If you’re a DJ looking for some important live stream wisdom, look no further than these tips from Soul Clap.
It’s a bit wild to think that nine months have passed since the coronavirus ground life in the states to a halt. The music industry rushed to adapt, with release schedules being bolstered and live stream channels quickly erected to serve as a placeholder for the return of events. By summer, we seemed set to finish the year with some sense of normalcy; outdoor drive-in and dine-in events allowed for limited physical enjoyment of music, while cases seemed to be building at a slower pace. Sadly, this optimism began fading as cases spikes broke the charts at the onset of the colder seasons.
All that said, the show must go on—and with one lockdown behind us, we’re much better prepared for the new round of restrictions being placed upon us all over the world. With it, the live stream has once again asserted itself as the main hub of connection between fan and artist. Who better qualified to provide some refresher tips and wisdom on revitalizing your own live stream presence, perhaps, than Soul Clap, who have been going strong since the beginning of the pandemic? The Wolf + Lamb staples and Soul Clap Records owners have created a successful talk show for themselves in ‘Schmoozing with Soul Clap’—which to date has featured guest chats with Skream, Carl Craig, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Seth Troxler, and Inner City, to name a few.
Soul Clap have maintained a busy year in their personal and professional lives as well. Their record label saw popular releases from Afriqua, Life on Planets, and Tom Flynn this year, whilst they’ve participated in vote rallying via the Rave The Vote digital event, in addition to Club Space’s live stream series, Utopia Boston, and more. Their grooving remix of Ardalan’s “I Can’t Wait” has also come to light at long last.
Read on for key wisdom on putting meaning and intrigue into your live stream, courtesy of Soul Clap:
Like any good DJ set, it’s important to choose a few songs that are at the core of your performance. Yes, DJing should have a level of improvisation (especially live when there’s a crowd reaction) but it’s good to have a sense of your beginning, middle and end!
When performing a DJ livestream in the age of information, there’s a chance you’re going to reach exponentially more eyes and ears than a normal gig at a club or festival, so it’s more important than ever to deliver a message with the music! It could be instilling a sense of joy or purpose in the listener; maybe you wanna trigger some heartstrings with emotive content, or perhaps you wanna try to make a difference by attaching a charitable or activist component by fundraising for a good cause. We’ve gone a few steps further with our ravethevote.org voter registration initiative in collaboration with vote.org that ended up reaching 3,000,00+ unique viewers and yielded 5k+ voters actions! We may have gotten the great Orange One out of office, but the story is far from over with the current Atlanta Senatorial run-off in high gear; that’s why we were proud to be back in the trenches with another episode on December 4.
Yes, everyone has a phone/laptop/tablet with a camera but to really get good quality, try to get your hands on a 1080p webcam or better. For sound, especially for music, get plugged into a sound card and use a decent mic! We’re not quite done yet, because to really be looking like a pro you gotta put some thought into lighting. Maybe it’s a ring light, maybe it’s natural sunlight, maybe it’s some funky colored LEDs or incandescent bulbs. But play around and see what works.
Let’s face it when the chat room is hype the party is in full effect. We can’t all be together socializing on account of this darn pandemic but a movin’ and groovin’ chat room is about as close as we can get. Whenever possible, shout out your chat room guests and if you got a moment to engage in between mixes—it really makes things cool and interactive.
Look this is LIVE content and that means mistakes may happen! Try not to let it ruin your show, it’s all good! Vinyl DJs, remember when your record skipped and your mix came crashing to the ground? Don’t stop the music, don’t sweat it—just get it rocking again. After all, it’s live and NOBODY’S NERFECT!
