I don’t know how am I supposed to start. All I have now is Serato DJ intro and the latest version of Garageband.
I plan to upgrade the Serato and I am getting a DJ controller in about one month from now.
Problem is, I had no idea how to start, I have the softwares and don’t know how to utilize them. Here, I don’t wanna spend money for the Serato upgrade and the controller without knowing anything, and I can’t let them be useless once I get them. I wish to know from where did you guys learn how to DJ or produce, youtube doesn’t seem to help, and classes are freakin’ expensive. I’d rather buy hardwares rather than spending hundreds of bucks for classes. Do you guys have any alternatives for me? I just can’t do experiments right away since it will take hundreds of years doing it. I need a lesson. I can’t do it alone without someone assisting me at least the basics.
From my personal exeperience, I would recommend keeping it simple and start with a simple 2 channel controller. I used a vestax vci-300 and loved learning on it (very inexpensive now). It doesnt have the capabilities for effects, so I simply focused on blending one song to the next. I just learned what sounded well, and what didn’t. The best way to learn is to just practice, practice, and keep practicing. You sound like you want to know it all as quickly as possible, but with anything worth doing well is going to require time, patience and percerverance.
Youtube is great if you know where to look. Ellaskins and djbolivia are great channels to get some explanation. Especially the series djbolivia made for beginners. It helped me a lot. He explains everything about different generations, what each knob and fader does on the mixer and he teaches you the basics of beatmatching.
Apart from those basics it’s mostly about learning what sounds good, acquiring your own taste and the good old practise hours. All I can tell you is take it on one step at a time and that good knowledge of the basics saves a lot of time in the long run.
I got a copy of magix music studio when i was twelve for my birthday. It was on from there. I then discovered Orion Platinum in a couple years then hopped on Fruity in High School.
For DJ’ing, I got my first pair of belt drive numark 1510’s for Christmas in 2001. It wasnt until a month later that I ordered my first two records = (Dj Glen - Jumpin Motherfuckers and Switch24 - White LAbel). It was on from there.
not at all. i just wanna know how to start. i know its impossible to do something out of my league. but everyone should start somewhere with some assistance right?
The book How to DJ Right gets suggested occasionally. It’s probably woefully out of date with regard to equipment, but I’d still give it a read.
YouTube tutorials can be good. Look at ellaskins. Search for basic tutorials and put up with them generally being recorded by people with insanely boring voices.
Then, once you at least know what most of the controls do, what beatmatching is, the general idea of how a mixer works…go on YouTube and find videos of DJs you like that actually show what they’re doing. Boiler room is good for this. So is the pioneer djsounds show. Get the user manuals and pictures of all their equipment and figure out what they’re doing, listen to what happens to the music, and figure out why they did it. This works best with DJs who don’t use computers, 'cuz you can rarely see the screen and don’t really know how controllers are set up.
After that, you kind of just have to experiment. And practice. A lot. And record everything you do so you can listen and evaluate it.
Online research and practice practice practice for both DJing and production (try copying songs you like in your favourite DAW, it’s a nice exercise in both sound design and and arrangement and will make your head click on how certain stuff is done).
A lot of controller mfgs have tons of tutorials on how to use their equipment which is a good place to start. Then join a forum like DJTT of course and post questions. Then serch on YouTube for QBert, DJTLM, DUBSPOT just to name a few DJs that have videos on YouTube showing how to DJ, Scratch etc. Ive been thinking of taking a private course at DUBSPOT on how to DJ since they are in my city.
Back to the original question, I learned how to DJ mainly off YouTube and DJTT and some of the above methods.
My bad, I meant no disrespect. But simply put its going to take a very small investment and lots of practice. Some small monitors and like the others said, the Ellaskins youtube channel is loaded with tutorials.
Watch, read, listen to really good DJs and practice. But most importantly, go back and listen to your mixes and “review” them closefully. You’ll know what you did and when in your mixes and you’ll hear where you screwed up and know what to work on next time.
I can also recommend How to DJ Right. I’ve read it and it’s great for beginners. Don’t worry about the gear and software in the book being outdated, things haven’t really changed that much over the years. All the controls are mostly the same and so are their locations. The book is written in a way that lets you skip chapters, so you can skip the section on cueing with vinyl for instance.
i personally reccomend using a dj in a box kit… one of those kits with 2 turntables/cdj’s and a mixer. keep it as simple as possible. learning to mix with limitations is a good thing
Self taught for DJing and production. After I forced myself to understand the basics, that’s when I started looking at tutorials for ideas and more advanced techniques.
Find a mentor. I learned a ton real fast because I was working with a mentor. It’s amazing how things click real fast when you have somebody say “this way is easier” or pushing you to improve your song selection. 2 places I would look… locally, by making friends with your local DJs, or on the internet, through forums and blogs. The first is preferable, but the second will do.
Practice, practice, practice. Not only that, but practice smart. Watch a video on youtube teaching 1 concept, and spend an hour or two on that one concept. Rinse and repeat. One of the things I see is people trying to do advanced stuff (present company included) when they don’t have the basics of “track A mixes into track B” djing mastered. Work on mastering the basics and you’ll be miles ahead of a lot of DJs.
I taught myself everything started from a mixtrack pro 2 years ago and moved on to having 2 cdjs and 2 turntables with serato
Production wise, started with reason 3 and over the last 6 years been on and off learning how to do it. In the last year since I switched to Ableton (DAMN YOU MAVERICKS) I’ve pushed myself a lot harder to try and learn everything I can, including some neat little tricks I came up with myself
ne42 mixer, buiding a vinyl collection.