something relevant to promote the club/other DJs
• Find a way to link whatever I’ve just said to the next song

I think it provides a neat balance keeping the mic off the whole set (preferable in reality) and providing a bit of ‘tween-song banter with my crowd.

It’s hardly rocket science, but I think playing a solid set using the above principles provides a better experience for other SL-dwellers than someone who just shows up with their stream to spin a bunch of songs they like in any random order.

That said, maybe I should really stop being such a pompous geek and taking the whole thing so seriously. It’s only a bit of escapism after all, right?

*Whilst I'm at it, might as well mention that if you are one of those strange and wonderful inhabitants of Second Life and want to swing by to hear me DJ, just pay a visit to our wonderful little pixel club The Riptide at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gold%20Rush/221/29/22