I’ve been visiting this site for couple of months now but finally decided to register. I’m 20yrs old & reside in the live music capital of the world, Austin, TX. I’ve ALWAYS been a huge music person. I listen to just about every type of music but my favorites are trance & house. After months of hating school I finally decided to chase a long time passion in DJing. Its something I’ve always wanted to do but just never was motived enough till now. I recently just purchased a Numark mixtrack pro to learn the basics on & since I plan on becoming a laptop dj. I currently am learning to use Virtual DJ & plan to move on to better software like traktor or Serato once I get VDJ down. I would appreciate any advise, comments or tips/tricks that would help. Thanks in advance.
Anyway, there isn’t quite any good specific advice I can give, since you said you have been visiting the forums for a while. My first response would have been “lurk more,” so as to be more informed. The forums provide great insight into various controllers, and that would probably be the first step - getting a good controller. You would have to decide what kind of DJ’ing you would like to pursue. If you don’t know where you want to go with DJ’ing, which is the case, since you’re asking the question, I would just say you should do more research. look at more controllers, more techniques, watch videos of DJs, looks at different equipment other than controllers, and just explore the possibilities. rudimentary production with a DAW might also be useful.
My best advice would be to save and buy an S4!! Also get out as much as you can to clubs and events seeing how it goes down and also to keep abreast of the music you’re into.
When you’re comfortable you can throw a mix together start giving it out to your friends, then beyond.
Have fun and enjoy
Oh and remember YouTube is your friend with regards tips and tricks, as is this very forum and site, times a scrillion!
Thanks for the reply.
Yeah I plan on eventually moving up to better equipment & software once I get a lot better & save up more $$$. Yeah between this & YouTube, they’ve been really helpful.
Get off VDJ asap. Its uses are very limited. Thats what I started on back in the day. Wish i would have just jumped right into Traktor. Get Traktor and start learning from there.
Thankfully there are many DJs here in Austin. The only thing is theres a lot of good hip-hop DJs but as far as dance DJs go, they’re a little harder to find.
Yeah a bunch of ppl have said the same thing also. I have traktor too but haven’t installed it yet (was waiting till I get a little better) but I might brake it out so I can just start working/getting use to it.
Austin TX is the music capital of the world? VDJ is not a good program. Since you got a Numark Mixtrack as a controller, Just keep using VDJ and save up for Traktor.
Pester as many promoters / club owners / bar owners as much as you can to get sets, as I found the most valuable lessons to be learn’t are in a live. As you are learning crowd response, how to setup on different systems, what does and doesn’t sound good to a crowd and you build up your profile as you progressively get better!
Back when I used to live in Austin (born and raised, but moved away in '04) there was an electronic music show put on by the kids at UT as part of the radio and media studies. I was fortunate enough to make friends with one of the DJ’s there and he let me come and hang with him while he spun and we got to talk about all sorts of music and whatnot.
Of course, that was many years ago, but most DJ’s I met through that experience would happily teach you the fundamentals of beatmatching/scratching/beats/bars etc, as long as you didn’t screw up their needles or their records and you bought the beer.
I don’t know what the EDM scene is like in Austin now, but I’d imagine that if you can strike up a conversation with someone whose style matches up with yours then maybe you can utilize them as a resource for your exploits.
Despite what several people have said when it comes to buying a controller, I’d start with music. Learn about beats/bars/phrases etc. Consider what it is about the music that you love that makes you love it. Narrow down your music to stuff that you enjoy immensely and listen to it over and over and over until you get so sick of it you start hearing it in your sleep. Then you can worry about the technical side of it.
You can have the best controller in the world and you can beatmatch/cut/slam with the best of them, but if your track selection sucks people won’t come to see you play.
Nah, fair enough mate. Austin’s amazing to be honest; great bars, great people, great tech, hippies, Whataburger and yet also the state capital of Texas!
