Out of the corner of her eyes, Vinyl watched the beat thump out of the club’s massive stacks. Placed next to the smoke machine, the speakers pulsed and pushed the air in front of them out in concentric rings. Vinyl craved this moment. The anticipation. Each pony holding their breath collectively. Together, they waited.
The beat was simple. Kick. Kick-snare. Kick. Kick-snare. Sixteen beats, then thirty two. At seventeen, several ponies in the audience had gotten antsy, launching into their first dance steps before realizing the drop wasn’t coming yet. Others, more patient, nodded along and waited for a cue.
At forty-nine, Vinyl raised a hoof, and the crowd responded with a roar. The crowd’s mood shifted. Head bobs turned into full-body bounces. Suddenly hooves were beginning to move, scooting in small, neat patterns on the floor: A warm up to the main event.
Fifty-seven. Vinyl slowly began dropping her hoof to the mixer. Before her, a sea of eyes shined. Tongues wetted lips. Pulses quickened. It was almost here.
And then it was.
Vinyl’s hoof slammed down on the delay switch and the synth hit erupted out of the speakers and rolled over the audience. The first real note of the night, and it was a declaration. It hit the audience hard, slamming into the crowd like an unshackled beast.
The delay spanned what was normally a single synth note into something more; an open door that beckoned the crowd to follow.
They roared again and surged forward. Manes flew when heads moved from side to side. Eyes closed, they swayed as one. It was irresistible. Packed in so close, it was impossible not to be influenced by the pony’s rhythm next to you.
Despite everything, Vinyl grinned. She’d been dreaming of that delayed synth hit for days. Fooling around on the decks at home, it had just come to her. She’d tried it a few times, growing more excited with each attempt. It was a simple effect, but sometimes that worked best during shows. The crowd wanted excitement and adventure, but more than anything, they wanted the beat. Complication on the decks often interrupted the flow.
Complications. Vinyl had enough complications right now.
~~~
Vinyl leaned her head out from around the door jamb. “Hey, can you come listen to this transition and tell me if it’s working or not?”
Curled up on the couch, Octavia frowned from over her magazine. “Vinyl…”
“Aw, c’mon!” Vinyl edged into the room. “Look, I just need you to listen for a sec. I can’t tell.”
Octavia put the magazine down with a sigh. “Well, you know I can’t tell either! Why do you always ask me to do this?”
“Come on, Tav. Just let me know if it sounds good or not!”
“You know I’m not going to like it, so why ask me?”
~~~
The track had kicked into full gear. Drums hammered the crowd while a filtered high-hat adding syncopation to the breakbeat. Off to the side of the room, several ponies had formed a circle, with one popping and locking inside. Vinyl pointed to them. She always liked to acknowledge the old-school breakers. They really brought the energy.
Vinyl flipped through her crate and pulled out her next track. Sliding it out of its sleeve, she held it up to the light for a moment. She’d been bitten in the flank a few times earlier in her career when she hadn’t noticed a scratch or a bit of dirt stick to a record. Nothing was worse than the needle going haywire in the middle of a set.
After speeding the pitch control, Vinyl set the record on the slipmat and powered up the second turntable. Gently resting her hoof on the spinning disk, she rotated it back to the bit of blue tape that marked her cue point and dropped the needle.
Inside her headphones, the record came to jarring life. Even after all this time, it was disconcerting. One song playing for the crowd, a completely different one just for her. That’s why focus was key. You had to listen—really listen— to what was important.
~~~
Vinyl pointed to where Octavia sat. “Why are you always like this? You’re not even doing anything! It’s not like it’s hard!”
Octavia’s frown deepened. “It’s not a matter of if it’s hard or not, though for your information it is quite difficult for me. It’s a matter of respect. We’ve been over this before. I’m not good at helping you with this!”
Vinyl looked away, disgusted. “That’s BS, Tav, and you know it. Your degree’s in music! I’m pretty sure that you had to listen to a bunch of stuff you didn’t really like all that much to get it, so I’m not buying this whole ‘I’m not good at it’ crap.”
Octavia hopped off the couch. “Well, I’m not good at it, and if we are going to get into it, I just don’t enjoy it. Is that what you want to hear? Is that why you keep at it?”
~~~
Four beats, and the tracks were already sliding out of synch. Inside her headphones, the rhythm pounded away much more quickly. Vinyl dragged her hoof along the edge of the turntable’s platter. As it slowed, the two tracks slid back into synch. With their beats pounding in unison again, Vinyl pushed the pitch fader away from her to adjust the speed down. This time, the beats moved out of synch much more slowly. Vinyl repeated the process until both the beats from both tracks were locked together.
Over the speakers, her track had reached its break. It was nearly time. Dropping the needle back to her cue point, she rocked the record back and forth a few time, listening to the beat. It was vitally important to release at just the right time. Too early or too late, and you’d need to adjust on the fly. It was all too easy to make a mistake that ruined the set doing that.
Without the beat to move them, the crowd slowed. The break gave them an opportunity to catch their breath. Their communal rhythm never fully stopped, but it was more subdued. Deeper as each unconsciously continued to bob with the beat that still played in their heads.
Vinyl twisted the bass knob on channel two to the left. It was almost time to mix in her next track, but the two beats together would be jarringly loud if she didn’t take the edge off the incoming track. Counting silently, she rocked the record back and forth with where the beat should be playing, then released it just as the break ended and the beat in her original track kicked back in. For just a moment, the control blurred and swam before her eye. Gritting her teeth, she wiped her eyes hard with the back of her hoof. She couldn’t afford a lapse in concentration now.
It was time for the transition.
~~~
The blood rushed to Vinyl’s face. “Yeah, kinda! It is what I want to hear! I don’t like helping you carry your cello when you’ve got a concert, but I do it! I don’t like sitting there turning the pages for you when you’re practicing, but I do it!” She threw her hooves up in the air. “But sorry, don’t let me interrupt your really important magazine just because I need a hoof with something.”
“Well, if you didn’t want to do any of those things, then you should have spoken up about it!” Octavia’s voice had ratcheted up several decibels.
Vinyl jabbed a hoof at Octavia. “I did them for you! That’s what it means to have a marefriend! Sometimes you do stuff you don’t wanna do to make the other person happy!”
“Yes, and it’s also supposed to be a place where we can be honest and adult,” Octavia replied through a clenched jaw. “Not a place where we are keeping score of who has done more favors for whom.”
“Fine!” Vinyl whirled, stomping from the room. “Whatever. I guess I’ll figure it out on my own!”
For a moment, silence.
“Yes, I suppose you will!” Octavio called back.
Then the front door slammed.
~~~
Vinyl inched the crossfader toward channel two. Slowly, the incoming track blended into the first, bringing new layers of complexity. Together, the two together made a greater whole.
The interplay between the two tracks ignited the crowd again. Those ponies inclined to dance stepped with renewed vigor, and those content to just feel the music leaned into the beat.
Now past the crossfader’s halfway point, Vinyl slowly twisted the bass knob in unison. With the first track fading, the beat needed to stay nice and strong. Nothing killed the mood faster than moving into a track and forgetting that you’d subtracted out the bass.
Counting down again, Vinyl knocked the crossfader fully into position on right on beat.