When most people experience DJing in Ann Arbor, they're probably spending the night out at Necto or Rick’s. But mainstream music is the last thing on the minds of Sam Billetdeaux, Robert Wells and Rick Wade, who have all been shaped by the Ann Arbor DJ scene.

“I think people don’t really realize what goes into it. It’s not just putting on an iPod,” said LSA senior Billetdeaux, who DJs at Sigma Phi, for Shei Magazine and at house parties in Ann Arbor. “Anyone can play two good songs one after another, but to mix them together is another level. It takes a while to learn the ins and outs of it. You have to learn to think about music in a different way. ”

Like most DJs, Billetdeaux, who has been DJing since his sophomore year, first fell into the hobby simply because he loved listening to music.

“Diplo is my first idol. I saw Diplo open for Justice. That was the moment I realized I wanted to DJ. That was my freshman year,” he said.

Robert Wells, a graduate student in Rackham, is another Ann Arbor local whose interest in DJing spawned from his undergraduate days, when he started working for the college radio station at the University of Kansas. Since moving to Ann Arbor, Wells has gotten involved with WCBN-FM, the University’s radio station.

Wells, who has now been a DJ for nine years, has spent six of them at WCBN and four with Ann Arbor Soul Club, which was dreamed up by Wells and his DJ partner Brad Hales, a Detroit record store owner. In contrast to venues frequented by many college students that typically spin Top 40 fare, Soul Club spins original Motown hits in 45 rpm. The monthly dance party draws a considerable crowd of booty-shaking nostalgia seekers.

“Just knowing other DJs and hopefully having good taste” was important in establishing himself as a DJ, Wells said.

“We were fortunate with Soul Club because it had a great beginning. A couple hundred people were there the first time we tried it.”

Class of ’91 alum Rick Wade, on the other hand, prefers to play what he calls “deep house” music.

“What’s funny about that term is what city you’re in. They’ll have their own definitions. It kind of stretches across genres,” Wade said. “The best description (of the difference) between deep house and regular house is that deep house is more instrumental-based, whereas house has a lot of vocals.”

Wade has made a name for himself internationally as a DJ in part thanks to the popularity of Late Night Basix Vol.1— his first record — released in 1994. He’ll travel to places as far-flung as Australia and Russia to play gigs.

“I do a lot of traveling. I actually fly back to Berlin on Oct. 7. Then I go to Vienna, Austria. Then I fly back out again to Japan. Then to Australia,” he said. “I just got lucky, that first record was really popular in England. Then it started popping out on charts. As a by-product of the record’s popularity, I started DJing.”

But it hadn’t always been so easy.

“When I first started DJing, I had no idea I would ever be traveling at all. I would just try to make things for mix shows,” Wade said. “I worked on farms until high school. I grew up listening to hot mixes, the discos, that sort of stuff. So I would go to the record station and buy songs that I’d hear on the radio. I got to be known as the guy who had the music. I became a DJ by default, so to speak.”

Back then, Wade spun quite a different genre.

“I started out as a ghetto tech, booty-based DJ,” he said. “I worked in a DJ record store after college. I was in charge of hip hop and ghetto tech.”

A couple of bad gigs didn’t stop Wade from continuing to pursue DJing as a career.

“Every DJ has had a bad gig,” he said. “Maybe people weren’t showing up, or you weren’t feeling it that night. You just take it in stride. You have to accept those things are going to happen. You just have to let it ride.