Mike Henderson (a.k.a. ENDO) focuses on his console while DJing a club.
Mike Henderson, a.k.a. ENDO spends his nights DJing at some of the most famous clubs in Ibiza, where people dance to Electronic Dance Music at some of the best clubs in the world until sunrise. Whenever he’s not out at parties, he’s working on projects and working with some of the world’s most famous DJs and teaching the local Ibiza community at theHUB Ibiza Studios. He is part of a team that includes world-renowned DJs like Sasha, Bushwacka!, Mick Wilson (Tech editor for DJ Mag), Sam Dean, and Kellie Allen (co-founder of theHUB), along with team members Nathan Thursting (project curator and head of Mensch Music Management), and Jonno Rogers (studio manager and in-house mixing engineer, who also DJs and produces under the name Tulshi). ENDO also hosts his weekly Live Class for his Learn To DJ with Traktor Berklee Online course at theHUB.
“Ibiza is the electronic music capital of the world,” says ENDO of his new home base. “Hundreds of the world’s most famous DJs are flying in and out every day, all season long. It’s a paradise like none other, and there’s something for everyone. The best beaches, amazing food culture, deep-rooted wellness scene for healers, yogis, and spiritual seekers—and music lovers of all ages.”
DJing in College
ENDO’s journey to one of the sunniest music spots in the world started in some of the coldest areas. After leaving University of Vermont, where he studied mathematics, he headed to Boston to pursue a degree in Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music. Prior to Berklee, he played drums, but once he began studying at the Boston campus, he developed a passion for DJing. ENDO discovered his sound once he started dabbling into breakbeats, a UK subgenre of electronic dance music. In college, he was known as “the Breaks guy,” who people began booking for parties. He also began throwing a monthly event in Vermont, DJing raves on weekends, and promoting events in Boston at places like Avaland and Elements at the Phoenix Landing.
“I was promoting and traveling to all these events, watching DJs,” says ENDO. “I would go to Montreal every weekend to an after-hours club. There was a big glass window behind the DJ. I would just sit there, watch the DJ, learn what they were doing, and then go home and practice.”
ENDO began hosting late-night sessions for the University of Vermont’s radio station. Eventually, he created and hosted a radio show called Algorhythms at Massachusetts Institute of Technology through 88.1 WMBR FM, where he would play a mixture of nu skool breaks, electro house, deep house, and techno. It was also a training ground for the types of shifts he works now for the masses in Ibiza: In September, ENDO will join Joseph Capriati’s Metamorfosi party at Hï Ibiza, a venue with a capacity of nearly 6,000 that has been ranked the No. 1 club in the world for three years in a row.
“My slot was from 12 AM to 2 AM,” says ENDO about his UVM days, “but the DJs from 2 AM until 8 AM didn’t show up. So I’m like, ‘We have dead air? Let’s just keep this going.’ People would be calling me all hours of the night, saying they love it and making requests. People were calling me from jail saying ‘we’re all listening to you in jail right now!’”
STUDY DJING WITH MIKE “ENDO” HENDERSON
For ENDO, his radio sets were an opportunity to experiment and practice new mixing techniques, playing around with different controllers and software. Even during the pandemic, ENDO made three-hour set shows for Beatport, an electronic music-oriented online store. For this job, he would look up new music every Friday at midnight and come up with an entirely different set with the latest club hits for each week.
ENDO’s life experiences as a student and DJ also taught him that the key to being successful comes with knowing your art and knowing how to network. Mastering the skills to become a DJ is only half of the job. Once you gain all the knowledge, it’s important to go out and meet people who can help you get gigs, perform, and find collaborations.
“First, become a master of your craft. Find your sound and really learn the tools at your disposal,” ENDO advises all of his students. “Then, find out the events that you would want to play at and start going to those events. Meet the promoters, DJs, the bar staff, dancers, and get people into your music.”
Mastering Traktor
ENDO has dedicated most of his career to programming Traktor, a versatile and commonly-used DJ software. Through collaborating with other DJs such as Sasha, Pete Tong, Dubfire, and Carl Cox, ENDO realized that by programming Traktor in a specific way, depending on the artist he was working with, he could optimize time and deliver the best possible performances. He learned Traktor inside-out and uses the software for all of his musical projects, whether by collaborating with artists in the studio or working as a DJ at parties in Ibiza.
“I’ve been customizing Traktor for each person. I would just get inside the artist’s mind, work with them, and figure out how we can take what they do to the next level,” says ENDO.
ENDO’s infatuation with music software started with his final project as a Music Synthesis student at Berklee, where he created a DVD on how to use Traktor. He created a new system of harmonic mixing for DJs who do not use Keylock, a feature that allows users to adjust the tempo of a track. This led to him working for Native Instruments—the company that makes Traktor—and eventually becoming a professional DJ and an instructor at Berklee Online, where he wrote the Learn To DJ with Traktor course.
ENDO on his Traktor Course
In his course, ENDO teaches his students all they need to know about DJing, but most importantly, how to use an innovative approach to Traktor. This software can be as simple as just mixing with a mouse and keyboard or as complex as using turntables with special technology that allows the program to read where the needle is placed on a vinyl disc.
“I think it’s the most versatile DJ software out there,” says ENDO. “It goes beyond traditional DJing, just playing one song to another: You can add remix decks, stems, and now they have AI stems, where you can take any song, throw it into the software, and it’ll break it down into vocals, drums, bass, and music. That just opens up a whole Pandora’s box of live remixing possibilities.”
Traktor allows DJs to program the software and their HID controllers (Human Interface Device), to make certain buttons, knobs, and faders have specific functionalities. The programming process can also be referred to as MIDI mappings, which ENDO started doing for the artist community early in his career and now teaches his students.
“I started to almost come up with a brand of how I was programming these controllers,” he says. “It was a certain layout that you feel familiar with. These are now used by hundreds of thousands of DJs worldwide, so it’s been amazing.”
The Learn to DJ with Traktor course empowers students not only to use Traktor but also to expand their knowledge on the art of DJing, including essential concepts such as beat matching, phrase mixing, EQing, and MIDI mapping. He says he recommends the course to anyone interested in knowing more about DJing, and no prior experience is needed.
“Everyone loves the effects. Traktor has more than 40 built-in effects that are just mind-blowing and sound super cool,” says ENDO. “Students also really love the harmonic mixing. They make these masterpieces that help them tell a story. I’m just always blown away.”
ENDO has recently updated the course extensively, due to the release of Traktor’s latest version, Traktor Pro 4. He has written new lessons on the new Pattern Player, the Ozone Maximizer, stem separation, AI stems, and new harmonic mixing pro tips that come along with Traktor’s new features. Additionally, ENDO teaches you how to take advantage of Beatsource LINK, a catalog in Traktor with hip-hop, R&B, rock, and dance as well as Beatport LINK (for electronic dance music).
“I want students to find their own sounds at the end of the day and really help them get their full creativity out,” says ENDO. “Music production students or musicians who come in to take the course come out with a whole new appreciation of the art form.”
