It's a good question, because some DJs only use the headphones to get the beat matched and then they take them off. Some DJs keep them on the whole time and never take them off, like myself. Typically, I have the mix perfectly synced for about 30 seconds before you hear it. In those 30 seconds, I'm making the decision, trying to imagine if it's going to be impressive enough when you hear it. Sometimes I'm not convinced, and I change it to something else, to another track. But yeah, I have it about a half a minute, and I'm just riding it, trying to get it perfectly aligned.Or, not perfectly aligned. I'll let it fall off a little bit before you hear it, so you can feel it coming together. Because, you know, we're dealing with people, and people are not machines. Perfection is not always the point. To hear a mix come together creates a whole different excitement in itself. When you hear the tracks merge together, conceptually it pulls you into the whole process. If you never let the audience hear that, then they might believe that you're perfect, and that you mix like a computer, like software. So that's not always really the point. Sometimes I purposely lag the beats slightly, and then bring them together again, and that's because I want you to hear that mix perfectly, and then we can move on.I guess that comes maybe from my days of playing the drums. If a drummer just did everything they were expected to do, just played the beat so the bass player can play and the guitar player can play, well, yeah, you served a purpose, but where's the individuality? I think DJing is the same. There are times and places for that to happen.Some of that is on purpose. Some of it is because I'm just anxious, and I need to get this mix up so I can turn to something else. I'm already thinking about the third and fourth thing I'm gonna do, so I just need to get this mix up. Again, I don't focus on the addition, more the subtraction. I just want to get it up and get it in. It will fall into place, and then I can turn to the more interesting thing of, say, layering the third turntable or, you know, layering the fourth turntable.Well, to mix three turntables, or to mix three CD players, all three of them have to be perfectly calibrated, otherwise it becomes a herd of horses. So that's the first thing I establish as I'm playing. I see what the calibration is. Sometimes the CDs are off. When I use vinyl, you have so many DJs playing on these things [turntables]. I need to learn the condition of them, learn which one is gonna be a problem, and then that's the one I don't use as much. First you figure out the calibration. Then, I have to be sure that if I match two players together perfectly that it will stay for a certain amount of time. And if that's done, then I know that once I do that, I don't need to listen to it anymore, those two will stay. Then I can turn and concentrate on the third and fourth. If the third is perfectly calibrated, then I know those three will stay, and I can concentrate on the fourth, or the drum machine.Conditions vary. The humidity in the room plays a role. The vibration of the return monitors shaking the table, or the basses up under the table, also play a role.I wear my headphone and the cup is on the left side, so the ear that I'm going to use to listen to the output is on the right side. Typically that return monitor is a bit closer. I just recently started requesting three return monitors, because for some reason it seems like the venues I play in now, the DJ setups are closer to the audience, which means the DJ booth is closer to the soundsystem, which means the mix between the return monitors sometimes gets confused. I typically have the right side monitor a bit closer, and the third center.Position-wise, I don't change position as much as I used to, because I use USB sticks. When I used vinyl, I would purposely put the vinyl at a distance, as long as my headphone cord would allow me to go. That means that, in order to find a record, I'd have to kind of leave the DJ setup, which would give me an escape, out of the area of the return monitor. In a way, I'd have some intimacy with my records. If they're too close then I can't escape. I'm in the middle of it all the time for two or three hours. So I'd put the records as far as my headphone cord would take me, and it has to be only that far because I need to listen to it at the same time that I'm looking for the record. So the distance would be five feet or something like that.Now I'm closer, and I stay within the pocket most of the time. I don't go away, but I typically kneel down. I keep the music I'm playing down on the floor. It gives my ears an escape. If you're constantly in the sound, your ears change because they're protecting themselves from the sound. If you break away from that, your ears readjust, so you stand back up and it sounds a little bit different, because you've moved away from it. So I typically keep, whatever it is, CDs or whatever, on the floor, because that's where there's less volume. Also, it's better on the back and the knees to keep bending up and down.No. After so many years you learn how to pace it. I don't sweat, hardly ever. Because I've conditioned myself to not sweat so much. When it's very hot, very humid, I move less. Because I've been in many cases where it's just a disaster, I can't touch the mixer because it's soaking wet, with humidity dripping down, I can't grip the line levels and stuff. Sweat dripping, the headphones and the whole thing just becomes a mess. So over time I can't control that. I don't drink so much because I don't want to have to go to the restroom. Even though that was never an issue anyway. You don't drink a lot before.No. I don't consider myself a party... um, a party...] No. I'm not a party host, I'm not a cheerleader, I'm not an aerobics instructor. I am a DJ. And my task has always been to play music, but to make it as interesting as I can, to make it as appealing to the audience as I can. And that might be slightly different from a DJ's objective today. Back then, a DJ's purpose was to play music, not necessarily hits, but that you were sensingbe a hit, and you had to make it work. You had to play this record in a way that would make it just incredible to the audience. You had toit. I learned to DJ in a way that, yes, you're mixing music together, but you're also trying to make it appealing to people.To take a mediocre track, and make it sound incredible, you know, that's Larry Levan, that's Frankie Knuckles. DJs from the '70s and '80s, that's what we had to do. Not everything was a hit, not everything was perfectly made for your audience and this situation, like it is now. Some things were not pressed well. A lot of early Chicago music was horribly pressed, the quality was terrible, but the track was just great. And somehow you had to make that work, you had to play it for the people.My approach has never really changed from that. It's great to play "The Bells"—you put it on, you know people will like it. But there's some things that maybe need more attention, more help. That's where the strategic part of playing music comes in.I've tried not playing it, and people were sad! [] So I kinda just gave up. Now I look at the track as a turning point. Once I play that, typically that means... I'm ready. I'm fully awake, I sense that the audience are listening to what I'm doing. I play "The Bells," and we're ready to go. Right now I use it in that way. I don't think of it as an anthem or anything, it's just an indication that, I'm awake, it's four o'clock in the morning, I've tested out everything, the return monitors are working, everything is great, I feel comfortable. Once I play this, the party will kick into another gear. That's typically how it works.Yeah. I take the opportunity more than people know actually. Typically, days before the party comes, I'm making things. I'm making things now, actually. Making things to test, to see how it works. Maybe I've learned something at the last few parties, and I'm working on certain things. For instance, the track "Accessory." It's a track that doesn't have all the four elements to make it a composition. One or two tracks are meant to be layered on top. I've always made those type of tracks. Then when I started using the 909 more, it made even more sense to have those types of tracks. I literally have an archive of tracks that don't have a kick drum, or don't have drums at all, don't have any type of melody, just a repetitive type of thing that just runs. That's designed for me to be able to layer something on top, so the audience can have a different impression of that track.It's like an accessory—if you were to wear a hat, or a piece of jewelry, it's the same thing. This started way back in the mid-'90s. Robert Hood and I were talking about this. It's for DJs that are a bit more advanced, where just playing two tracks is not enough. If you're using two or three turntables, it makes sense. If you layer the track on top and then take it away, it's like a transition. I make a lot of tracks like that, and they would never be released because there's not enough there to make a full composition.Not as much as I used to. I would first try to make it. Or I would alter someone else's track, just for me to use, not to sell it. But if say, I like someone's track, but just the bassline and the drums, I'll make a special version of that just for me.There's that. And then, of course, I'll buy material. But I prefer to have some hand in what I'm playing, I prefer to go in the studio and come up with something that has a strange scale in the drums or something. I prefer to make that myself, test that myself.No.It's more than what I play. This goes back to the hip-hop days. There would be things in my record box that are only designed to remind me of certain things. All throughout the '90s, during the whole rave thing, I would put albums by James Brown in the bag. Not for me to play, but when I'm filtering through the records, it reminds me to keep it funky. Or Steely Dan—it reminds me to keep it deep. And then I would grab something and play it in that way.Digitally it's the same. There are classical works, John Cage stuff, things that I would never play. Or maybe I might try at some special moment. But they're more in there to, as I'm trying to find something, it reminds me of a certain thing. There's certain go-to tracks that, if I'm in trouble and I need something to play quickly, I don't know what to play next but I know this one will start on a dime...Exactly. And there are a certain amount of tracks, things with ambiguous types of introductions that aren't very clear, that I tend to listen to at the very beginning. But I tend to focus on the last quarter of a track.Do you produce music?Right. Well, if you produce music, and your track is five minutes long, by the last quarter of the track, mixing it to your master, you have figured out what the track is really about. So the last quarter of the track is typically the best. You've introduced all the sounds, you've made all the mutes and things you've done from the very beginning, you've sorted out the introduction, brought in the important sounds. By the last quarter of the track, you've done everything that you need to do, and your impression on the track becomes much more relaxed, much more comfortable. And I know this, because I make music and that's what I do.So when I buy music, I typically focus on the last quarter of the track. And when I'm DJing also, it's the last quarter that I'd prefer to play more than the beginning. The track breaks down in the last quarter and becomes more solidified. That's where you find the better mix between sounds, that's where you find the real groove of the track, and the most important elements of the track. All in the last quarter.I got into DJing during hip-hop culture. At the time, in the late '70s, early '80s, you became recognized by how fast you were, how precise you were, how nimble you were. To be like a surgeon was how you became recognized. And that's how I learned.