Dillon Francis Answers DJ Questions From Twitter

Hey, I'm Dillon Francis and I'm here

to answer questions about Djing.

(percussive music)

Jesse Forbey: Dude's a producer and a DJ.

What do DJs do?

Mix songs live?

Find me one electronic artist who uses only

solely their music in their sets.

Deadmau5 uses solely his own music in sets.

You know, a lot of people get angry when they're like,

But a DJ is just playing some other person's songs.

But the thing is, you've seen

bad DJs and you've seen good DJs,

and there's people that know how to read a crowd

and there's people that don't know how to read a crowd.

There's a whole knowledge behind that,

rather than it just being some guy coming and mixing songs.

I'm going to assume my dad would be the worst DJ ever

because if he went to DJ, he'd probably only play,

like, Sammy Hagar's music.

AFarag17: Had a dream I was Djing with PaulyD

and Dillon Francis.

What kind of combination is that?

They were actually pretty good.

It's a combination of a little Los Angeles boy

and a little boy from Jersey,

and it's just a nice East Coast-West Coast sandwich.

Marilyn Kelz asks: How do DJs feel

when no one is dancing to their music?

It hurts; if anything, it's kind of like that commercial

where the Sarah McLachlan song starts playing.

I feel like one of those battered dogs.

I don't know if we can put that in there.

Thanks for that question, Marilyn.

DudeFromTwitta: How do DJs do that shit every weekend?

Ears be all fucked up.

You get these things called earplugs

and your ears are gonna be fine.

So if you want to be a DJ, go to the ear doctor,

you get some earplugs, and you're gonna be good.

All right, this is from HarvindG: Do DJs dance?

That's a - that's an easy question.

Yeah, of course, come on.

Of course we do.

We're dancing the whole time.

DominicCarter is a friend of mine, actually.

Really curious what's next in terms of DJ hardware?

More specifically, in the 'DJing without a laptop' space.

In terms of DJ hardware, I think that CDJs,

they're going to definitely have to get as good as vinyl

in terms of being able to cut.

I know a lot of people that cut on CDJs,

there's a lot of lag time.

With the new pioneer mixers

that they have coming out, there's more effects,

more looping that you can do.

It's almost as if you had Ableton on your mixer.

But anyways, I don't care.

Love you, Dominic!

ChristopherRy says, How do DJs deal with the shits

in the middle of a five hour set?

That's so funny because I've recently

been thinking about this. I've definitely

ran to the bathroom really quickly while playing in Vegas.

Just, if I have to go, I have to go.

I do know that Diplo definitely

had diarrhea during one of his sets.

I think what you should do now is

get him on the show so that he can explain that,

because I think there's a story.

I remember we were talking recently about this.

Diplo, how do you deal with diarrhea during sets?

Let me know.

Orlanmop says, Has 'bass drop' circulated

out of the English language yet?

No, No, definitely not; it's thriving.

Eves Jordan asks, If I do Rekordbox,

I'm still debating, Flagship controller?

Or CDJs and DJM?

Also, Pioneer, Technics, Stanton, or Denon for turntables?

If you're planning on going out to DJ,

they're going to have a Pioneer set-up

because that's just the standard.

This is what I use and I've heard

the Denon stuff is really cool.

All the other ones you listed, that's vinyl stuff.

The only person I know that uses

vinyl now still is DJ Snake.

Underscore no underscore VA: How do

DJs mix without headphones? Asking for a friend.

One of my friends, TJR, he can

mix on CDJs without headphones.

And on Serato there's lines that you can line up,

and if you know how music is created, you can kind of tell

where you want in a song.

Most stuff, it's not going to be that sporadic and crazy.

Sameer1017: You ever see somebody you know just join the

EDM scene and instantly become more - (laughs)

Okay, sorry; I love what this guy is saying already.

This dude fucking...

You ever see somebody and you just,

you're like, you just joined the EDM scene and

instantly become more heady slash wook

than anybody you've seen at any show or festival?

I don't know what that means; I don't.

Because we're not smoking as much weed as you, Sameer1017.

It's a weird question and I don't know how to answer it.

This is from Macchina: Is being better

at beat-matching in one ear over the other a thing?

No; what?

I think that's just because most people

have their headphones here and it's just easier to do this,

rather than doing this.

Also, there's booth monitors so you can hear the other song.

I know a lot of people put on this cue and

that's the master cue, so that's everything

that you'll be hearing that's coming out.

And then, they'll also put on this.

This is mostly for people that do Rekordbox.

Even when I'm Djing with Rekordbox, though,

I DJ from one cue, and it's from mixing like that.

And then I'll have the booth monitor up

so I can hear the other song playing.

And I'll keep cuing from this.

You know?

And then that's how I'll mix in.

I don't like to hear anything else

and that's why it's good to have one headphone like that.

So Mixmag: Does a DJ have to be perfect?

Is it about selection or perfect beat-matching?

There'll be certain times where you can

have an amazing set that doesn't have beat matching.

It's more of a vibe that you're going with.

It's as if you were watching a movie.

You wouldn't want to see the movie all of a sudden

have either a black or a white frame

because it would disconnect you from what just happened.

If you do a really bad mix, someone's going to be like,

What? Hold on.

I'm going to go get a drink.

So let's see if I have perfect beat matching and selection.

(laughing)

So I put a little folder right here

and I'm going to use one headphone to mix.

So as you can see, as I'm moving the right CDJ,

you can see these lines passing each other.

And right now, there's these other white lines

on the screen, where it says 49, that's the one of the song.

So that's where you want to match up those lines.

And then if you press it at the same time,

(Get Low by Dillon Francis & DJ Snake)

Then right here...

(Hello There by Dillon Francis ft. Yung Pinch)

♫ Told her we can go there if you want

There you go.

It's the perfect mix.

♫ We can go there if you want.

And that's it.

That's Djing in a nutshell.

It's way harder than that, I think.

So the song that I was playing, Get Low and Hello There,

I sped Get Low up from 101 to 107 bpm,

and I slowed down Hello There from 114 to 107 bpm.

And that's how you can beat match them.

This is TMSVMusic: DJs! How do you start your music?

I.e. folder structure with BPMs, genres, Rekordbox, Serato,

Traktor tags with all the files in one...

I like this question because my library sucks.

In Serato, I definitely label all songs

that I like with a pink tag now.

I definitely have some folders here

that say New House, New Twerk, New Trap, and that's not,

that's, like, as in new music

that I got that's in that genre.

So that is not a complete library.

I tried; I just stopped doing it.

It definitely helps to have the crowd be into it,

because that helps you pick selections.

It's really just trying to pick the first song.

Picking the first song always depends on the DJ before you.

I'm usually relying on both my memory and my folders.

MMZMarkFocarile: What do DJs do for pranks on tour?

Cut the wifi?

Skype the other DJ during his set?

Just a thought...

Man; skype a DJ during their set.

What a prank, dude.

Last night, did you, he Skyped him!

It was crazy.

He pranked him so hard,

he didn't even know who was on the phone.

I've definitely gotten pranked.

I got pranked by DJ Snake.

I was up on stage with him,

we were playing our song Get Low.

The song starts playing.

I see him laughing at me.

I'm like, I don't know what I did.

Is my penis hanging out?

But no, it was even worse.

He put my phone number on the fucking jumbotron.

My phone was dead within 30 minutes

because it got so many text messages.

I have a prank for DJ Snake.

I haven't used it yet

and it's just been waiting in my back pocket.

Alexthefab33 asks: Do DJs go to other DJ shows

just to throw the fuck down?

Or no?

Late night thoughts hashtag.

Yes! DJs do go to other shows to either

listen to what they're playing or to do a back-to-back set.

There's less pressure on you once another DJ's there

and especially if it's two bigger DJs,

then you can kind of do whatever

because they're just happy.

They're like, Oh my god, yes!

Dhuss91 asks, How do you use Serato with CDJs?

Super easy; you connect the Serato to the Pioneer.

This little RCA cable, instead of going

straight into the mixer, you put it into the

inputs of the Rane box, and then the outputs

go into what would be your right and then your left.

And then you have control CDs, which control all this stuff.

So now I can go like that.

(record scratching)

And I can go like this.

(record whirling)

And it's super easy.

And everything's in the computer.

It's exactly like using CDJs without Serato,

just all your music library is on the CDJs now,

but through a computer.

And they have a control CD that controls the songs on them.

So it's as if you had these songs cued up on your SD card

or something, but you're using your computer instead.

At underscore ELLL underscore:

What's the cheapest alternative to buying a stand for CDJs?

So that they sit over turntables.

Everything is,

This; oh, you know what?

I've got a good idea.

Throw out your turntables and don't use them anymore.

And just use CDJs because no one uses

turntables anymore except for DJ Snake.

Zaffoti: Dillon Francis, are you alive?

Has DJ Hanzel abducted you?

Are you being forced to go one deeper against your will?

Where is Dillon?

One deeper.

I'm good.

I don't even know where that

where that question came from.

Thanks for worrying about me, though.

I'm fine, thank you.

DJ Sycophantasy: Serious note -

I feel like CDJs play way louder

than controllers naturally.

Anyone else find this?

I find CDJ volume really distressing.

I've always wondered that as well.

I always thought that CDJs, if you're

going straight from CDJs into mixer,

I've heard that it sounds better

than going from Serato or anything else

because that's one less thing that it has to go through.

This is, you know, 01s, 001s just being sent to this.

You know?

If you can cut technology from going from one

thing to another, it's definitely going to sound better.

Cruggs0730: Dillon Francis, did DJ Hanzel not make

the top 100 DJs because the list isn't deep enough?

Yeah.

Yup.

VoodooNola: What's your favorite

Dillon Francis, Say Less' remix?

I would have to say the one that I did.

Dillon Francis and Moksi remix.

And then the Eptic one.

The Eptic one's really good.

This is the last question!

Jkupferman says, Do DJs get a sore neck

from bobbing their head?

Like after a long set, do they have to

get back to their room and ice their neck?

No; no, that actually doesn't happen.

But my back was really messed up and I had to actually

I went and got an MRI because I

thought I had a back problem.

And I don't, but I think it was because I was

playing hunched over so much recently.

I've been trying to push my body out more.

Kind of play like this now.

(controls clicking)

(laughing)

If you don't want a bad back, don't become a DJ.