9 ms·

How to get started with DJing

118 points by antiroyalty 10y ago

dpc59 10y ago
I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring, learn how to play instruments and all the theory behind pop music, then figure out the software and hardware to play live sets. Obviously you're going to need to understand the basics of mixing to play live sets, but playing a regular DJ set in front of an audience to me is the same thing as covering stairway to heaven or wonderwall. Keep practicing until you're actually good. All of my friends who could play instruments had a much easier time getting into producing than the people who never learned a single scale. And it's not just the composition aspect, it's all the sound design, sampling and just understand the programs that gets easier.
- Rifu 10y ago
  Seems a little harsh to label it as absolutely useless. How is it any different from learning to play the piano to play your favorite piano pieces? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by produce?
- sp3n 10y ago
  quite far from basic mixing with 2 decks, turntablism requires similar skills to playing an instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc
- thedaniel 10y ago
  > I'm going to seem like an elitist prick Great tip, if you feel the need to start a comment like this, don't post it.
- aidos 10y ago
  Yeah, that is really elitist. And it's just your opinion, so you're allowed to hold it :) A good DJ can make the difference between a mediocre party and a really amazing party. I agree that the more tools in your arsenal, the better you'll be but don't brush off what can be achieved with 2 turntables and a really good knowledge of music.
  - Ace17 10y ago
    > A good DJ can make the difference between a mediocre party and a really amazing party. I hear this a lot. However, this sounds like rationalization of DJing competences. Are there ways to check such a statement?
    - clappski 10y ago
      Going to some party's and raves would be a good start, it's like asking how can you measure how good a piece of music is (very difficultly!)
    - aidos 10y ago
      Music is really subjective - and I'm not aware of a way to quantify the impact of music generally. The same challenge applies to a musical "artists", but justification of the skills of DJs is often demanded, where the skills of artists isn't. Why is that? From the perspective of someone who had gone through the learning journey, I know full well the difference between my abilities when I begin and now (and there's still a lot of space for me to improve). Those first times I DJed were fairly horrible experiences for everyone - most of all me. What can we figure out though? There are really just a couple of main dimensions to consider, song selection and how those songs are put together. Song selections are crucial to DJing and you can think of it in terms of tailoring the music to the environment. Whether you have 2 turntables or not, this is the most important part. Maybe you have a someone putting on other people's mix tapes - understanding the energy and environment are still crucial. I've seen people who are accomplished musicians get this very wrong. It's not something that comes of being a good musician, it's a totally different skill-set. So before you even look at the medium (turntables), I think we can agree that there's a skill involved in being able to apply music to enhance the environment. Then there's the turntable aspect. If you give someone with the skills to apply the right music an infinite supply of music and an mp3 player they'll struggle to make the experience smooth. A pause in the music is going to kill the energy in the room. But that's just the start. You can change the energy just by moving through tracks faster, before you even start looking at the interesting ways you can put the music together. Not only that, but pretty much every DJ setup these days is digital with much more you can do to the music in the mix. It's like lighting - take a perfectly good party and put strip lighting in. It's all about creating the right environment. Music is a big part of that - though I suspect I'm more aware of it than other people.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  >I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring Exhibit A for the defence: this utterly masterful set by garage legend DJ EZ. He deftly plays with the build and release of tension without relying on formulaic drops. There is still enormous creative mileage in traditional two-deck mixing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OraL6lKoyXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OraL6lKoyXE Selectors don't even mix in the traditional sense, nor do they compose or produce, but there's a tremendous art to what they do. If you're unfamiliar with sound system culture and clashing, I'd suggest the Red Bull Culture Clash as an accessible introduction, particularly Rebel Sound's 2014 performance starring the inimitable David Rodigan. It's worth watching the "making of" documentary on their performance; it took months of painstaking preparation to play 40 minutes of music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKDSgMddOO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKDSgMddOO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ishaG9pyMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ishaG9pyMA The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ. Back in the day you needed decks, you needed to learn to beatmatch, you needed to hunt down white labels, you needed to get dubplates cut. There was a barrier to entry, an apprenticeship you had to serve before you could call yourself a DJ. The term has now been diluted to the point of meaninglessness, but that doesn't diminish from the artistry of great DJs.
  - dpc59 10y ago
    >The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ. This is the point I was trying to make. I'm very familiar with soundsystem culture, I've been making a living from it since I was 17. Obviously there's some good sounding stuff you can do while mixing on two decks, you just gave decent examples, but in my opinion it's never going to be as mind blowing as Birdy Nam Nam or Araabmuzik absolutely killing it on some freestyle stuff. It's never going to beat a great vinyl jungle set with an experienced scratcher, and it's certainly not going to beat some of the crazy live sets people in the downtempo psytrance scene play. I went to a rave on halloween, and there was these two guys doing a live set. One guy was just doing regular 2 decks stuff for the rythmic section, while the other guy had an mpc, a controller and electronic drums plugged into his computer for the melodies. It was great seeing the drums used as melody, I've seen thousands of sets in my life and I was mind blown. There are no videos of him playing live, but here's his soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/swa-swally https://soundcloud.com/swa-swally
- nnd 10y ago
  I see where you are coming from, but masterful DJing takes much more than switching from desk A to desk B. Song selection is crucial, it's even more important than transitions, moreover you need to play the right music to the right audience. Those things you won't find in tutorials, and that's what makes a great DJ set great. On top of that you can combine producing with playing live by adding effects, creatively transitioning between songs and cue jumping, this takes a lot of skill too.
  - Ericson2314 10y ago
    As someone who plays lots of music, but never listens to music because its just too much of a chore, I appreciate that a good DJ can find a form in multiple songs none of which I ever have any chance of know about myself.
    - barbs 10y ago
      That's interesting, I'm the opposite - I listen to loads of music but don't play much. I would've thought one would lead to the other, but I guess not.
      - Ericson2314 10y ago
        Never too late to learn one!
- barbs 10y ago
  You say: > DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose But then give no reason for this to be the case. You imply that DJing takes less skill than composing/producing/performing, and that may be true, but that doesn't make DJing useless if done on its own. "Elitist prick" indeed.
- empath75 10y ago
  There are different kinds of djing, and 'boring' sets where you just mix two records together all night are a skill all their own. Sometimes people want the DJ to disappear so they can focus on dancing all night. They don't want someone scratching or doing live remixes. They want to just get in a groove and feel time stop while an endless beat plays. It's really hard to keep a crowd like that dancing all night when you aren't performing. I've had 1000 people jumping up and down and screaming and I was just standing there doing nothing while a record played. You really need to know what the crowd wants to get them there and the difference between getting people amped up and just having them wander away from the dance floor is subtle.
- ovao 10y ago
  I'm having a hard time understanding where this comment is coming from. I can understand if your exposure to DJs has been limited (I'm sure we've all seen performers who are just about useless at truly engaging crowds), but there are some who are genuine performers behind the decks. Not just from the perspective of technical proficiency, but also of artistry. I'll argue that the actual instrument doesn't matter. A mixer and a pair of turntables (or CDJs, or a laptop) can, in an artist's hands, produce as engaging an experience as a "live" setup. The comparison between DJing and covering Stairway is very misguided, in my opinion, because it implies that the former is as inherently devoid of artistry as the latter. That's simply not the case.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Yep, and I've also heard performance set-ups which sucked. I've heard Araabmuzik mess up pretty badly live (he's normally phenomenal). For me, it's interesting in that it humanizes him a bit; "hey, I get to fly around the world tapping on my MPC to make crowds go wild, but I'm not perfect". Controllerism is a whole other thing, and if you're curious, go read about it / listen to it / go to some meet-ups / shows. It's big in the Bay Area and many other places. The monome community in particular is really awesome (I'm sure many are but that's the one I have some limited personal experience with). The best part of different music scenes IMO is the variety and the people. You get a bunch of random weirdos together and play with putting your own spins on a genre, twisting it and pulling it into your own direction while making nods to those who came before you. You use the right samples, sometimes with your own personal touches, as tiny musical shout-outs to the other people in the scene; the musical family you've chosen. The audience is in on the fun and the jokes too. It's the sort of thing which tickles the brain in a manner unmatched by other worldly pursuits.
    - ovao 10y ago
      Absolutely. One of my favorite performers (Daedelus) uses a monome for his live setup, and there's nothing on Earth like a Daedelus set. It would be exceedingly difficult (or essentially impossible) to specifically match or emulate what he does with a 'traditional' DJ's setup. That's not to say that what he or other live performers do is inherently better than someone proficient with turntables, of course. He chooses a monome as his primary tool to achieve the type of performance he strives for, and for some, a controller like that is simply not the right tool. To me, it's all good — the hardware involved has little to no effect on how well a performer can match or exceed my expectations.
doublerebel 10y ago
* Love good music. If you don't love or don't have good music, blending songs together will never sound good. * Try out Xwax or Mixxx (based on xwax) for free. They are open-source. You don't really need all the other distractions of modern systems to play good music. All that comes later when you run out of things to do with good music. Any easy effects will sound canned to the slightest trained ear. * Harmonic mixing is incredibly hard to get right. Forget about it until you know you need it. No formula can tell you the key of one song matched with another, as soon as they make a chord progression not in sync it can all go to hell. The people selling these keying programs gloss over that important fact so they can take your money. * Corollary: it's way more important to trust your ears than a DJ program. Software is constantly wrong about BPM and key, but you have a natural talent for rhythm and harmony. Trust it. Disclosure: I help maintain Xwax and have been djing for over a decade. I really hope you give djing a try and trust your instinct to rock the house.
- doublerebel 10y ago
  Addendum: If you perform using Spotify this is technically illegal, however most artists I know find it more important to share their music than to buy it every time. So if you're not buying the music please help people discover what it is so they can buy it if they love it.
  - Thrillington 10y ago
    I'm not an expert here, so I would invite contrary interpretations. I know you can't setup speakers outside and play Spotify, but it should be legal in a venue that pays ASCAP. When I worked for a radio station in the early zeds we were told many times that their ASCAP license allowed us to play music regardless of the source, so ASCAP should supercede the Spotify prohibition on public performance.
- nnd 10y ago
  Traktor has key recognition built in now.
- empath75 10y ago
philfrasty 10y ago
Couple of weeks ago I randomly came across a building here in Munich that looked absolutely spectacular. It's shell looked like it was made out of very small cubes and millions of them. Looked at the doorsign...turns out it is the HQ of Algoriddm, the company that makes Djay Pro (recommended by the author) :) EDIT: would love to see a „How to get started with music production“. Just started using Logic Pro and with all its plugins it seems very overwhelming at first.
- nnd 10y ago
  I've also recently started with Logic. My advice would be: don't worry about all the details of the software, it'll take a long time to master all the features. Learn the basics of it, and just start messing around with sounds to produce a complete song. Don't worry about technicalities, just finish. It's more important what you have to say with music, than how you say it.
Daishiman 10y ago
Step 1: have an actual passion for good music, weird music, music outside of the mainstream. Dance with it, vibrate to it, understand how it makes you and others feel. Step 2: whatever. If you understand the music, the sound, the acoustics and the sensations it makes little difference what medium you choose. Mixing and beatmatching are secondary to this. You should want to show people great music above all. The mix should just prime people to make them receptive to it.
- TTPrograms 10y ago
  DJing is interesting because, while people who listen to DJs would not notice any difference in this approach, people who are familiar with mixing or are DJs would say strictly that this is not DJing. This is in contrast with, say, playing the violin. There's no debate over if somebody is actually playing the violin - one does or does not. I think the point of this, beyond any snobbery, is that there is a craft to DJing that is of great value to the DJs and those who are familiar, but its impact on the typical listener happens to be negligible. So if you're interested in DJing because you primarily care about others' responses to your DJing, this is a satisfactory route. If you're interested in learning the nuances of a craft involving highly technical and intricate mixing then that's an altogether different path.
  - Daishiman 10y ago
    > I think the point of this, beyond any snobbery, is that there is a craft to DJing that is of great value to the DJs and those who are familiar, but its impact on the typical listener happens to be negligible. Some DJs have played sets with incredible and weird tracks that blow your mind. Other DJs can play the very same track and it sounds like crap. The difference lies wholly in the track selection and being able to read the audience and the situation. DJ is in no way a "highly technical and intricate craft". You can teach a monkey to mix effectively in two weeks. It takes years to understand a musical genre, have a good catalogue of tracks and develop the good taste that makes the difference. David Rodigan barely even mixes tracks in his sets, but they're amazing. Jah Shaka doesn't even use two turntables in his sets yet what he plays is about as close as you can get to a spiritual dub mix. It's all about the selection and context, which are hugely social affairs and far more complex than the masturbatory turntablism of some DJs, which is about as important to the art as the guitar players who shred like madmen, yet it makes no difference to you emotionally. Joe Satriani is a skilled guitar player, but I feel nothing. David Gilmour has never shown highly technical skills in his music but it reaches the depth of my feelings. In the same note, Skrillex is a good sound designer, but he's irrelevant in underground UK dubstep because he has no taste, no sense of subtlety, no capacity to hold back and make a trip.
chtfn 10y ago
Shame the author promotes the use of Spotify so much, for two reasons: - the ridiculous amount of money going to artists (i.e. the ones who do want money for their music), although you could argue that you would generate revenue for every play the song gets, rather than a one-off amount when buying it (although, pretty sure it still doesn't compare); - having Spotify means everyone will ask you to play your favourite song, and you'll have less of an excuse not to, which is a massive PITA. Contrary to what the article says, Mixxx is cross-platform (GNU/Linux, Mac, Windows). I really recommend that amazing piece of Free Software. It is the only DJing software I use.
- danielvf 10y ago
  She's not using Spotify for performances - she's using it for discovering and selecting music. Once she knows her tracks, then she buys them.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    Another option which is big in the industry and unmentioned here is Beatport.
- analog31 10y ago
  ...everyone will ask you to play your favourite song, and you'll have less of an excuse not to, which is a massive PITA. Sure it's a pain, but at least coming from the standpoint of playing in conventional bands, I've found that audiences love it when you can play requests.
kris_lander 10y ago
This is a great book to get started - and whilst it is a little dated technology wise the fundamentals are great along with a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek presentation/writing style. https://www.amazon.com/How-DJ-Properly-Science-Playing/dp/0593058119 https://www.amazon.com/How-DJ-Properly-Science-Playing/dp/05...
empath75 10y ago
Okay, so I was a rave DJ in the early 2000s and opened for some of the most popular DJ's in the world at sold out clubs and I'm about to give some real advice. Yes, all of this stuff about producing music is important, but people who can mix records are a dime a dozen. You need to be able to do it, but it's not enough to get gigs. The way you get gigs is to be popular. You need to go clubbing every weekend. You need to go to after parties. You need to promote on social media. You need to throw your own parties and book other DJ's so they'll book you at theirs. Nobody is going to book you on talent. You get booked because you get people in the door and that really only has a little bit to do with talent and a lot to do with personality and networking. You'll never make a living that way, though, because nobody pays money for local DJ's except at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Alternatively, you can spend 10 years in your bedroom learning how to be a really good music producer and hope some popular DJ signs your single and then gradually build a following and then maybe in five more years you might make what a junior sysadmin makes.
- Nuzzerino 10y ago
  It's common knowledge IMHO that you generally need to market yourself to get gigs. There's often lack of understanding of how to become a good marketer though. Simply getting a checklist of things to do isn't enough. Understanding the science behind influencing others goes a lot further than sticking to a checklist without the understanding of why those things are on the list to begin with. I'd even argue that spamming social media doesn't even work anymore. Use the time to build relationships and do favors for others, and many will help you out in turn.
- imaginology 10y ago
  > Alternatively, you can spend 10 years in your bedroom learning how to be a really good music producer and hope some popular DJ signs your single and then gradually build a following and then maybe in five more years you might make what a junior sysadmin makes. Or you could become a junior sysadmin right from the start and treat music production as a hobby with no intention of turning it into a career. Although, I have a feeling many young people wouldn't listen to advice like that.
voycey 10y ago
This article should start off with "First buy Turntables and then buy Vinyl" Step 2 - once you have mastered beat-matching on this then you can fuck around with the new fancy electronic systems. Step 3 - learn to get good at it. #1 its all about fun and the tactile pleasure of controlling your music, something that the digital age has robbed many of us from, CD's are a happy medium between Vinyl and Digital but are even now outdated. You will never get anything as satisfying as rooting through record bins at a vinyl store, taking it home and mixing it in a full manual process - I am glad it is making a return :)
- jdietrich 10y ago
  99% of professional DJs have abandoned vinyl, for good reason. Why lug around a fragile, heavy box of vinyl when you can carry your entire collection on a couple of SD cards? Vinyl is lovely and tactile and nostalgic, but it's also a massive pain in the arse. If you want to learn an industry standard, rent a couple of CDJ-2000s and a DJM-2000.
  - voycey 10y ago
    You miss my point - it's not that you should learn it because its what people use, it's to learn it so you foster a love of the process! CDJ's and MP3's are fantastic (I pretty much exclusively use MP3 now) - but the feeling you get of playing on vinyl is totally different even if you will never use it IRL!
- kruhft 10y ago
  Vinyl is so heavy that it's a burden, but there's nothing like playing on real decks to teach you the ropes.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - voycey 10y ago
    Absolutely! Until you have tried to keep a 2+ minute mix going on belt drive decks you wont understand how much joy MP3 with its zero wow and flutter brings haha
imaginology 10y ago
Next stage: How to master a DJ mix using multiband compression.
- Ace17 10y ago
  also called "Soundgoodizer" in some DAW :-)
red_anorak 10y ago
I was into techno, house and electro DJing for a long time. I'd say the best advice for enjoying djing is not to dwell on the technical aspects any more than they interest you. I'm rather out of touch with the current state of things, but I used to find progressive house DJs who obsessed over perfect mixes rather dull. When you're picking records think about how they'll sound in a club. People only care about your blends when they're really bad. I dunno, just do whatever entertains you.
MaddAgent 10y ago
As someone who is a Systems Engineer by day, and a DJ by night I can highly recommend anyone that has even the slightest interest in Djing to just jump in and give it a go! Don't get caught up in the details (Hardware/software, CDs/mp3s/vinyl etc) just yet - try and find your starting point and progress from there. The barrier to entry has never ever been lower! When I started, there was no choice but a pair of Technics SL1200 / SL1210 turntables and a big record collection (CDJs had not even been introduced!). Now you don't even need to invest a fortune in building a vinyl collection! over 20 years later, here I am - I do at least 2 gigs every week (try to just stick to Fri and Sat nights, but could have more work if I chose to, although Djing until 3 or 4am on a week night is not exactly compatible with the day job! I still have the original set of technics turntables that I bought in 1994, they still work - although I have moved on to a serato setup using the CDJs provided by almost all venues these days! I'm too old now to lug a massive box of vinyl around hahaha. One last point - I'd echo previous comments that in reality its not about how technically brilliant you are. Like a lot of things in life, its really about who you know! so get out there, meet the promoters, other DJs, venue owners / managers etc. thats the key to getting a foor in the door.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  > (CDJs had not even been introduced!) I had the Denon dual CDJ decks approx 1993-ish. Cost me $1000 (wince).
mikebay 10y ago
I remember how heavy vinyls was to bring in clubs.. specially if you play longer than 1 or 2 hours. Haha, those were the days indeed.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

118 points by antiroyalty 10y ago

dpc59 10y ago

I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring, learn how to play instruments and all the theory behind pop music, then figure out the software and hardware to play live sets. Obviously you're going to need to understand the basics of mixing to play live sets, but playing a regular DJ set in front of an audience to me is the same thing as covering stairway to heaven or wonderwall. Keep practicing until you're actually good. All of my friends who could play instruments had a much easier time getting into producing than the people who never learned a single scale. And it's not just the composition aspect, it's all the sound design, sampling and just understand the programs that gets easier.

Rifu 10y ago
Seems a little harsh to label it as absolutely useless. How is it any different from learning to play the piano to play your favorite piano pieces? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean by produce?
sp3n 10y ago
quite far from basic mixing with 2 decks, turntablism requires similar skills to playing an instrument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr3ftsCVXhc
thedaniel 10y ago
> I'm going to seem like an elitist prick Great tip, if you feel the need to start a comment like this, don't post it.
aidos 10y ago
Yeah, that is really elitist. And it's just your opinion, so you're allowed to hold it :) A good DJ can make the difference between a mediocre party and a really amazing party. I agree that the more tools in your arsenal, the better you'll be but don't brush off what can be achieved with 2 turntables and a really good knowledge of music.
- Ace17 10y ago
  > A good DJ can make the difference between a mediocre party and a really amazing party. I hear this a lot. However, this sounds like rationalization of DJing competences. Are there ways to check such a statement?
  - clappski 10y ago
    Going to some party's and raves would be a good start, it's like asking how can you measure how good a piece of music is (very difficultly!)
  - aidos 10y ago
    Music is really subjective - and I'm not aware of a way to quantify the impact of music generally. The same challenge applies to a musical "artists", but justification of the skills of DJs is often demanded, where the skills of artists isn't. Why is that? From the perspective of someone who had gone through the learning journey, I know full well the difference between my abilities when I begin and now (and there's still a lot of space for me to improve). Those first times I DJed were fairly horrible experiences for everyone - most of all me. What can we figure out though? There are really just a couple of main dimensions to consider, song selection and how those songs are put together. Song selections are crucial to DJing and you can think of it in terms of tailoring the music to the environment. Whether you have 2 turntables or not, this is the most important part. Maybe you have a someone putting on other people's mix tapes - understanding the energy and environment are still crucial. I've seen people who are accomplished musicians get this very wrong. It's not something that comes of being a good musician, it's a totally different skill-set. So before you even look at the medium (turntables), I think we can agree that there's a skill involved in being able to apply music to enhance the environment. Then there's the turntable aspect. If you give someone with the skills to apply the right music an infinite supply of music and an mp3 player they'll struggle to make the experience smooth. A pause in the music is going to kill the energy in the room. But that's just the start. You can change the energy just by moving through tracks faster, before you even start looking at the interesting ways you can put the music together. Not only that, but pretty much every DJ setup these days is digital with much more you can do to the music in the mix. It's like lighting - take a perfectly good party and put strip lighting in. It's all about creating the right environment. Music is a big part of that - though I suspect I'm more aware of it than other people.
jdietrich 10y ago
>I'm going to seem like an elitist prick, but in my opinion DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose. Basic 2 decks DJing is fucking boring Exhibit A for the defence: this utterly masterful set by garage legend DJ EZ. He deftly plays with the build and release of tension without relying on formulaic drops. There is still enormous creative mileage in traditional two-deck mixing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OraL6lKoyXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OraL6lKoyXE Selectors don't even mix in the traditional sense, nor do they compose or produce, but there's a tremendous art to what they do. If you're unfamiliar with sound system culture and clashing, I'd suggest the Red Bull Culture Clash as an accessible introduction, particularly Rebel Sound's 2014 performance starring the inimitable David Rodigan. It's worth watching the "making of" documentary on their performance; it took months of painstaking preparation to play 40 minutes of music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKDSgMddOO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKDSgMddOO0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ishaG9pyMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ishaG9pyMA The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ. Back in the day you needed decks, you needed to learn to beatmatch, you needed to hunt down white labels, you needed to get dubplates cut. There was a barrier to entry, an apprenticeship you had to serve before you could call yourself a DJ. The term has now been diluted to the point of meaninglessness, but that doesn't diminish from the artistry of great DJs.
- dpc59 10y ago
  >The problem as I see it is that technology has made DJing too accessible. Every two-bit hipster with a Macbook thinks that they're a DJ. This is the point I was trying to make. I'm very familiar with soundsystem culture, I've been making a living from it since I was 17. Obviously there's some good sounding stuff you can do while mixing on two decks, you just gave decent examples, but in my opinion it's never going to be as mind blowing as Birdy Nam Nam or Araabmuzik absolutely killing it on some freestyle stuff. It's never going to beat a great vinyl jungle set with an experienced scratcher, and it's certainly not going to beat some of the crazy live sets people in the downtempo psytrance scene play. I went to a rave on halloween, and there was these two guys doing a live set. One guy was just doing regular 2 decks stuff for the rythmic section, while the other guy had an mpc, a controller and electronic drums plugged into his computer for the melodies. It was great seeing the drums used as melody, I've seen thousands of sets in my life and I was mind blown. There are no videos of him playing live, but here's his soundcloud. https://soundcloud.com/swa-swally https://soundcloud.com/swa-swally
nnd 10y ago
I see where you are coming from, but masterful DJing takes much more than switching from desk A to desk B. Song selection is crucial, it's even more important than transitions, moreover you need to play the right music to the right audience. Those things you won't find in tutorials, and that's what makes a great DJ set great. On top of that you can combine producing with playing live by adding effects, creatively transitioning between songs and cue jumping, this takes a lot of skill too.
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  As someone who plays lots of music, but never listens to music because its just too much of a chore, I appreciate that a good DJ can find a form in multiple songs none of which I ever have any chance of know about myself.
  - barbs 10y ago
    That's interesting, I'm the opposite - I listen to loads of music but don't play much. I would've thought one would lead to the other, but I guess not.
    - Ericson2314 10y ago
      Never too late to learn one!
barbs 10y ago
You say: > DJing is absolutely useless if you don't produce/compose But then give no reason for this to be the case. You imply that DJing takes less skill than composing/producing/performing, and that may be true, but that doesn't make DJing useless if done on its own. "Elitist prick" indeed.
empath75 10y ago
There are different kinds of djing, and 'boring' sets where you just mix two records together all night are a skill all their own. Sometimes people want the DJ to disappear so they can focus on dancing all night. They don't want someone scratching or doing live remixes. They want to just get in a groove and feel time stop while an endless beat plays. It's really hard to keep a crowd like that dancing all night when you aren't performing. I've had 1000 people jumping up and down and screaming and I was just standing there doing nothing while a record played. You really need to know what the crowd wants to get them there and the difference between getting people amped up and just having them wander away from the dance floor is subtle.
ovao 10y ago
I'm having a hard time understanding where this comment is coming from. I can understand if your exposure to DJs has been limited (I'm sure we've all seen performers who are just about useless at truly engaging crowds), but there are some who are genuine performers behind the decks. Not just from the perspective of technical proficiency, but also of artistry. I'll argue that the actual instrument doesn't matter. A mixer and a pair of turntables (or CDJs, or a laptop) can, in an artist's hands, produce as engaging an experience as a "live" setup. The comparison between DJing and covering Stairway is very misguided, in my opinion, because it implies that the former is as inherently devoid of artistry as the latter. That's simply not the case.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Yep, and I've also heard performance set-ups which sucked. I've heard Araabmuzik mess up pretty badly live (he's normally phenomenal). For me, it's interesting in that it humanizes him a bit; "hey, I get to fly around the world tapping on my MPC to make crowds go wild, but I'm not perfect". Controllerism is a whole other thing, and if you're curious, go read about it / listen to it / go to some meet-ups / shows. It's big in the Bay Area and many other places. The monome community in particular is really awesome (I'm sure many are but that's the one I have some limited personal experience with). The best part of different music scenes IMO is the variety and the people. You get a bunch of random weirdos together and play with putting your own spins on a genre, twisting it and pulling it into your own direction while making nods to those who came before you. You use the right samples, sometimes with your own personal touches, as tiny musical shout-outs to the other people in the scene; the musical family you've chosen. The audience is in on the fun and the jokes too. It's the sort of thing which tickles the brain in a manner unmatched by other worldly pursuits.
  - ovao 10y ago
    Absolutely. One of my favorite performers (Daedelus) uses a monome for his live setup, and there's nothing on Earth like a Daedelus set. It would be exceedingly difficult (or essentially impossible) to specifically match or emulate what he does with a 'traditional' DJ's setup. That's not to say that what he or other live performers do is inherently better than someone proficient with turntables, of course. He chooses a monome as his primary tool to achieve the type of performance he strives for, and for some, a controller like that is simply not the right tool. To me, it's all good — the hardware involved has little to no effect on how well a performer can match or exceed my expectations.

doublerebel 10y ago

* Love good music. If you don't love or don't have good music, blending songs together will never sound good. * Try out Xwax or Mixxx (based on xwax) for free. They are open-source. You don't really need all the other distractions of modern systems to play good music. All that comes later when you run out of things to do with good music. Any easy effects will sound canned to the slightest trained ear. * Harmonic mixing is incredibly hard to get right. Forget about it until you know you need it. No formula can tell you the key of one song matched with another, as soon as they make a chord progression not in sync it can all go to hell. The people selling these keying programs gloss over that important fact so they can take your money. * Corollary: it's way more important to trust your ears than a DJ program. Software is constantly wrong about BPM and key, but you have a natural talent for rhythm and harmony. Trust it. Disclosure: I help maintain Xwax and have been djing for over a decade. I really hope you give djing a try and trust your instinct to rock the house.

doublerebel 10y ago
Addendum: If you perform using Spotify this is technically illegal, however most artists I know find it more important to share their music than to buy it every time. So if you're not buying the music please help people discover what it is so they can buy it if they love it.
- Thrillington 10y ago
  I'm not an expert here, so I would invite contrary interpretations. I know you can't setup speakers outside and play Spotify, but it should be legal in a venue that pays ASCAP. When I worked for a radio station in the early zeds we were told many times that their ASCAP license allowed us to play music regardless of the source, so ASCAP should supercede the Spotify prohibition on public performance.
nnd 10y ago
Traktor has key recognition built in now.
empath75 10y ago

philfrasty 10y ago

Couple of weeks ago I randomly came across a building here in Munich that looked absolutely spectacular. It's shell looked like it was made out of very small cubes and millions of them. Looked at the doorsign...turns out it is the HQ of Algoriddm, the company that makes Djay Pro (recommended by the author) :) EDIT: would love to see a „How to get started with music production“. Just started using Logic Pro and with all its plugins it seems very overwhelming at first.

nnd 10y ago
I've also recently started with Logic. My advice would be: don't worry about all the details of the software, it'll take a long time to master all the features. Learn the basics of it, and just start messing around with sounds to produce a complete song. Don't worry about technicalities, just finish. It's more important what you have to say with music, than how you say it.

Daishiman 10y ago

Step 1: have an actual passion for good music, weird music, music outside of the mainstream. Dance with it, vibrate to it, understand how it makes you and others feel. Step 2: whatever. If you understand the music, the sound, the acoustics and the sensations it makes little difference what medium you choose. Mixing and beatmatching are secondary to this. You should want to show people great music above all. The mix should just prime people to make them receptive to it.

TTPrograms 10y ago
DJing is interesting because, while people who listen to DJs would not notice any difference in this approach, people who are familiar with mixing or are DJs would say strictly that this is not DJing. This is in contrast with, say, playing the violin. There's no debate over if somebody is actually playing the violin - one does or does not. I think the point of this, beyond any snobbery, is that there is a craft to DJing that is of great value to the DJs and those who are familiar, but its impact on the typical listener happens to be negligible. So if you're interested in DJing because you primarily care about others' responses to your DJing, this is a satisfactory route. If you're interested in learning the nuances of a craft involving highly technical and intricate mixing then that's an altogether different path.
- Daishiman 10y ago
  > I think the point of this, beyond any snobbery, is that there is a craft to DJing that is of great value to the DJs and those who are familiar, but its impact on the typical listener happens to be negligible. Some DJs have played sets with incredible and weird tracks that blow your mind. Other DJs can play the very same track and it sounds like crap. The difference lies wholly in the track selection and being able to read the audience and the situation. DJ is in no way a "highly technical and intricate craft". You can teach a monkey to mix effectively in two weeks. It takes years to understand a musical genre, have a good catalogue of tracks and develop the good taste that makes the difference. David Rodigan barely even mixes tracks in his sets, but they're amazing. Jah Shaka doesn't even use two turntables in his sets yet what he plays is about as close as you can get to a spiritual dub mix. It's all about the selection and context, which are hugely social affairs and far more complex than the masturbatory turntablism of some DJs, which is about as important to the art as the guitar players who shred like madmen, yet it makes no difference to you emotionally. Joe Satriani is a skilled guitar player, but I feel nothing. David Gilmour has never shown highly technical skills in his music but it reaches the depth of my feelings. In the same note, Skrillex is a good sound designer, but he's irrelevant in underground UK dubstep because he has no taste, no sense of subtlety, no capacity to hold back and make a trip.

chtfn 10y ago

Shame the author promotes the use of Spotify so much, for two reasons: - the ridiculous amount of money going to artists (i.e. the ones who do want money for their music), although you could argue that you would generate revenue for every play the song gets, rather than a one-off amount when buying it (although, pretty sure it still doesn't compare); - having Spotify means everyone will ask you to play your favourite song, and you'll have less of an excuse not to, which is a massive PITA. Contrary to what the article says, Mixxx is cross-platform (GNU/Linux, Mac, Windows). I really recommend that amazing piece of Free Software. It is the only DJing software I use.

danielvf 10y ago
She's not using Spotify for performances - she's using it for discovering and selecting music. Once she knows her tracks, then she buys them.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Another option which is big in the industry and unmentioned here is Beatport.
analog31 10y ago
...everyone will ask you to play your favourite song, and you'll have less of an excuse not to, which is a massive PITA. Sure it's a pain, but at least coming from the standpoint of playing in conventional bands, I've found that audiences love it when you can play requests.

kris_lander 10y ago

This is a great book to get started - and whilst it is a little dated technology wise the fundamentals are great along with a very entertaining tongue-in-cheek presentation/writing style. https://www.amazon.com/How-DJ-Properly-Science-Playing/dp/0593058119 https://www.amazon.com/How-DJ-Properly-Science-Playing/dp/05...

empath75 10y ago

Okay, so I was a rave DJ in the early 2000s and opened for some of the most popular DJ's in the world at sold out clubs and I'm about to give some real advice. Yes, all of this stuff about producing music is important, but people who can mix records are a dime a dozen. You need to be able to do it, but it's not enough to get gigs. The way you get gigs is to be popular. You need to go clubbing every weekend. You need to go to after parties. You need to promote on social media. You need to throw your own parties and book other DJ's so they'll book you at theirs. Nobody is going to book you on talent. You get booked because you get people in the door and that really only has a little bit to do with talent and a lot to do with personality and networking. You'll never make a living that way, though, because nobody pays money for local DJ's except at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Alternatively, you can spend 10 years in your bedroom learning how to be a really good music producer and hope some popular DJ signs your single and then gradually build a following and then maybe in five more years you might make what a junior sysadmin makes.

Nuzzerino 10y ago
It's common knowledge IMHO that you generally need to market yourself to get gigs. There's often lack of understanding of how to become a good marketer though. Simply getting a checklist of things to do isn't enough. Understanding the science behind influencing others goes a lot further than sticking to a checklist without the understanding of why those things are on the list to begin with. I'd even argue that spamming social media doesn't even work anymore. Use the time to build relationships and do favors for others, and many will help you out in turn.
imaginology 10y ago
> Alternatively, you can spend 10 years in your bedroom learning how to be a really good music producer and hope some popular DJ signs your single and then gradually build a following and then maybe in five more years you might make what a junior sysadmin makes. Or you could become a junior sysadmin right from the start and treat music production as a hobby with no intention of turning it into a career. Although, I have a feeling many young people wouldn't listen to advice like that.

voycey 10y ago

This article should start off with "First buy Turntables and then buy Vinyl" Step 2 - once you have mastered beat-matching on this then you can fuck around with the new fancy electronic systems. Step 3 - learn to get good at it. #1 its all about fun and the tactile pleasure of controlling your music, something that the digital age has robbed many of us from, CD's are a happy medium between Vinyl and Digital but are even now outdated. You will never get anything as satisfying as rooting through record bins at a vinyl store, taking it home and mixing it in a full manual process - I am glad it is making a return :)

jdietrich 10y ago
99% of professional DJs have abandoned vinyl, for good reason. Why lug around a fragile, heavy box of vinyl when you can carry your entire collection on a couple of SD cards? Vinyl is lovely and tactile and nostalgic, but it's also a massive pain in the arse. If you want to learn an industry standard, rent a couple of CDJ-2000s and a DJM-2000.
- voycey 10y ago
  You miss my point - it's not that you should learn it because its what people use, it's to learn it so you foster a love of the process! CDJ's and MP3's are fantastic (I pretty much exclusively use MP3 now) - but the feeling you get of playing on vinyl is totally different even if you will never use it IRL!
kruhft 10y ago
Vinyl is so heavy that it's a burden, but there's nothing like playing on real decks to teach you the ropes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- voycey 10y ago
  Absolutely! Until you have tried to keep a 2+ minute mix going on belt drive decks you wont understand how much joy MP3 with its zero wow and flutter brings haha

imaginology 10y ago

Next stage: How to master a DJ mix using multiband compression.

Ace17 10y ago
also called "Soundgoodizer" in some DAW :-)

red_anorak 10y ago

I was into techno, house and electro DJing for a long time. I'd say the best advice for enjoying djing is not to dwell on the technical aspects any more than they interest you. I'm rather out of touch with the current state of things, but I used to find progressive house DJs who obsessed over perfect mixes rather dull. When you're picking records think about how they'll sound in a club. People only care about your blends when they're really bad. I dunno, just do whatever entertains you.

MaddAgent 10y ago

As someone who is a Systems Engineer by day, and a DJ by night I can highly recommend anyone that has even the slightest interest in Djing to just jump in and give it a go! Don't get caught up in the details (Hardware/software, CDs/mp3s/vinyl etc) just yet - try and find your starting point and progress from there. The barrier to entry has never ever been lower! When I started, there was no choice but a pair of Technics SL1200 / SL1210 turntables and a big record collection (CDJs had not even been introduced!). Now you don't even need to invest a fortune in building a vinyl collection! over 20 years later, here I am - I do at least 2 gigs every week (try to just stick to Fri and Sat nights, but could have more work if I chose to, although Djing until 3 or 4am on a week night is not exactly compatible with the day job! I still have the original set of technics turntables that I bought in 1994, they still work - although I have moved on to a serato setup using the CDJs provided by almost all venues these days! I'm too old now to lug a massive box of vinyl around hahaha. One last point - I'd echo previous comments that in reality its not about how technically brilliant you are. Like a lot of things in life, its really about who you know! so get out there, meet the promoters, other DJs, venue owners / managers etc. thats the key to getting a foor in the door.

mixmastamyk 10y ago
> (CDJs had not even been introduced!) I had the Denon dual CDJ decks approx 1993-ish. Cost me $1000 (wince).

mikebay 10y ago

I remember how heavy vinyls was to bring in clubs.. specially if you play longer than 1 or 2 hours. Haha, those were the days indeed.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]