Originally Posted by
mostapha
These are my opinions only. And I'm not a famous DJ, so perhaps take them with a grain of salt…but they're based on my shortcomings as much as my strengths. It's advice I wish I'd heard when I started spinning.
Step 1 is to immerse yourself in the culture as much as you can. All of the young guys I see getting anywhere with DJing in their 20s have been sneaking into clubs since they were 14. If you don't know how a club works; if you can't identify cliques by looking around a room; if you can't spot who's a bartender on their off night and who's heavily involved in the scene……you have no chance of controlling a floor or knowing what music is going to work. Start learning that first.
Step 2 is to learn to build really good playlists. Yes, dance music has long (usually boring) intros and outros. Tough. Do it first for situations that you know well (commutes, long car rides, class, parties, hanging out w/ friends, etc.) and do it for more situations as you learn them. Do it with whatever music you have and know…don't buy new stuff yet unless you hear it somewhere and like it.
Step 3 is to start learning which genres/styles you really like, then learn how to shop for them. Unless you specifically want to play top40 or want to sound like everybody else, don't look at charts of any kind. We all fall into that trap because it's just plain overwhelming how much music is out there (and how much of it is terrible) and it's an easy way out……and sometimes you need a couple of the top 5 songs from your genre. But they shouldn't be the core of your set. If you realize the entire beatport top10 for your genre (or top100 for the site) is all in your active playlist/crate/whatever, then they damn well better have been there before they charted…otherwise, you're doing it wrong.
Step 4 is to learn phrase matching and song structure. I don't care if you just slam a crossfader over and the songs are going the completely wrong tempo, if you do it at the right time, it sounds a hell of a lot better than an iTunes playlist. I've heard some very good hip hop DJs who spent at least part of their sets doing exactly that……without ever touching a pitch fader because it didn't matter. Obviously, there are stylistic differences, but I still think it's an important step.
Step 5–assuming you want to spin anything derived from house/techno and not just hip hop–is learning to beat match. I don't care if you do it with beatgrids and sync or pitch faders. I don't care if it's on turntables, CDJs, or controllers. But you need to be able to hold tracks together without flaming for a while. Depending on the genre, it's not uncommon to have tracks playing together for minutes at a time. But just work on technical proficiency at first, either setting beat/warp markers or using the pitch fader with your genre/style of choice.
Note: it's okay to like different genres of music, but know where the hard separations lie. 118 BPM classic/deep house and 150 BPM psytrance probably shouldn't be in the same set, for example.
Step 6 is to put 4 and 5 together. This is where actually counting comes in. Once you know when a track should take over (when you did the slam in step 4), you have to figure out how to count backwards from that point to somewhere you can start it in time…and then figure out where that start point needs to go in the outgoing track so that it'll drop at the right time. If you do that with loops and hot cues, you're just short-changing yourself in the long run.
Step 7 is to learn how to alter #4 to affect the "mood" the transition imparts. If there's a "perfect" place to drop a new track and it just kind of sinks in, there's a good chance that bringing it in somewhere else will either raise or lower the intensity of your party.
Step 8 is to learn to respond to the crowd using #7 and take them where they want to go.
Step 9 is to add EQs, but only when necessary. Use EQs as an effect when you need to change the energy a specific way and the tracks aren't cooperating. But, really, I've found it's usually better to just pick a different song if you have the time. In my last 10 hours of mixing, I've touched an EQ knob………8 or 10 times. Most of the time, it was the mid control on the outgoing track to make room for early "end of intro" vocals on the incoming one. The rest of the time, It's to boost mids to keep a 2-track snare/hat groove going a bit longer…or some other small part that I wasn't ready to fade out yet despite the rest of the track needing to go. Frankly, if I were building a mixer today, the only EQ knob it'd have is the high-mid control off the xone:62/92……that knob is incredibly powerful.
Step 10 is to add effects, but only when they really add to the experience of your mix. If you ever touch a beatmasher, you better have a damn good reason. Frankly, and with full respect for what he's done for the community, I blame Ean Golden for most of the shit mixes I've had to listen to.
Most of the time, a simple delay is more than enough to give your mix that little extra to go from awesome to extraordinary. But, that's what you're doing with effects…turning awesome into extraordinary. No matter what you do with effects, you can't turn crap into good with them. The same thing goes for sample decks, remix decks, drum machines, groove boxes, etc.. If the production stuff is the core of your performance of your own original music, then you're not DJing anymore and most of this doesn't apply the same way. But, I digress.
Step 11 is to use all this knowledge and experience to actually do something different. Maybe it's incorporating live production. Maybe it's paying someone else to fire off a bunch of fireworks while you spin. Maybe it's helping to create a new genre. Something that actually takes you out of the realm of "just another damn good DJ" and into the realm of being your own artist. Very few ever get that far.
And all the while, you should be meeting people, cultivating relationships, building a network of friends, supporters, and fans……but that's the part that I really suck at, so I won't offer advice there.
I really wish I'd learned it in that order instead of the haphazard way I did. It probably would have been longer until the first time I played in front of people, but I would have been less confused when it happened. The other advantage of learning this way is that it gives you more time to save up for equipment. You should be able to put on a coherent set without buying pitch faders (or sync buttons). Whether it's 2 instances of winamp, the lite version of Live that's free, a pair of old, beaten-up iPods……you can learn more than half of it without spending much money at all. And when you get to that point–if you're serious about it–you will hopefully have saved enough money (from having more time and not buying crap) that you can stretch a little farther than the "I kinda want to try it but don't want to go balls deep because I don't know if I'll like it" mindset that a lot of beginners have.
If I'd done it that way, chances are the first gear I would have bought would have been CDJ-1000s (when they were new) and a Rane. I'd probably still be using them, and I might not have spent countless money on crap I sold at a loss. Though, thankfully, I listened to people and started with 1200s……so it wasn't as bad as it could have been……I just kept getting suckered in by technology that was ultimately irrelevant.
Anyway…some of these, you've probably already started at least to some degree. And I'd imagine it's okay to jump around some. If you want to learn to beat-match first so you don't have to listen to gigantic train wrecks when you're critiquing your own recorded mixes, cool. But keep in mind where you actually are and don't bother getting too far ahead. And with that last point about money, give some serious thought to how you want to learn.
And I'm really not kidding about waiting that long for EQs and effects. Swapping basslines sounds stupid most of the time, and it's unnecessary if you watch your levels and your phrase matching properly. The Breaks mix from 2007 on my mixcloud (in my sig) was done without EQs………or level controls…all 3 channels were wide-open for the entire mix. Yes, I did it in Live. I don't think that hurts my point, because I didn't actually do anything to mix the songs other than hit play at the right times, warp all the songs before hand, and cut up a couple of them in a way that would be easy to replicate on CDJs (though not vinyl).
