How did you learn DJing?
Obviously, this is a huge topic so my take on this is to get to read your stories about how you first started with the art of digital DJing!
I got the VCI-100, Traktor Pro and soon, the new FW, buttons/faders and overlay too. But absolutely no skills.
I guess you’ve all been there. How come you went on to become a DJ or at least start DJing as a hobby?
read about it on the internet, bought the gear and banged my head on the wall until i could do it. there are plenty of good guides on the basics of djing lying around in the Internet
Hehehhe.
Used to listen to a lot of hip-hop and rap when I was younger (early double-digits), not realising until I was a bit older how they did what they did.
Older sibling picked up some 1200s and I started buying records (primarily tunes that I enjoyed that couldn’t be purchased on CD) that I’d play on the decks when not in the house.
Started heading out to gigs and got more and more interested in what the fellas - and ladies - were doing behind the booth. So were others…who were more cashed up than I…who I hooked up with and had a mix.
Played more than my fair share of house parties, and played once or twice in a local watering hole.
Eventually became a desk-jockey (pun not intended) and while I could have probably afforded decks, didn’t have the room to set them up. Bought a 2x VCI-100 to have independent control over 4 decks in TSP (which I got for free due to an ill eBay transaction; and I like my 4/4) and a VCM-600 which will eventually get attached to Ableton.
And still learning.
Starting working in a nightclub in Liverpool when i was 16, got interested through that. Bought some awful belt drive turntables and a 2 channel mixer off a friend and a few records. Picked it up pretty easy so i upgraded to a 4 channel mixer 2 stanton str-8 150 turntables and an Axis 9 cd deck. Shortly after i got into the whole Traktor/Ableton thing and now i try to mix them all up in my sets with a few midi controllers and a sound card. Played alot of house parties and bars/clubs in Liverpool and Leeds. Started doing Music tech in College then finally went to uni to study it which is were im at right now.
I was producing for a large number of years (since i was about 13), i was following the art of djing for a long period but because of funds and the fact that i am quite a technically minded and driven person it never really tickled my fancy enough to save the cash.
Then along came Moldover and Eans controllerism videos (right when this site first started), being able to use production techniques that i had learnt and put them into a djing style format really tickled my fancy, so i picked up a VCI-100. Going from a number of years of production to DJing was quite a simple transition. I put that article up on routing audio from Traktor to Ableton (which is one of, if not the most popular post on the blog) as part of my vision of this cross between djing and production, shortly after the forums opened up and i was the main contributor getting this forum off the ground: things really took off from there and the rest as they say is history.
Now i teach those who have been djing far longer than i have how to do cool digital DJing stuff - still spins me out 
Just goes to show you that you don’t need to start on CDs or Turntables - you just need passion, persistence, a love for learning and you will be well on your way.
Started 10 years ago on a pair of numark belt drives and dodgy gemini mixer, moved on to citronic direct drives and numark mixer, then tt/cdj combo, then replaced the tt’s with pioneer efx500s (one for each cdj - mainly for the ‘echo feedback trick’ which got used as makeshift samplers)
Back in april moved on to vci 100 and mapped it to work as 2 decks and 2 samplers to carry on mixing in similar way.
As for the learning, read a guide online and worked from there. The main part i picked out, and still remember, was to only move the pitch fader a small amount at a time. Pretty much worked around that - took about 18 months to beat match properly, used a red sounds bpm counter to help fine tune it
I was in Japan when I learned how to DJ. Was at a trancey venue and I didnt feel like dancing that night (not into the glowsticking,love to see it done though) and I was paying attention to the dj’s. I saw this one guy moving his hands this way and that and somehow I felt like I knew it was him manipulating the song and pulling off this crazy sensation of increased tension. I went up to him and said, I want to be able to do that, luckily he took me under his wing and he tought me everything he knew. That was vynil, digital didnt happen till after I got out of the Marines and picked up a RMX. Had to rethink somethings in terms of how I spun, was stuck in the mindset of vynil, beatmatch, transition, scratch, simple tricks. The possibilities of digital are endless. I then ran into DvlsAdvct at was known as Asylum Guild in NYC. Noticed he was a digital DJ and we hit it off, he mentored me on alot of stuff and pointed me in the direction of these forums. Since then, Ive been practicing and fucking around like crazy, nonstop reading about stuff or watching videos on the internet to the point that my girlfriend will pull me out of fantasy land lol.
To me DJing is about expression and making people dance because of it. You need to be passionate and dedicated to making yourself better and better, with digital we can be unique. I LOVE IT!
I’ve got this really cool 13 year old Kid tap me up on Youtube asking how to start. It’s awesome when you get people that young 
(i started when I was 16, now I’m 18..)
I started because my band split up, and I needed something to do! It takes alot of perseverance and geeky forum/article reading to get to grips with everything, but it doesn’t take too long! If you’re determined, you’ll be able to do it.
Getting creative and trying new things is also very cool, which takes a lot of time and effort, but is hugely enjoyable and a great feeling when you realise something works 
get reading fella!
I had moved from Florida to Houston, TX. Was a freestyle dancer at the time, fluid, pop n’ lock, etc… Started dancing out there in a crew at parties and events, and was always talking to the DJs about what we wanted, and the way they integrated the music really intrigued me. Met a couple of them, and one day they asked me if I wanted to know more about it. Ended up moving in with one of them that spun DnB, so I started spinning funky florida breaks (DJ Icey, Baby Anne, etc…) by learning off of him. That was about 9 years ago now. Mind you this was straight 1200s and a mixer, no digital anything.
All i can remember is my roommate sitting there messing with photoshop while I was practicing and constantly going “The beats are off Tre, fix the tempo… The beats are off… Come on… Fix that shit… The beats are off, the beats are off… the beats are off!” Which, of course, was annoying as hell when you’re trying to fix them!
Moved back to Florida and started a new dance crew that did hip hop performances, so I started mixing for our shows. Then got a DJ gig for a club that catered to everyone from 21-80+, so I started learning how to mix all the old stuff in with the new to cater to any kind of crowd.
Interesting stories guys, awesome.
Well for me i’d been listening to music epecially dance music for over 16 years before meeting some of the crew from the original gathering aotearoa parties in 2004 ish. At this stage my brother was already playing around mixing a bit of drum & bass with some mates who were pretty shit really but at the time they were the “name” djs in town. At this stage i already had a good collection of over 300 discs of tunes and was mostly listening to mixes such as the global underground series. Murray Kingi (organiser of the gathering) gave me a poster of the crowd at the last gathering, and told me yeah, it was him playing. I wanted this bad! he hooked us up with a very early version of traktor and a dvd full of prog and we haven’t looked back ever since. Things really kicked off for us late last year when we had a few biggish gigs around the place. Our first big outdoor flopped due to site permission being pulled at the last minute but things are defo in the pipeline for the future. Making a lot of contacts & friends round the place now, and helping out where i can.
Started posting some mixes round the place in feb and stopped counting once we hit a thousand downloads. Have made some foreign contacts through our soundcloud group also, which was cool.
This community has been a great help to the crew and me especially, until a couple of months ago i was the only midijockey round this hick town
I actually didn’t start listening to any EDM at all until I was 16 (it’s worthy to point out that all my friends got me into Eurodance - which I still have a soft spot for ). And then at some point (I don’t know how or when), I became interested in producing music. I’ve been doing this ever since.
(Begin ass-kissing)
Then earlier this year I decided I wanted to buy a Korg Nanopad. After a quick search on google I came across Ean’s video (the one with the “We Will Rock You” rework/mashup). At some point in the video, Ean mentions DJTT.com. I decided to check it out and started using the(se) forums. From reading all the posts and listening to the music, I decided I wanted to get into a little digital DJing. And I’ve never looked back.
To be honest, everything I know about DJing, and a lot of what I’ve learned about production, has come from this forum.
(End ass-kissing)
Edit: Also, this forum is responsible for me discovering Drum & Bass and Dubstep. I almost exclusively produce dubstep now, so it’s safe to say DJTT has had a significant impact my DJing and production.
i started getting into the dance music scene when i was 12, started producing when I was 14 after I got back from a Chemical Brothers concert. All my best friends in highschool were DJs so after a few years of just hanging out listening to them spin at their pads I asked them to start teaching me on their turntables and it soon became a way for me to pass time with my buddies when we were smoking and drinking at their cribs.
Then I got a copy of traktor 2 and played around with it for fun and it greatly improved my ability to beatmatch both digitally and analogue since I could practice at home instead of on my friend’s equipment. Once Traktor 3 came out in 2005 I immediately realized how powerful the software was and started taking my DJing much more seriously. If it wasn’t for Traktor I probably never would’ve had a chance to start djing seriously, playing gigs and later promoting events.
Interesting stories guys! I find it especially fascinating to read about how people started before digital DJing was around.
I went to a house party about a year ago and heard a DJ spinning electro (which I don’t think I had ever heard before really, at least not much) on a demo version of Traktor Pro (she had to reboot it every 30 mins I remember, heh). That piqued my interest, and I started reading about stuff on Wikipedia and the internet I guess. My friend who spins hip hop with a bootleg copy of VDJ offered to give it to me, but his version only worked for PC so I decided to do a little research, and I came across Traktor.
I downloaded the demo of Traktor Pro and started discovering new music. First party I spun was a small house party using the demo version (that crashed every 30 mins), and I was pretty bad. So after that I googled “Traktor tutorial” or something like that and found DJTT. Then I started reading tutorials here and elsewhere, got myself a VCI-100 and nanoPAD, and learned the basics. Around that time I also discovered hypem.com, which has been a huge help to me in discovering new music. Since then I’ve picked up skills here and there, trying to discover new ways to mix by myself as well.
But if you’re just starting read lots of tutorials and try stuff out, that’d be my recommendation!
I started about 18 years ago (YIKES) and began playing Golden Era Hip Hop (Biggie, Wutang, Lords of the Underground) in the early 90’s. I then realized that hiphop was getting violent and turned to house…Been on that ever since.
My first setup was Gemni XBL10 turnatbles I bought from my cousin for 50$ each. My dad got me a gemini mixer as a christmas present. I eventually became really great at scratching and mixing on these cheap little turntables and moved up to a better set of gemini’s and eventually 1200’s.
Then it went like this:
1200’s w/ vestax pmc 25 rotary => CDJ’s & 1200’s with a rane 2016
CDJ’S =>to a Kontrol-DJ (built well but too small)
Kontrol-DJ w/ traktor => CDJ’s w/ Torq
CDJ’s w/ Torq = Traktor w/ VCI-100
Traktor w/ VCI-100 => Ableton w/ mpd32 (wasn’t embraced in the clubs here in miami)
Ableton => CDJ’s w/ Traktor Scratch now Pro
And to go full circle I am painting my old 1200’s and fixing them up to get back to basics at home. At the club I’ll still use CDJ’s.
i started off on 2x 1200’s & a 10" American DJ 3 channel mixer
Being from a small town, we didn’t really have a great selection of music other than what Walmart and Kmart brought in. Most of it was country and butt rock. At 16, I was driving in a car with a friend and she put in DJ Dan’s “Beats 4 Freaks”. I was hooked on the EDM from then on.
That summer I worked 2 jobs and saved everything I could to get some kind of DJ rig together from a PSSL magazine that I stumbled upon. I had DJ’d a few small parties because I had an enormous CD collection for my age, but it was on a home theater system rigged to just straight cut between a cd walkman and a 5 disk home CD player, no faders, no real EQ’s other than master.
So at the end of the summer I bough a 2 channel american DJ mixer and 2 american DJ cd decks. After that, I was asked to DJ the high schools informal dances. I really figured out how to rock a crowd considering I was making all of them have the time of their life to music that wasn’t really listened to in rural farm country, like house, trance, and breaks. Not very many of them had ever heard 2 songs seamlessly flow into another, so I would always get the crowd going on the shear fact that I was actually mixing, unlike the rest of the Mobile DJ’s that had been doing the job before. Shit, I still get people from my high school hitting me up on facebook saying that the best time they had in high school was at my parties.
I quit DJ’ing when I left for the military after high school, but then picked it back up while on my Ship, because once again, I had the huge music collection and knew what people wanted to hear. Oddly enough, it was really great because while I was picking tunes for the ship to hear over the announcing system, they were out scrubbing rust off the sides of the ship. I couldn’t really carry a whole kit with me everywhere I went in the navy, so I had to use my laptop. And after carrying huge CD folders around to dances and getting CDs stolen before it was economical to burn a copy of the original, I knew digital was the only way to go.
When I was 16 I was in Spain for a year where I really got hooked on the idea of large scale dance music. At the same time I was really getting into more fringe electronic dance groups. In November I went to see a barcelona DJ duo called the Pinker Tones and they just absolutely killed it. Gradually I got really into more breakbeat and lounge type electronic music (Parov Stelar!). Then in April I was down in Malaga chilling at a hostel with this kid from Bristol who started tossing out all these names from a more electro EDM background and I was pretty interested. I’ve always been one to seek new musical paradigms, genres, approaches and EDM was a a real frontier in that regard similar to jazz in the 8th grade or jambands in 6th grade.
Anyway I spent months researching gear, checking out videos, and reading up. I then went on to buy a VCI-100se and I’ve been working on it ever since.
Wow, these stories are all great inspiration guys! Can’t wait to get my order… I figured the VCI-100 would be a lot easier to use with the overlay since many key bindings have changed since the original VCI-100 shipped with Traktor LE.
I also need to get a soundcard so that I can monitor. In the mean time, I’m just playing around. Gonna have a look at YouTube soon for tutorials.
2 turntables, a mixer, some records, headphones and lotsa beer
I started out digital, as I have never had the money for a pair of turntables.
First started when I was 14 or so and I downloaded a program called KraMixer. Google it if you’re curious, I don’t even know if it is still around. Messed around with that untill I found another free program called Mixxx, and I got hooked on that real quick. Got a korg nanoKey so I could use something other than my computer’s keyboard and was happy with that for a while, then I got a friend’s copy of T. Pro. Played with that for a long time, bought a better midi controller (Hercules RMX) and have been spinning with that ever since.
