Ask Manila club regulars who has kept a dance floor full for the past twenty-plus years, and Ace Ramos comes up quickly. Wikipedia's history of Philippine music lists him among the mainstream club DJs, with Mars Miranda, Marc Marasigan and Martin Pulgar, who made their names on the big club concerts and festivals that brought international headliners to the country.

According to his Facebook profile, Ace is from Guimba, Nueva Ecija, and a resident DJ at Embassy Superclub and The Palace Manila.

From turntables at 12 to a first gig in Makati

According to his own profile, Ace started on the turntables at 12. He was hooked after watching DJ MOD at the 1990 DMC finals. His first paid gig was at Winner's Bar and Resto in Makati in 1998. After that came the circuit that shaped a whole generation of Manila nightlife: Embassy Super Club, Euphoria, Fashion Cafe, 78 Orange, Absinth, V-Bar and Temple. He lists DJ MOD, Kimozave, Kristyles, Qbert, Jazzy Jeff, Z-Trip and Armin van Buuren among his influences. That mix of scratch DJs and mainstage names shows up in how he plays.

DJ of the Year

In January 2010, the first Philippine edition of the Urban Music Awards, led by Wave 89.1, was held at the Eastwood Mall fountain area. The Philippine Star reported the winners, and DJ of the Year went to Ace Ramos. It is the clearest early proof of how strongly he connected with the scene's crowds.

His bio says that around the same time he spent more than a year, from June 2008 to November 2009, as resident DJ on ABS-CBN's Wowowee, playing to a national daytime TV audience. He later appeared on other network shows.

Crowd-pleaser, by his own description

Ace makes no secret of how he plays. Before he co-headlined Road to EIF 2019 in Guam, he told Pacific Daily News:

"I am more of a crowd-pleaser. Love to play for the people. I always see to it that I get to play whatever music they wanna hear. I expect the unexpected. I usually play on the fly. I always feel the crowd."

That same report called him an EIF veteran with 21 years in the music scene and the resident DJ of Xylo at The Palace Manila. The Palace in BGC was one of the country's best-known nightlife venues of the 2010s. When the pandemic closed the clubs, Ace stayed in the booth for the venue's United at The Palace livestream series and played the "Bim Bam Boom" deck on November 28, 2020.

His Facebook profile also notes a feature at W Atlas Superclub.

His style comes from the open-format school: mashups that move between hip-hop, R&B, electro and chart hits, then build into big-room house when the room is ready. You can hear it in his Mixcloud uploads. His Saturday Night Take Over mix with MC Ronthug, recorded for WARP Shinjuku in Tokyo, reached No. 11 on Mixcloud's big room house chart.

Festival stages, then and now

His festival record covers more than ten years. In 2013 he was on the Sonic Carnival lineup at the SM Mall of Asia grounds, a benefit for Typhoon Yolanda victims headlined by Steve Aoki and Laidback Luke. In 2026 he was billed on the main stage at &FRIENDS Festival in Okada Manila, as Ace Ramos f2f Marc Marasigan, on a bill with Galantis, Porter Robinson, Subtronics and Yellow Claw.

Why he's our DJ of the Week

There is a lot to learn from Ace for any DJ building a career in the Philippines. He goes into the booth to serve the room, not to make a point. He keeps his fundamentals sharp, from his scratch-DJ beginnings to his mainstage sets. And he has stayed relevant through each change in the scene, from bar gigs in the late '90s to TV, superclubs, livestreams and festival main stages.

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