What should a completely new DJ buy and/or do to get better? - Page 3
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  1. #21
    Tech Guru Cook's Avatar
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    Check the link highlighted in red in my signature, will explain all.
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  2. #22

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    Wow! Thank you all for the responses! I obviously have a lot ahead of me to check out! Thank you Hoodless for compiling that list, by the way.

    I have a pretty simple HP Pavilion laptop (dv7). It does tons of stuff, and it works great for gaming haha.

    So right now I'm focused on

    1. Buying a Hercules DJ Control MP3 e2 (unless this is a horrible idea?)
    2. Mess around with free DJ software
    3. DJ it up?

    Of course, since I'm running from Windows I will not have the capabilities a mac user has...will this be a problem in the long run or not?

    Thanks again for the advice !

  3. #23
    Tech Mentor PartyMcFly's Avatar
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    A beginner DJ should have above all else a music listening and collecting history. If you don't have a library of tunes you love and wish to share already, vinyl/cd/mp3 or otherwise, you've basically got both feet on a banana peel.

    Learning to DJ isn't a top-down process from Guitar Center to the Beatport charts. It starts from the bottom up with the songs you love to the tools you need to play them for other people.

    Don't let your gear purchases and the modern digital DJing culture influence what you play. Let what you play influence your gear decisions.

    /jewel

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by PartyMcFly View Post
    A beginner DJ should have above all else a music listening and collecting history. If you don't have a library of tunes you love and wish to share already, vinyl/cd/mp3 or otherwise, you've basically got both feet on a banana peel.

    Learning to DJ isn't a top-down process from Guitar Center to the Beatport charts. It starts from the bottom up with the songs you love to the tools you need to play them for other people.

    Don't let your gear purchases and the modern digital DJing culture influence what you play. Let what you play influence your gear decisions.

    /jewel
    Very deep! I love music above all else, and that's what has gotten the idea of DJing in my head. I have nearly 30 gigs of mp3s (I'm sure you guys have more!) and I have thousands of songs that I love. I constantly am meeting new artists and trying to recommend them to my friends, or anyone really!

    I want to mix my tunes so bad, and I'm just looking for the right thing to do it with I guess. With all the time I've spent with music, I can't wait to go down this new "path" of DJing.

    Thank you all again, seriously, for taking the time to help me out. I know you don't have to, but I appreciate the fact that all of you have taken the time to share your knowledge with someone that has very little!

  5. #25
    Tech Guru mostapha's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by djfck View Post
    I'm sorry but this is not good advice if you're just beginning and seeing if you're interested.
    It worked for me while I saved up money for my first set of turntables.

    Quote Originally Posted by fullenglishpint View Post
    There's also the free DJ software Mixxx, which you can download right away and start using.
    I also tried that. I don't think it was called mixxx at the time, I think it had another name, but I could be wrong. It was a while ago.

    I'm not really a fan of learning that way…I think it may actually impede progress because of its odd way of doing some things instead of focusing on music, structure, flow, etc..

    Quote Originally Posted by Bobwayne17 View Post
    Of course, since I'm running from Windows I will not have the capabilities a mac user has...will this be a problem in the long run or not?
    There aren't that many differences, and they don't matter that much unless you're doing fairly advanced things (syncing Ableton and Traktor, for instance, is almost trivial on a Mac…Windows users apparently have problems).

    I use a Mac, but a lot of that is that I just prefer them.

    If you're picky about hardware and willing to potentially solve some weird bugs relating to DPC latency and very specific potential hardware/driver snafus (seriously…who knows who made their northbridge?) that come up sometimes but are certainly not universal issues…PCs are fine.

    If you want something that just works, eventually look into getting a Mac. If you want something closer to Linux/Unix that can still run real applications, get a Mac. I don't use them because OS X is better than Windows…I use a Mac because Windows isn't an option for me and there's better software available for OS X than for Linux. I also think they're just better, but that relates to why windows isn't an option for me.

    My windows 7 pc at work exists for one application that I'm not willing to buy a license for myself…everything else, I do on my personal laptop.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bobwayne17 View Post
    …I have nearly 30 gigs of mp3s (I'm sure you guys have more!) and I have thousands of songs that I love. I constantly am meeting new artists and trying to recommend them to my friends, or anyone really!
    Honestly, the comments about how much music you like, recommending artists, and having 30GB of mp3s is why I said you should start with making playlists or mixtapes.

    30GB is unmanageable for a beginner DJ. I tried using Mixxx several times for a month or two each. I couldn't get into it. I couldn't figure out why my "sets" just didn't work (and I use that term very loosely here) even though it's auto-sync worked to a basic level even in the early 2000s.

    I finally assumed that the problem was the interface and that I wanted something physical, so I saved up money and bought a pair of 1200s, a shitty mixer, and a crate of vinyl from a friend of a friend. I ended up liking about 5 records out of the pile and sold the rest. The interface wasn't the issue…I started using a computer about a year into DJing and I sold my turntables about a year ago. I don't miss them except for aesthetic reasons (i got used to having 3 1210s in my room).

    On vinyl, it came a LOT quicker. Those 5 tracks I kept actually fit with each other in halfway interesting ways and were at least good enough to let me learn. That kind of learning will take a LOT longer with 30GB of mp3s if you haven't already pared down your collection into songs that go well with each other and are markedly not considering anything else.

    That's probably not how it should be in the long run, but even with an unlimited budget, if you just bought an S4 and loaded up all your MP3s, my money would be on you getting frustrated and quitting.

    Oh, and I don't have 30 GB of music on my laptop. The music I keep on my laptop for DJing is under 5 GB. I think I'm up to around 400 GB total in my archives and 'listening collection,' but I just plain don't need all of them around to DJ with. Unless you're doing the mobile thing with no idea what your crowd wants, there's no reason you need every song ever. All that does is confuse you unless you have an amazing memory for artists and track names and a very good organization system.

  6. #26
    Tech Mentor DJMutagen's Avatar
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    Practice your face off... Then practice your ass off. Get a grip on the tunes before you drop serious money on gear. Then map it and practice your recently re-attached face off... Again!!!!
    When we all make music, the God Spirit travels out of our bodies and we become one with each other. And for just a second, there is no war, greed, or hate in the world, just music, the celebration of life. (and usually a party, which is good too!)

  7. #27
    Tech Mentor PartyMcFly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bobwayne17 View Post
    I have nearly 30 gigs of mp3s (I'm sure you guys have more!) and I have thousands of songs that I love.
    Aces man, you remind me of my new roommate. We're constantly listening to his music very extensive music library while we work at home... a lot of early synthesized music and film scores from the 70's and 80's, all the way to more contemporary stuff like Lone, Boards, and Bibio.

    Recently I suggested he come in and curate a set of selections of this stuff at my bar night, unmixed. The discussion turned into "well it would be really good if you could mix the set", and he's now on the same path you are.

    I've given him an old midi controller of mine which I've set up on my computer with a Traktor Pro mapping, and his love for his music collection is allowing him to learn how to mix really well at a prodigious rate. True story.

    Don't listen to a lot of the critically detailed things getting thrown around in this thread. Mixxx is free, and playing around with just that and your tunes you'll learn enough to inform you about what you should save your money for.

  8. #28
    Tech Wizard M Elbert Grant's Avatar
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    sell your firstborn child, buy the newest baddest controller on the market and only buy music from top 40's......no but seriously....if moby can do it with an 808 and a cassette player....you will be fine with mixxx or hercules or anything of that type.

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