Hi Guys. This is my story of how I became a quadriplegic DJ.
It is probably a long shot, but I would like to know if there are any other DJs with motor disabilities in here?
In 2019, I had a mountain bike accident that left me quadriplegic, that is, with absolutely no movement in my arms or legs. And as anyone can imagine, this is a life-changing injury. By pure chance, as soon as I was let go from the ICU (90 days), one of the videos I had uploaded right before my accident became viral, and my YouTube channel started to grow, so I took notice and knew I had to do something…monetize. Between 2019 and 2023, with the use of a cephalic mouse (it uses gyroscopic sensors and Bluetooth on a small device that I wear on my head), I had the opportunity to learn how to manage, produce, and edit everything for my YouTube Channel (Mountain Bike POV videos) and so I helped it grow from 1,000 to the 425,000 subscribers I have today. This meant that I had to learn the skills needed to edit on Adobe Premiere Pro, AA, Photoshop, and Illustrator, plus learning strategies involving YouTube channel growth, etc., all using the head-mouse. With all this knowledge and practice, I became very precise and fast using my mouse. So after my YouTube channel plateaued in 2022/2023 and it became less practical as I could no longer feed it with new material every week/month, I started to think about my old passion from 2001, DJing.
Here comes the second part. Starting in 2023, I started to think about the possibility of re-learning a skill that I had used back in the day when I had a reggae bar back in 2001. In my head, I thought this was impossible, especially to do it professionally in clubs, bars, events, etc. But I did some research, and saw one guy, just like me, being an EDM DJ in Amsterdam, if he can do it, I can do it and started the process. Fast forward to today, while still in the process of learning every day, practicing every day… I can say I have been hired as a DJ at different events, clubs, bars, restaurants, etc. I also have a SoundCloud and YouTube channel dedicated to my DJ profile, Pato Selekta. Some of my remixes and mashup have been somewhat successful in these two music platforms with 30k-40k views.
Third; software and why I am here. Well, I cannot use a controller, so I rely 100% on the usability and UI capabilities of a good DJ software on a laptop. At the moment, I have a MacBook Pro M2 Max 64 GB and 2 TB SSD, very powerful stuff, very! I’ve paired this computing power with Virtual DJ, which I believe has a great UI, Video output options, good STEMS but, more importantly, the possibility to script/program and assign those sequences to keyboard shortcuts. Using Apple’s accessibility options, I have created a “custom panel” or keyboard which deploys when I launch Virtual DJ.
As DJ platforms evolve and become more intelligent, they have indirectly helped people like dare to become DJs as we can leverage on things like Neural Mixing and smart beat gridding, to be creative and have a chance against “normal” DJs. DJay Pro is the king regarding these last two points, and in addition, it has the potential to program a keyboard like the one I have with VDJ and with DJay Pro’s awesome effects, which I think are the best in the industry, I could be a better disabled DJ. Finally, I have not converted yet, why?: one, I have not been able to transfer correctly my playlists and tracks with all my cue-points, which I know it can be done (somehow); and secondly, because I do many mash-ups and remixes, and the lack of a key compatibility “traffic-light” system is a dealbreaker in order to commit 100% to DJay Pro.
Anyway, I’ll be here participating in the community and If anyone has any questions or suggestions, feel free to ask or comment.
