Some questions about starting to DJ with another person

[rkelley23]

I have been DJing for a little over a year and a friend of mine has for a bit more than that, we've always talked about trying to do some sort of thing together but ive never really understood how that works. Any suggestions or tips y'all have regarding that would really be appreciated.

He plays using ableton live with an APC40 whereas I am using Traktor & a Kontrol S2 so how would we go about that?

Edit: Just to mention whenever we are with eachother mixing and such we always just switch off each setup but it seems to me switching laptops, controllers, audio etc. at a party or something of the sort would just be a hassle.

[MYE]

Well you could route traktor's audio through ableton. you could be controlling traktor and your friend could be controlling ableton. You would need to buy an EXTERNAL sound card such as Audio 8/10. Heres a video about how to do it

[rkelley23]

Well you could route traktor's audio through ableton. you could be controlling traktor and your friend could be controlling ableton. You would need to buy an EXTERNAL sound card such as Audio 8/10. Heres a video about how to do it

ahh thanks for the response. That seems like a SOB to do but may work quite well. Aside from going that rout would we be better off just switching to one way of doing things, either my learning ableton or vice versa OR going the CDJ + mixer route?

[MYE]

ahh thanks for the response. That seems like a SOB to do but may work quite well. Aside from going that rout would we be better off just switching to one way of doing things, either my learning ableton or vice versa OR going the CDJ + mixer route?

It's really up to you the CDJ+Mixer is one of the best ways it would be a lot easier to get gigs as well (you wouldn't have to bring bags of gear)

[Ross]

It's really up to you the CDJ+Mixer is one of the best ways it would be a lot easier to get gigs as well (you wouldn't have to bring bags of gear)

I did this for the first time with a friend who is just starting out yesterday and it was so good!

[rkelley23]

So for those of you who do DJ with someone else how do y'all go about doing it? what about differing music styles(I play mostly house, trance and some tech-house type stuff whereas he plays a lot of dubstep & trap type stuff) and working with that?

[Diskobeep]

first step: find out if it's possible to play a set together. Musically and personally.
You'll need to practice that to make sure if it's a match.

After that it's just to find a way what you guys like the most.

I started dj-ing with a friend. After a year my brother joined us.
We didn't have a fixed routine. Most of the time everybody mix a song after the previous one. Me put on a record, my friend mixes on that record and then my brother played one. But it was ok too if somebody mixes 2 or 3 songs instead of one.
We knew each-others recordbag. We all played the same genre, but every person had his own 'unique'style and way of mixing and it fitted really well.
Most of the time we used 2 cd-maps, one at each side of the booth, with almost the same cd's/songs.
We've played like that for almost 3 years I think.

I have to say that we talked/discussed a lot during a set. Not to convience somebody to play another song but more like:
"woow, i X mixing that song now? cool I can play this or that song afterwards."
- "Yeah man, good idea, so i can drop that song on the one you'll mix"

We've tried to use dvs/traktor, on one computer, but that wasn't the good way for us.

[rkelley23]

We've tried to use dvs/traktor, on one computer, but that wasn't the good way for us.

Yeah I was thinking about that part and know it would be a disaster if we went that route, especially with my poor vision I always have to squint and get really close to the laptop when im mixing

Any suggestions regarding having two genre styles and going either back and forth between the two or one to the other?

[Diskobeep]

difficult to say...

We played electro (most of the time; heavier stuff like Boys noize, g-tronic, modek, proxy,...) among dubstep (not always)/drum&bass(not always).
It's difficult to beatmix those genres (for me), so if we switched, we did it with a cut/backspin of with an effect+fade-out.
There are probably more creative ways to manage it

To be honest, i don't like dj-sets that switch between genres every 2 songs. But that's just my opinion...