I’m curious to see everyone’s story about what got you into DJing/electronic music/just this type of lifestyle in general. Why do you do what you do?
My story:
For me it kind of started with just messing around on shockwave back when it was big. I would spend hours playing this one game where you are this kid who just walks the streets with a tape recorder and recording different sounds, go back to your apartment and mix it. Virtual DJ also had a game that I played frequently.
Then I got a dreamcast.
And then an xbox.
This track still give me chills.
Shortly after getting my xbox, I got super into video editing and animation (still am really). So I purchased (I was 11) fl studio for making quick little samples for intros and stuff like that. I also got Virtual DJ for the eq, and just to play with.
Fast forward to 16, I went to a club known as Afterlife in Dallas because my friend/roomie had left his license at home (which was an hour drive) so he offered to pay my way in. That was my first time to see a DJ, I spent the night having a blast but kept going back to the outdoor stage to watch the DJ’s spin. Instantly feel in love with it. The way to control the music, the people, the fun, the dancing, the mood and you’re the center of it all. Hell yeah!
Did the whole “raver” thing for about 1 1/2 years. I eventually just grew out of it. Toward the end of my raver days was when dubstep started getting really big, so I jumped on that bandwagon trying to make the next big track for the genre!
That never happened. I realized quickly that dubstep just wasn’t my thing.
Started branching out, learning more instruments, genres, had a few bands, and now I’ve come back with a bit more knowledge and understanding of music, trying to relearn everything and hopefully do something with it.
What made me want to start djing would probably be from being that raver that overly enjoys the music.
At an early partying stage I was counting beats before the drop and letting my nooby friends know when the bass was gonna hit. It started here and slowly moved into me finding my own bangers that people enjoyed.
Now I enjoy setting the tone or vibe of the night. Makes me happy when I can see people having the most awesome time of there lives
Mix tapes back in the very early 90’s, particularly Sasha G-Spot 1992 and Universe 1992, also the Essential Selection and later the Essential Mix (1993), not forgetting the seminal Renaissance Mix Collection by Sasha & Diggers in 1994. I was a little too young to go to clubs at the start of the 90’s, think my first rave/club night was around 1994 (showing my age ) - which simply blew me away. I’d heard and listened to dance music in the late 80s/early 90’s but going to the first event was an eye/ear opener.
Got my first decks in 1994 - Soundlab DLP1’s (belt drive!!) and a Kam MadeIIFade 4 channel mixer - which only had channel and cross faders, headphone output/mic input and 3 band eq on the overall master output - that was it! Bought my Technics 1210 Mk2’s later that year.
First record bought for DJing purposes was a Rising High white lable of Union Jack - Two Full Moons & A Trout
I was into Metal and was drumming in a band. I was 16.
My mate took me to a ‘techno’ party…( I was thinking 2Unlimited ) and kinda made up my mind that i was gonna hate it.
Got there…and was enjoying it by the end of the night.
Then I went to a Psytrance party and saw Tsuyoshi Suzuki playing. It was badass.
He was really good on the vinyl decks.
I knew a guy from school…that I randomly bumped into one evening and we started talking about parties etc. He told me that he DJ’s etc. I went to check his shit out and fell in love with it.
Soon I had flogged my drum kit and bought TT’s and mixer.
My whole life was always music, I never got involved with music beyond listening to it until I was 15 and picked up playing the drums. Back then my whole life was heavy metal, black metal, death metal, thrash… Whatever it was, you name it and I listened to it. The more evil it was the more I liked it. Around 2005 I met the most unbelievably gorgeous woman I’ve ever met (still holds true to now) and she loooooved house. I gave it a shot but never really got fully into it though I did enjoy it. Around 2010 I started going to after hours clubs and fell in love with the music.
In mid 2011 I realized just dancing wasn’t enough and I wanted more so I started playing around with a bootleg version of Traktor to see how I’d enjoy it. Didn’t take long and in Dec 2011 picked up my Kontrol S4 w/ Traktor 2. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life and even though I’ve still only played a few gigs I’d never had so much fun or worked so hard on anything ever! Now I’m working on producing as well and it’s a whole new love of mine to go with the DJ aspect. It’s a wonderful musical world and hopefully we can all achieve our goals!
Sometimes I forget I started with a double cassette decks several years before the whole record deal. I knew I was on to something when people would say “you made this?!?” I wish I could find some of those tapes again.
My father was a DJ right up until he handed me the headphones back in 2006.. As soon as i was physically able to control my movements my father had me putting needles on records. So i just grew up doing it.. There wasn’t any thought put into it, it was just one of those things.
I had three single deck Technics tape players. They had an awesome feature that would look for 3 seconds of silence as a track marker. So, you could hit the “skip” button 5 times and it would fast forward to the 5th track on the tape. It also had a really crude tempo control with a range of about +/- 3%…just enough to make things interesting. I had two tape decks hooked to the mixer, and one I used to “cue” the tapes to the right song. It was high tech!
It all started when I saw Tron Legacy and heard Daft Punks music, so I got interested andnlooked them up and came accros house music which lead me to electro house and I heard a few of Dj Blends old mixes and I liked a lot of the tracks he used. So I found a real love for electro house and came across Afrojack and downloaded a few of his tracks and Virtual DJ and started messing around and got the hang of it. Down the road I got a nice set of speakers, headphones, Serato and a mixtrack pro and my music preferences have grown to loving House, Moombahton, and Trap the most.
Great topic, It all started back in 2008 when House Music was just beginning to emerge here in the US. I was at my friend’s house at the time and they had introduced me to this new type of music from Romania. I remember the first track they played for me was “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya. I loved what I was listening to and told them that you don’t hear this type of music being played on the radio nowadays. (I would soon be in for a big surprise a couple of years later.)
From then on I started getting more into House Music from Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Afrojack, etc. I went to several concerts, the first one being “Benny Benassi & Friends” at Pacha NYC, the second one being Tiesto at Asbury Park. Then one day my friend told me about this software Virtual DJ, so I downloaded a demo and messed around a bit. I remember making my first mix in my bedroom on a numark mixtrack I had just bought. I’d be up all night teaching myself how to mix, going through tutorials online, and learning as much as I could about DJ’ing. From that moment on I knew what I wanted to do. Fast forward a few years later, House Music has completely taken over the US and for the first time I heard “Stereo Love” being played on the radio. The rest is history
Well, I have to admit that my first EDM record was from Mr. Guetta, I’m not proud of it, you know, but then I wanted to know what DJing was like, so I downloaded Virtual DJ Home Free and started making awful mainstream bootlegs. After that I started listening to the EDM radio in Barcelona and signed to their forums. My collection got big and awesome in a small time. After that I started recording sessions every week for 6 months. After that it was summer and my computer got broken and I left DJing for a while. Afterwards I got a new computer and I started DJing again and also started producing. Soo that’s basically my history, hope you liked it
Just listening to some tunes and suddenly my brain goes:
“holy sh!t I like this particular genre a lot, obviously to an abnormal extent.
I should share this with as much people as possible by DJing.”
my older sister took me to some raves and technoparties back when i was 13-14. i still remember being in a club for the first time with a massive line up (dj rush, chris liebing, thomas schumacher and monika kruse). i always loved electronic music especially dnb and with makai´s beneath the mask i was finally sold to it. but still hardcore/metal had the bigger part of my musical interest. i played drums in several bands and went to electronic parties. until i finally decided to give djing a chance as well. must have been around 05/06.
) - which simply blew me away. I’d heard and listened to dance music in the late 80s/early 90’s but going to the first event was an eye/ear opener.