Junior Brandon Ngo elevates his DJ career at online music festivals

Junior Brandon Ngo felt a rush of adrenaline as he logged onto the beginning of Skullzfest, an extensive online music festival to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). He was about to present a DJ set he co-created with his online friend Pyxify that had been in the works since October.

Ngo has been mixing music since the beginning of the pandemic and started performing at large virtual music festivals like Skullzfest in May 2021.

Skullzfest occurred during the afternoon of Jan. 22 and was streamed on Twitch. The event, an opportunity for small music enthusiasts to present their works and bond over music, was organized by Ngo and his online friend and SoundCloud artist Nova. Skullzfest raised $51 from viewers and donated all proceeds to AFSP since both Ngo and Nova have struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past. 

Starting in October, Ngo and Pyxify began bouncing brief mixes and mashups between each other that would fit their set which would have a progressively increasing tempo. This method allowed them to collaborate and create additions to each other’s work until their set was complete by Thanksgiving break. 

Since performing at his first festival, Seasonfest, in July 2021, Ngo said he has been developing different habits to tackle the process of mixing music.

“Over the past six months, I’ve learned to come up with random mashups while listening to music and write them down so I can mold them into my sets,” Ngo said. “This strategy has been very successful from the few sets I’ve performed since Seasonsfest.”

When developing his set for Skullzfest, Ngo made sure he allowed himself and Pyxify time to mold the set around various unique trajectories stemming from their initial idea of increasing the tempo. By planning with Pyxify, he was able to compile clips from their favorite animes and record some landscapes as their visuals earlier on, which greatly boosted efficiency relative to Ngo’s individual creative process.

Ngo said that he mostly created the set off of random spurts of inspiration lasting for a few hours. He had to capitalize on these bursts when they came in order to complete the set.

“In one instance, I had made a 10-or 12-minute mix while staying up until two or three in the morning because of how inspired I was,” Ngo said. “In another, I had put together around 15 minutes of visuals that were all spliced and mixed up, consuming a couple hours.”

Though producing the DJ set went relatively smoothly, Ngo and Pyxify found that preparing the logistics of their set proved to be more taxing. 

First, Ngo had to splice his anime visuals into chunks less than 30 seconds long so that they would not get detected by YouTube’s copyright system. He also had to render his set, which was an extremely arduous process due to frequent laptop crashes and other technical issues. 

Once Ngo and Pyxify finalized their set, they sent it to Nova two weeks in advance for Skullzfest. From there, Ngo helped Nova polish the advertisement posters by listing the lineup and charity Skullzfest would donate to and creating a poster of the timetables for Nova.

Ngo said that his four months of hard work paid off, as he said the event was a clear step up from Seasonsfest in July. Though the amount of donations Skullzfest received was relatively the same compared to Seasonsfest, where they raised $57, Ngo’s viewership at Skullzfest saw a healthy increase of around eight to nine listeners, which he is happy about.

“We were able to showcase several new artists since last time while also featuring some returning artists, and I’m sure many people were able to discover new music and befriend new people there as well,” Ngo said.

Ngo found the event to be a great way to release his work to the public and bond with fellow music enthusiasts. Ngo and Pyxify’s set garnered positive reactions in chat and on SoundCloud, especially in regards to song selection and the overall fluidity of the set. Ngo said such feedback was surprising and motivates him to continue mixing music.

“Right now, my set has over 500 plays on SoundCloud, a milestone I wouldn’t have imagined I would ever reach for a single set,” Ngo said. “Playing at Skullzfest has sparked my motivation to continue making sets with friends and share my favorite music with others.”

As of now, Ngo said that he is very excited to continue creating music and curating future festivals. Ngo partnered with another online friend named neocidee under the duo name “gwape girls” for FEST2FEST 2, a smaller group-only festival that occurred on March 6. In the set, the duo alternated who had control over their music, a feat which proved difficult to coordinate but went smoothly, Ngo said. Due to the overwhelming success of the set (earning over 60 plays in only three days), Ngo plans on working with neocidee under the alias in the future.

Along with the 2022 Seasonsfest, which he is co-curating, Ngo has his eyes on the “Eon Nights” series, hosted by the fan Discord server of Ngo’s favorite artist, Porter Robinson. Ngo said that performing at one of these events which typically sport a high average of listeners could greatly bolster his DJing resume.

Though his schedule is tightening due to academic commitments, Ngo is prospective of kickstarting his own musical path in the near future.

“I want to experiment with live DJing as well as maybe start producing my own music at some point, but with my heavy academic workload for 2022, it might be more difficult to try new things,” Ngo said. “Since a lot of artists I listen to have started at a young age, I do feel pressured to begin my own journey of music production, but I will take on it when the time is right.”