For the last couple years since i got into electronic music i’ve wanted to give djing a go as a part time hobby, now i’m at uni i think it’s time to start
I’ve been looking for the last couple of weeks for a cheap used controller to try it out with, and i’ve decided on either the mixtrack pro 2 or 3 from CeX, coming out at £90 or £105 respectively, if you guys have any other suggestions for controllers i’m open.
Also, i’ve already got a desktop pc, a laptop and some m-audio av32 monitors and ATHM30x headphones so i don’t think i need to buy anything else there. I’m mainly looking at basic mixing with trap music, maybe a little bit of everything else thrown in (grime, house, dnb, then the odd classic)
However, i’ve got 2 main problems, firstly software as it’s very expensive ontop of the controller cost, and also what to use as a music library. From my research apparently new versions of virtual dj have spotify integration, as i’ve got premium this seems like it’d be the best option, otherwise i’ve got no ideas
Traktor is my preference and works well with the Mixtrack Pro series, its £85 at the moment but normally on Black Friday that is coming up you get a 50% discount, that will be the best £42.50 you will spend (again that is my opinion)
In the meantime I am sure Recordbox DJ gives you a 30 day free trial, try that until the above discount comes out and you can see what you prefer.
I’ve never really tried Serato or VDJ so other will guide you on those options.
There is also Mixvibes and the free program called Mixx, Google them to find out more.
Thanks for this, I’ll start by saying £40 looks very appealing and I guess I could continue to use traktor if I bought a new controller in the future.
The only other thing then is what’s your advice for building a library, I’ve got literally nothing in the way of downloaded music, someone suggested looking for free downloads on SoundCloud and YouTube videos, and I guess there’s rips for home use but they do sound noticeably worse.
Once you pay for the full Traktor program you can map it to most controllers so its future proof, that and if you get yourself into the bar/club scene most club set up (Pioneer) can be used in HID mode and is easy to set up.
As for building a music library, yeah you could go down the free Soundcloud downloads, make sure you download good quality (no less than 320kbps MP3), also get your self over to Traxsource listen to some tunes you like and put them in your basket, Narrow them down to 10 and buy them, do this every two weeks, not only will you get to know your tunes quicker like this it doesn’t cost the earth (Traxsource always have discount codes, so that is another plus). Finally if you are going to play old Skool/Classic stuff have a look on Amazon for unmixed CD compilations, these can be bought for pennies and then copied over to your PC/Laptop.
Thanks again, I just had a look over at traxsource, but it still looks quite expensive haha, i’m on a limited budget in university so i sort of want to make a one time investment, the idea of cheap cd’s is nice though.