Hey guys, I’ve been DJing for almost a year now in Raleigh-Durham, NC and finally have an opportunity to do an event beyond stuff on campus at school in . I use Serato DJ with a Pioneer DDJ-SX, but I understand that the majority of clubs use Pioneer CDJs with a DJM. I’ve never used CDJs and can’t afford to buy my own. I don’t know anyone who has any, and my local Guitar Center doesn’t have any new or used models in stock. I’m not sure what to do.
How difficult is it to transition from using Serato DJ with a DDJ-SX to using CDJs? I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube like DJM-900Nexus and CDJ-2000Nexus tutorials, but I don’t know if that’ll be enough. I have about a week before the gig, and I see it as one that could land me a regular spot at the venue if I do well.
What would you recommend I do in this position? There’s a company in Raleigh that rents out pro audio equipment, but I called and even after explaining my situation, they said it’d cost $350 to rent out the equipment for a day.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
I agree with the two previous posters: mannual beatmatching is the only thing you’ll need to know to easily make the switch.
If you can do, there’s nothing to worry about.
If you can’t - well, that gig better be not in the near future, since learning how to beatmatch to a level wehere you perform good enough to land a regular spot in a club can actually take some time…
If you can manually beatmatch it should just be a case of getting used to the software. If you rely on sync, loops and the waveforms on the laptop you are pretty much screwed.
I don’t mean to sound negative but if you aren’t ready for a gig, why accept it? I understand the excitment of having a gig that could bring you to the next level, but it won’t if you don’t know about the gear you have to use.
Which CDJs do they have? If they have any of the newer ones then phrase matching is still pretty simple as the tracks are visually displayed on the CDJ itself. If you can, try and go before the night starts to get some practice. Some clubs are cool about it.
There’s got to be a place or a DJ locally that would be willing to rent them out for a night for you to get a little experience? I know of a guy here locally that spins and he rents out his stuff all the time. Try to find out the models the club has and see if you can’t rent those or another within that brand family.
As others have said, if you don’t know how to beat match yet, you’re going to be in trouble…so work on that on your controller with the jogs prior to the gig and hopefully get some experience on some real CDJs if only for a day. I certainly wouldn’t want to walk into a gig with absolutely zero experience on the equipment or something very similar.
OP you aren’t specific enough in the title with exactly what your using. Does the club supply cdjs and a mixer? Do they have a serato dvs? Are they expecting you to spin with cd’s or usb?
If usb you would need recordbox in order to keep your cue points and such. But by the looks of it you wanna use serato dj, in order for you to do that you would need scrath live, A rane Sl 2-4 box. The club could easily be providing the interface for you tho or have it built in.
Guys, thanks for your responses. I really appreciate them. I’m most worried about the FX on the DJM-900 because that’ll be one thing that’s completely foreign. But as far as beatmatching the “CDJ style”, I think I have it down after a ton of practice.
I believe they’ll supply everything but I’ll call and confirm, that’s a good idea. I plan on loading songs onto 2 USBs with Rekordbox. I’ll probably burn a few CDs just for backup as well.
Just go easy on the effects since you’re not familiar with them on the 900. Make sure your selector has picked the correct line, (or both/all if you want the effect to affect multiple tracks) and stick to the delay, echo, reverb and maybe the rolls. Rolls, and many of the other effects I didn’t mention are beat syncopated, so make sure the beats “registered properly.” I don’t trust the BPM detection of the mixer, so press the “Tap” button for 3 or 4 measures to make sure the mixer knows the BPM. For the six effects on the left (Space, Noise, Dub Echo, Filter, Gate and Filter) they’re controlled by the grey knob below the EQs. Avoid noise, it’s too much too quickly and it sounds like crap. I primarily use the Filter, Space and Dub Echo. You will only want to rotate to 3 or 9 o’clock tops otherwise it gets to be a bit much. You can also use the Dub Echo doing a full rotate right or left then press the button again to deactivate the effect to get cool tailing echos on the highs and lows. But, keep the effects minimal and you should be alright.
