I have always been very passionate about music from a young age – I grew up with parents who followed the Dead and Pink Floyd with a strong passion for live music. Their favorite famous albums played throughout our house, allowing me to catch onto the rhythms and the hype around it all. When I was only fifteen, I convinced my parents to let me attend a music festival with a friend’s family, and there I fell in love with electronic music. The energy of the crowd, the big production with lights and visuals, and the power behind the sounds brought me a new passion. I started following different DJ’s from the larger sub genres – trap, EDM, and deep-house – and paying attention to their different styles. I attended any DJ set I could, but not many living in the small town of Santa Barbara with little success finding shows I could get into at my young age. As I got older, I got into more of the underground electronic artists listening to sub genres such as house, techno and breakbeat.
I had always seen bigger name DJ’s play on a large scale production, so the thought of someone like me DJing was very foreign to me. It wasn’t until I got to Cal Poly that I saw a friend of a friend DJing a house party – and the crowd was loving it. I felt the same energy levels and excitement as I did at shows. At that moment I realized that if he could do it, I could do it.
A month later, I bought myself a mixing board and started teaching myself how to DJ. I learned by watching videos on YouTube and watching other DJ’s mix. I experimented with the sounds that I had been listening to for years. I felt a rush of passion when I would mix two songs I knew very well together, listening to how they could compliment each other.
I have now been mixing for nearly four years and feel very confident in my mixing skills. I pay much attention to my beat matching to be sure songs sound good mixed together. I beat match completely by ear in headphones, making sure the two songs are exactly on the same beat before I bring a new song into the mix. When bringing in a song, I am sure to keep the bass down on the new song so it doesn’t overpower the mix. I keep the mids and the highs at a quarter up so they are not overpowering but can be heard. I slowly bring the volume in so that the new addition is very subtle. I then equally turn the highs on the old song down while I turn the highs on the new song up so not to have a change in volume – the new song fills in what I take away on the current song playing. Once I equally turn up and down the highs and mids so that the new song’s pieces are turned up completely, I focus on switching the bass-lines. I usually make this a quick transition, turning off the bass of the old song at the 3rd beat in a four count and bring in the new song’s lows at the 4th beat. I make most transitions end at the end of a four count so that every change in the music is in beats of four.
I choose the music I play based off of the crowd at the event, catering my tracks to the vibe of the people while still playing tracks that I enjoy and want to share. I keep my tracks authentic to what I want to bring to the event while still catering to what that crowd would enjoy. For instance, if I am playing to an older crowd that doesn’t predominantly listen to electronic music, I choose to play disco because it is something they may recognize while still having those electronic bass-lines and consistent rhythms that I enjoy working with. If I am playing to a crowd that likes electronic, but less of the underground electronic music, I will play house and disco to ease them into the electronic side. If I am playing a show in Berlin, I will play techno as it is the techno capital of the world and what most people want to dance to there. I believe that this separates me as a DJ because I make a lot of my decisions based off of the crowd, because if the crowd is dancing and having a good time, I have more fun! I really enjoy curating a vibe, and DJing allows me to take control of the movements of the crowd and determine the vibe at every moment. My music can cater to many different types of people so that I can be booked for a multitude of events.
After much hard work, my mixing skills have been recognized. I have been given the opportunity to play shows in downtown Santa Barbara and San Francisco as well as at music festivals! I look forward to exploring where this musical journey will take me.
Mackenzie Fell 