There are a lot of different aspects that go into being an influential and effective DJ. One of the more complex and challenging DJ environments is performing at a silent party, silent nightclub, or silent disco event.
Silent discos are events where the music is played through individual headphones rather than via loudspeakers or stage monitors.
This creates an entirely different listening experience for the audience compared to standard DJing.
Confused? Don’t be!
Let’s jump straight into the world of how to DJ a silent disco.
How To DJ A Silent Disco (in short)
DJing a Silent Disco requires using two sets of headphones to perform. One pair of headphones will be a performing DJ’s personal headphones. Just as a DJ would use personal headphones to mix in a traditional live gig, these DJ headphones are for internal mixing. The second pair of headphones is the same pair that the crowd will be wearing. This gives the DJ ability to listen in to exactly what the audience hears.
Parties With Headphones
As a result, DJing at a silent party can be incredibly difficult, especially if you’ve never done it before. Since you don’t have many of the same luxuries that standard speaker DJing offers, it can be more than a bit stressful to know how well the crowd is enjoying your music.
The good news is that, once you know what you’re doing, silent disco DJing (or silent DJing) can be a really fun and unique performing experience.
Not only that, but as you get to grips with silent discos, you’ll realize that it’s not nearly as difficult or complex as you may initially have thought.
Another feather added to your DJ hat!
Throughout this brief guide, we’ll go over what a silent disco is, the various steps you’ll need to successfully perform at one, as well as some of the different types of songs and equipment you’ll want to have with you during your set.
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What Is A Silent Disco?
First, before going over how you’ll perform as a silent DJ, you need to know what a silent disco is.
As mentioned above, a silent disco is pretty much the same as any other disco or club venue, save a few key details; the biggest discrepancy is that music is played through the crowd’s headphones as opposed to a speaker system.
When a person comes to a silent disco, they’re given a set of LED-covered headphones that allow them to listen to the music being played by the silent DJ.
Strangely, there can actually be more than one DJ playing!
If there is more than just one silent DJ performing, each headphone will have different channels that a person can switch to. This allows the audience to enjoy a variety of different DJ music mixes based on what sounds great and what they’re interested in listening to at that time.
To be brutally honest, multiple DJs playing simultaneously just seems confusing, muddled, and maybe not a DJ direction we would personally go down.
Despite it being called a “silent” disco, the reality is that these venue events can be incredibly fun and engaging.
Often, while there won’t be any direct music blasting out of speakers, if one were to take off their headphones at a silent disco, they’d likely hear much of the crowd singing along to whatever music they’re listening to, which can certainly be a fun and amusing experience.
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How To Be A Silent DJ
Now that we know what silent discos are, we can talk about what it means to DJ at these events and how it compares to standard venues and gigs.
The truth is that, while it’s a super fun experience for audiences, it can be an intimidating transition for DJs.
There are a lot of reasons for this, however the most immediately noticeable is the fact that your ability to interact with your audience is significantly limited.
Unlike normally, where you’re all being blasted with the same music at the same level simultaneously, silent DJing requires the DJ to essentially “guess” what the audience is feeling.
More than that, they’ve got to pay attention to how the majority of the audience looks and make a judgment call.
Yes, this is not too far dissimilar to what other DJs have to deal with.
However, because the audience is listening through silent disco headphones, it can create somewhat of a barrier between the DJ and the crowd.
It may seem daunting at first but don’t panic.
You will soon adapt. After all, even though they’re wearing headphones, they’re still hearing you and what you’re playing.
Next, we’ll go over the different steps you’ll want to implement if you want to be an expert silent disco DJ.
Step #1. Keep Your DJ Channel On-Point
This is incredibly important, especially if you’re playing alongside other DJs.
As we already talked about, in some instances, you may be sharing the “stage” with other DJs, each of which gets their respective channel to perform on.
If you don’t manage to keep your music interesting and engaging, people will naturally begin to get bored and switch over to other DJ channels.
All of the audience’s headphones are LED-lit, with each DJ channel getting its own allocated light color.
Nothing is worse than watching someone previously listening to your music (displayed by their headphones showing your light) only to switch over to someone else’s.
It’s crummy, it sucks, and it’s just not fun.
To avoid this, see if people are singing along to your stuff. If they aren’t, try to play with some different tracks to gain more interest in what you have to offer.
Step #2. Maintain High Energy
The next thing you’ll want to do is make sure that the room is as buzzing with energy as possible.
Yes, a silent disco is “silent” but that’s more about the music coming out of the speakers. People can sing along with their tracks as well as have an all-around good time during the experience.
A great way to keep this energy up is by you having fun with your DJ set.
This will keep your engaged crowd totally locked in to “the cool kid’s channel”, plus it will also have people noticing that people on your channel are having a load more fun compared to the others.
Silent DJing when there are multiple DJs, is as much a way to showcase your skills, as it is a sort of competition or popularity contest.
By having fun and keeping the energy light and engaging, you’ll have more people listening to you than anyone else and more of those people excited to hear from you again.
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Silent Disco DJ Equipment
In addition to having fun and staying engaging, as a silent DJ, you’ll also want to make sure you’re using the right equipment during your silent nightclub performance.
This includes a good set of DJ headphones as well as an extensive and varied song selection to sort through.
Silent Disco Headphones
While it’s something of a given that headphones are required for a silent disco event, you must not just have the one set.
Rather, you’ll ideally want to have two.
This is very similar to DJs that listen to a studio monitor while performing, in addition to listening through a set of headphones.
Because what you’re playing and what the audience is hearing is delayed, periodically switching over to the second set of headphones that is more “dialed in” to what the audience is hearing will ensure that you’ll have a better idea of what should and shouldn’t be tweaked and adjusted.
Silent Party Track Selection
Speaking of song options, a silent DJ needs to have as varied and extensive a library of songs as possible.
The silent disco experience is wholly unique to any other DJing experience and, as a result, will result in your audience connecting with the music differently than via a standard DJ gig.
When choosing the songs to play, keep in mind that this is going to be played through headphones rather than speakers.
That means, some tracks that may sound great blasted from a set of stage monitors or PA speakers may not connect the same way via headphones.
Take a look through your different tracks and see what sounds compliment a headphone setting and play around with those.
This subtle option can make all the difference in the world, and shows who’s a DJ at a silent disco and who’s a “silent DJ”.
Read this next: Why Do DJs Wear Headphones? (All the Reasons)
How To DJ A Silent Disco: Takeaway
We end with our ‘how to DJ a silent disco’ takeaway.
Silent disco DJing is not the same thing as standard DJing. While they share some similarities, the headphone application makes it a very unique listening and performing experience.
If you plan to perform well, make a point of choosing songs that compliment the change in setting. In addition, you want to ideally take some time and see what the crowd likes. If you’ve got people singing along to what you’re playing, that means you’re definitely on the right track.
Otherwise, you may want to switch it up to something else.
Ultimately, the point of silent DJing is that you, even without having the music blasting from speakers, can effectively DJ and entertain an audience.
While I wouldn’t recommend people just learning about DJing to jump into silent DJing, I can say that it’s an incredible method of proving just how skilled you are where you can blow a crowd away even if they’re wearing headphones.
I will end on this, being an effective silent disco DJ will definitely take some practice and a certain level of experience to get your head around it.
