(Photos: The above two photos are from an October 2003 noWax night in East London. The bottom image was taken at APT in New York City.)

Imagine this: You are a DJ but you don't have any bulky gear. You don't need to drive to a gig, the subway/underground will do just fine. You also don't need an assistant to carry milk crates of heavy vinyl. Everything you need is in your pockets and smaller than a pack of cigarettes. You only have 2 iPods, but together they hold enough music to play for several months straight, 24-7, without a single repeat. You are a mp3j. Somewhere in East London the turntables are motionless. The only thing spinning is a chorus of iPod hard drives, or the ceiling (if you're friends with the bartender). The club's name is Dreambagsjaguarshoes and the event is called noWax. The concept for noWax is simple: MP3s, not wax. iPods, not decks. On noWax nights, mp3js bring their iPods and wait for the automated projector above the DJ booth to flash their number. Then they plug-in a Tascam XS-3 and mix three songs back-to-back against another mp3j. noWax is a public competition very similar to ‘Rap Battles', a la Eminem's movie 8 Mile. Whoever mixes the best set of songs and doesn't get booed off stage wins. They continue to hold their place on the stage until another mp3j can dethrone them. "People who never normally get to play tunes in bars or clubs are getting a taste of the glory, and they love it!" says DJ Charlie Gower, co-organizer of noWax. noWax is the latest instance of a new trend hitting clubs and pubs around the world. It's called MP3Jing (also called 'iPoding' by dorks) and the reasons for its popularity are obvious. The iPods compact size combined with its unbeatable user interface and sheer mass of musical storage make it the default choice for digital music lovers around the globe. Apple has sold millions of the little gadgets and people carry them around everywhere, including the bars. "It's practically insane when you think about it," says Zak Carr, a recent iPod owner. "At any given night, there could be a million songs in one room." East London's noWax isn't alone in embracing this mp3j trend. Clubs in New York City have also started "iPod Nights" to lure in customers. The New York City venue, APT (pronounced A-P-T), allows patrons to sign up by grabbing a ticket from a deli dispenser and mix a couple songs off an iPod. The event is hosted by two guys both named Andrew who pre-select a giant playlist every week. It is best described as a do it yourself jukebox/Karaoke system for the crowd. November 7th, 2003 @ noWax

noWax vs. APT
The Crowds: Shoreditch for London's noWax. Geek-chic at APT in New York's meat packing district.The Shoreditch area in East London is full of media and art based folk. It started as a place that just had artists studios and then became pretty trendy, and now has lots of bars and young companies. So if you have been to downtown Manhattan, picture a Greenwich Village smack dab in the middle of East London. "Quite a fashionable area!" says DJ Charlie. Where would you rather go? East vs. West. Let us know, especially if you've been there.

THE METHODS
There's two ways to DJ with an iPod. The first is to go "pure Pod" and set up with two iPods and a mixer. This method is less perfect and more for the crowd's geek-fun of it all. The mp3j's doing all the mixing are usually audience members like at noWax or APT. The other way is to go "pro Pod." People who actually get paid to DJ can hook their iPods to a laptop and use programs like Traktor's DJ Studio or Final Scratch. You may think that DJ's can just pretty much pre-program the entire night, but that's not the case. "We no longer have to manually match the initial setting of the tempo, but we still manually fine tune it, live, as we are playing." says DJ Hobbes. "In all reality, the DJ behind the laptop still does 99% of the work. We no longer have to manually match the initial setting of the tempo, but we still manually fine tune it, live, as we are playing."

DRAWBACKS
Sure it sounds like a good idea, but MP3Jing has its drawbacks. Especially for the amature DJ. Which would you rather pay money to watch: a DJ sitting behind a laptop/iPod pushing buttons, or the real deal spinning vinyl and rocking that cross fader? Unfortunately with the MP3Jing method, gone is the expert physical touch of a DJ and his vinyl. And some people feel that it's just not the same. "I paid $25 one night for some DJ I didn't even know. DJ MegaByte or something stupid and computerized like that." says Laura, a connoisseur of New York City's 'house' music scene. "The bouncer at the door said he was really popular, so we kind of felt a little better. But then he was just up on stage with a computer. He probably hit play on a CD and was checking his email or something all night." The public is used to that familiar background hiss of a record playing and the fancy finger work that goes into a "live" DJ's show. They want the DJ to feed off their energy and have that energy reflex in the music that is being mixed.

THE ADVANTAGES
On the other hand MP3Jing has plenty of advantages in its favor. For one, a professional DJ could download a new tune from a friend, while at the DJ booth, and play it minutes later. The digital immediacy of it all is a very cool and a underused factor. Another great advantage is the size vs storage aspect. The iPod is about the size of a tape cassette and even the 40GB iPod can hold 10,000 songs, or four-weeks of music played continuously 24/7. That should be long enough to DJ your next desert rave, right? And if your goal is crowd participation, like with noWax, then MP3Jing is the way to go. Everyone can just bring their own iPod to the club and plug-n-play. Drunk people and someone else's expensive turntables just don't mix. Especially if they are yours.

MP3JING TRICKS & WORKAROUNDS
Without a pitch adjuster on the iPod, you can't match two songs up exactly. As a result, all your transitions might be a little chunky like some DJ Shadow mixes. Also I doubt your hard transitions will be as well timed and executed as Shadow's. That's not exactly bad, but your mix just won't always have a nice easy flow like his.

Faux Scratching - tap the center button of the iPod and gently jog back a second or two to make the music pause. It actually sounds more like a CD is skipping, but what else are you going to do?

 

SUGGESTIONS FOR APPLE
Every time new iPods or iPod firmware gets released, things get better. But the improvements don't always have DJs in mind. Maybe they could make special iPod DJ firmware. Hey Apple, are you listening?

• Add scratching. Press and hold the center button to activate a touch pad "seeking mode" that could simulate scratching.
• Add a pitch adjuster. When digitizing audio from a tape deck or vinyl record, the slightest variation in playback speed will result in a song that's slightly out of tune. "Apple should add pitch control of (+)(-) 5 % to the options tag for the song," says professional musician David Ondrick. "The new CPU power can definitely handle the extra computing." A 'live' pitch adjuster could also be handy for DJs and make their song transitions smoother.
• Add a crossfader. The iPod should have had this years ago. iTunes has it, now the iPod should get it too.
• Incorporate add-ons like Griffin's Powermate. The Powermate is a volume control wheel with neon lights. Several software developers have made their products work with the Powermate. Perhaps it could be used as a jog wheel, scratch knob or pitch adjuster in iTunes.
• Add an auto sensing BPM (beats per minute) feature in iTunes and/or on the iPod. Or have CDDB (CD Database) add this info to their online database. That way DJs can better plan their sets by matching beats.
• "Another upgrade or improvement in a dj-type iPod player is to make song transitions from one to another more seamless. For instance, songs that segue from say, track 1 to track 2 have a short silent break. Clear that up by making the transitions seamless. Lots of premixed cd's don't sound as well playing on current iPods for this reason." ~ txfxc
• Got more ideas? Let us know!