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When you’re mixing, pretty much the golden rule is just for the mix to be on beat, but you want to try to keep it as original and as entertaining as possible, and you can pretty much mix any two signals together as long as you can make them sound good, but also to keep in mind, just because you get two signals on beat doesn’t necessarily mean they compliment each other. So it does have to sound good. You also want to stay away from over-kill with sound, meaning if you’re mixing house or you’re mixing disco, whatever it is that you’re mixing, reggae, whatever genre you’re mixing, you want to make sure that the two signals that you’re mixing together sound good, because a lot of times, sometimes you have the bass will pretty much fight for the same slot. In those cases, if you’re mixing two tracks that are bass heavy, you might want to reduce the low end or cancel out the low end completely one one of the songs, same thing for mids or highs. You can play around with the EQs, you can play around with the volume. Whatever you have in your mind, just try to take different genres and just go for it. Like i said, the main rule is for it to be on beat, and just try to be as original and as creative as you can be.

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So there are so many different ways to transition from one record to the next: you can use cues, you can use sound effects. I’m about to actually give you an example of using a sound effect to transition from one record to the next. I have a Reggae record on my right deck, like a hip-hop-, R&B-type track on my left deck. OK, I’m going to start with the right deck, a Reggae song. So that was an example of using an echo or delay as a transition, to transition from the reggae record to the R&B hip-hop track. So many ways of doing that, so many different effects that you can use, you can, you know, flange, whatever effects you want to use. There’s even customizable effects that you can actually tweak yourself, you know, and save the settings. You can also use sound effects, which I like to use as well, horns, there might be some vocal drops that I can use as a transition, like if I’m DJ’ing for an internet radio show, and I’m playing a hip-hop set, I might want to use a vocal drop of someone saying my name: “You’re listening to DJ DP One, on whatever show,” and then it’ll just transition into the next song. Or sometimes, I might want to just stop the music completely, and play a sample of something to get the crowd, you know, revved up or whatever, and then I’ll just segue or transition into the next song. So, there’s so many ways to go about it, you know. The golden rule is to just keep it as smooth as possible so it’s not an abrupt change.

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“About the Expert: DP ONE

I go by the name of DP ONE representing Brooklyn NYC, representing turntable [inaudible], supreme beings, universal super-nation and heavy hitters and I am the main instructor for Rock & Soul DJ School. I play a little bit of everything, Hip Hop, R&B, Reggae, Latin, House, all different types of House, Funk, Breaks, B Boy competitions. I’m heavily involved in the raw essence of Hip Hop culture. I’m around Poppers, Lockers, B Boys, B Girls, Battle MC’s, Battle DJ’s, Graffiti virus producers, that is the main scene that I’m involved in. I also DJ the top 40 commercial clubs. I tour with artists. I love my life because of music, because I have music in my life and I’m able to express myself . Through music, life is amazing. We are currently at the Rock & Soul Record Shop. I teach basic foundation fundamentals of the DJ art form, from beginner, intermediate, to the most advanced. Ever since I started DJ’ing, I’ve been coming here, buying records and DJ equipment, turntables. My first pair of Teknik turntables I bought here. The fact that I’m actually teaching here means, I don’t really have the right words to express how exciting that is for me. So once again, I go by the name of DJ DP ONE and today I’m gonna teach you how to DJ.

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I reccommend, if it’s FM radio, uh, you might want to start out by interning, ok? I know sometimes it might suck to fetch coffee for someone or to sweep or mop or whatever it is they want you to do as an intern or to file papers, make copies, but, you know, don’t underestimate that position. If you’re an intern, you’re at the place you want to be, so you’re already in the door, right? So use it to your advantage. Make as many contacts as you can. Try to remember everyone’s name,try to get their phone numbers, try to create strong relationships with people in different departments that work for the radio station, cause those are the people that you wanna look for when you’re looking for a reference, right? So it’s better to have people that you’re working with to give you a good reference cause then it’ll make the chances of you getting that job at that radio station a lot higher. It’s all about relationships, uhm, you never wanna underestimate anybody, that’s the worst thing you can do. I’m currently at HOT97, I’m not asking for anything, I’m just showing up two times a week, assisting in whatever he needs for me to do. A lot of the members of the crew that I’m down with, which is uh, Heavy Hitters, uhm, there’s a lot of members that are on that station, you know, DJ Celo, Camillo, Cas1, Laura Styles, uh, Big Ben, the list goes on and on, and uh pretty much they all went about it the same way- they paid their dues, they were patient, they learned as much as possible, and you know, at the drop of the dime they were ready to do whatever it is that was needed of them to do. There’s different ways you can go about it, but the main thing like I said is to make sure you’re a good person, you treat people the way you wanna be treated, you learn as much as possible so, the more you know, knowledge is power, right?

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First figure out what kind of party it is that you’re getting booked to spin and what is it that they want to hear. It can range new music, old music, everything in between. So you definitely have to understand what crowd you’re going to face. If it’s a top 40 commercial club, but the age range is like, you know, 21 to like 26 or 27, I’m not going to play anything that’s too old that they might not remember or they might not know about. Even though I will try to incorporate some music that I feel that they should know about, but I try to usually keep it current because that’s what they want to hear.

So whatever’s on the radio, you can pretty much more or less try to track those songs down. You can also go online and check on various sites. I pretty much do all of the above. I’m like always searching, trying to stay on top of it all, and asking my fellow DJ friends, “Hey, what are you playing right now? What’s popular in the clubs right now that I might not know about or I just haven’t heard yet?”

You can also try to build relationships with people from various record labels. Nowadays it’s a lot easier. You can pretty much just have them email you promo copies of songs that haven’t really broke the charts yet, that are going to require some time to become really, really popular, but you know they’re on their way.

No two parties are the same, so definitely keep that in mind. Whatever worked for your last party may not necessarily work for the next party, so you don’t want to get into like a routine. You don’t want people to predict what the next record is going to be.

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“Popular D.J Music for Parties

First figure out what kind of party it is that you’re getting booked to spin.
And what is it that they want to hear. It can range, old music, new music
everything in between. So you definitely have to understand what crowd you’re
going to face. If it’s a top forty commercial club. What the age range is like
you know, twenty one to like twenty six or twenty seven. I’m not going to play
anything that’s too old that they might not remember or they might not know about
Even though, I will try to incorporate some music that I feel that they should
know about. But I’ll try to usually keep it current because that’s what they want
to hear. So whatever is on the radio you can pretty much more or less try to
track those songs down. You can also go on line and check on various sites.
I pretty much do all of the above. I’m like always searching, trying to stay on
top of it all.
And asking my fellow D.J friends “”hey what are you playing right now, what’s
popular in the clubs right now””? That I might not know about or just haven’t
heard yet. You can also try to build relationships with people from various
record labels. Now days it’s a lot easier, you can pretty much just have them
e-mail promo copies of songs that haven’t really broke the charts yet. That are
going to require some time to become really, really popular. But you know they’re
on their way
No two parties are the same so definitely keep that in mind. What ever worked
for your last party may not necessarily work for the next party. So you don’t
want to get in to a routine. You don’t want people to predict what the next
record is going to be.”

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“This is how to use one of the most popular DJ software’s out there, known as Serato. This is what I use for professional use. First of all you’ve got to figure out if you’re going to use vinyl or CD players or the CDJ. I personally use vinyl turntables so the program comes with the vinyl controller. If you’re CD players of the CDJ’s then the program also provides the CD controllers. This is what allows you to pick up the signal from the program. This particular mixer that I’m using is the Ring TTM 57, it has Serato built in the mixer.

It has a USB port so I’m connecting directly from the mixer to my laptop. I’m using a Mac Book Pro and I’m running a Snow Leopard, that’s the operating system that I’m using on the Mac Book Pro. So I’m going to plug in the USB, if you notice once I opened up the program, the program provides you with a player. This allows you to go through your crates, as you see on the left, and within each crate I have music, I created a playlist.

So now the song is loaded, I held down the shift key and the left arrow and that allowed me to load up the song. As you see on the player it shows you the wave of the song and this white line here is the indicator of where you’re at in that song. I’m going to plug in the USB so you can see the full screen of what the program looks like.

I plug in the USB, give it a second, that’s the full program right there. You see this track that I loaded, I loaded on the left deck or the left player. There’s different ways you can actually look at the waves. You can choose to use the vertical display or the horizontal display. A couple of other displays are available.

This is how you will create a cue point, it’s simple you just pretty much, place your needle, if you are using a turntable, place the needle on the record, you can move the wave by moving the record. And you just bring the wave, see that white line? So, you can set it 2.5 by just by pressing this plus sign here, you can get rid of hitting the x. You’ll see a green, a green shade that appears and you select when to punch out and it will repeat. There’s your loop, so when it’s a solid green color that means that the loop is activated.

If you would like to actually try to give it a go and give it a little test run you can come to your local record store, like Rock and Soul, walk in and speak to one of those sales reps and hopefully they can set it up for you and give you a more in depth breakdown on how to use the program. Hopefully you’ll get to enjoy using this program as much as I do.
“

Transcript

“So right now I have a song loaded up and I have 2 copies of the same song on each player and we’re just going to repeat the first bar and the way we’re going to do that is we’re going to find our beginning, starting point. I have it marked at 12, okay? So I’m going to repeat one bar, so here we go.

You’re manually looping or you’re back cueing or you’re back spinning, it’s manually, you’re manually looping the signal or the recording, right? What’s really cool is you can also incorporate basic scratches while you’re back cueing, right? So I’m going to incorporate a baby scratch while I’m back cueing just so you can see how that sounds like, okay?

When you’re counting bars to the music you want to make sure you do exactly that. You want to count to the music because if not ,if you’re counting off-beat, guess what? Your loop, your manual loop is going to be off as well. I’m letting the signal on the left play for one bar, crossing the fader over to the right and again, looping for a bar and then switching back and forth. 1 2 3 4 and 1 2 3 4 and 1 2 3 4 and 1 2 3 4. 1 2 3 4 and switch over, so that and is when you switch over the fader and then you fall on 1 again. Very important as that record is playing, you’re not just standing there because the record is not going to back cue itself. At no point when you’re back cueing are you just standing still.
“

Transcript

The MIDI controller that I’m using, That I… My choice, is made by Novation. It’s called the Dicer. This is a controller, a MIDI controller, that I use with Serato. This allows me to use, or to access, my cue points, to create cue points, to create loops, and also, pretty much, I can make it do whatever I want it to do. So that was really cool about MIDI devices. You can customize the buttons to do whatever it is that you – to control whatever functions you want them to control. For those that know what Dicers are, and are still trying to figure out how to use the Dicers, it’s USB-powered. Plug the left controller into the computer. Then you’ll just connect… This is an 1/8 cable, and, I think, from one controller to the other, so this controller on the right gets powered by this cable. OK. And I have a song already loaded up on the left deck here, and you look at the screen: I’m going to hit the first pad. You notice a cue point was set that easy. To play the song, I can go into the next bank and I can do, like, these stutter rolls, or, like, these short little loops, where I can just mess around with the timing of the song, so I’ll just play that. So… Create a loop. Exit out of the loop, go back to the top of the song. So, pretty much, you can do anything with a MIDI controller. If you have a MIDI device, you can just, if your program allows you to do so, multiple programs will, especially DJ programs such as this one. So, this MIDI controller that I’m using, which is known as the Dicer, it’s amazing, because I just love the fact that it’s so customizable. I can pretty much get it to control various functions in Serato. And that goes the same for any MIDI controller that you choose to use with Traktor, Serato, or any of the DJ software that you… Or Ableton Live, whatever it is that you’re using, there’s a lot of MIDI controllers that you can assign to do whatever it is that you want them to do.He could have said, “This is an 1/8 cable”, or “This is an eight-inch cable”. On the previous video about training dogs to fetch and retrieve, I wrote [xx] for an inaudible part which (presumably) was the dog’s name.

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“Popular DJ Wedding Music

When you get booked to DJ a wedding, first thing you want to do is you want to speak with your client and figure out what type of music they’re into. You don’t want to treat two crowds the same or two audiences the same because what worked for one party might not necessarily work for the next party, right. So you definitely want to do a little bit of research, speak with your client and see what kind of music they’re into, if it’s Hip Hop, R&B, Reggae or open format. Maybe what they can also do is they can provide you with a track listing of songs that they want to hear and you can pretty much use that to give you an understand of where the party is actually, what direction the party is going to go and what you can actually get away with playing. You want to set aside music for cocktail hour when people are sitting down and just talking, mingling amongst themselves and you don’t want to play anything too loud, too aggressive. That’s just like, you know, throw away music that you don’t really care about, just to set a nice mood so it’s not silent. Then you want to play whatever the latest hits are along with whatever was on that sheet that they gave you or emailed to you. When I get booked to DJ a wedding, that’s how I go about it. I’ll speak with the client, organize my music, whatever, along with whatever they gave me, and I’ll set aside music, put a lot of preparation before I get to the event. You don’t want to just kind of like free-style it and just have people all over the place. You want to have some kind of order, so definitely organize your music. Become familiar with what you have in your music folders and your libraries and have music for downtime, like when people are eating, and then also have music to get everyone on the dance floor, to get everyone going. There are some common rules. You definitely want to not just assume that they’re going to like what you have. Speaking to the client is very important so that’s pretty much it. That’s how you organize music for a wedding.”

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The first one we’re just going to focus on the hand to record movement. And it’s the most simplest scratch to learn is baby scratching. You can also use a scratch to queue up your records and you headphones. And it’s just a simple forward and back movement. First thing you want to do is you want to locate the very beginning of your sound. We’re going to use “ah”. Keep in mind the sharpest part of the sound is the very beginning. So if you notice at the very beginning of the sound its sharp. In the middle of the sound, kind of dull. So you want to stay right on top of the sound. You don’t want to apply too much pressure on the turn table because you don’t want to stop the flow of the platter. You want the turn table, if you are using turn tables, you want that motor to still keep on continuing to rotate. You want to place your hand in this little V-pocket here. Ok, if this was a clock it will be between 8 and 10 or 11. You don’t want your hand to go beneath that V-pocket or above. If you are above, you’re in the danger zone, you’re going to end up hitting the needle under the groove. And if you’re underneath that V-pocket it’s an awkward hand position. So you want to keep your hand somewhere, you know, try to find that sweet spot within that V-pocket. Right, place your hand on the record,and when you’re ready to start you just grab, get your sound ready,we’re using “ah”, we’re going to go forward and back. That completes a baby. Forward. And back. So this is, now I’m going to do four babies in a row. Now I’m going to do four babies in a row and I’m going to release. Now the next scratch is called “chirping”. So there’s two ways to break down chirping, the first way is the easiest way. I’m going to start with the fader in the middle, okay. So what I’m going to do is place my hand on the record between that V-pocket at like 9 o’clock or so. And we’re going to, I’m going to move the record forward. When I move the record forward I’m going to close the fader and cut that sound in half. I’m going to open the fader and you’re going to hear a full back sound. A full back pull. So you cut the forward sound in half and when you open the fader you pull the record back. So pretty much what completes a chirp is forward motion getting cut and back motion hearing in full. What you want to keep in mind is your hands are moving together, you’re not isolating them. You’re moving them together and you’re moving them away from eachother. So when you’re moving the record forward you’re closing the fader, when you pull the record back you’re opening the fader. One more time. So I’m goin to do four chirps and I’m going to release. Okay so that’s how to chirp. Next scratch is called the “forward scraching” you only want to hear the forward sound. You don’t want to hear any back pull. Your hand on the fader has to be faster than your hand on the record. The reason you want your hand on the fader to be faster is you want that hand to beat the hand on the record so you don’t hear any pull back. Okay the fader is closed i’m going to open the fader and release the record at the same time to hear the forward sound. If you notice I closed the fader right away so you don’t hear any back pull. If I didn’t do that this is what it would sound like. It sounds a little ugly, you want to clean that up right, a little sloppy. Sou you want to just only hear the forward sound you don’t want to hear any back pull. So again. OKay, so I’m going to do four forward scratches and I’m going to release.

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“How to Beat Juggle
Beat juggling, what you’re doing is you’re manipulating the recording.
You’re rearranging the sounds, or you’re rearranging what was recorded on the
record you’re replacing the kick with the snare, or you’re creating your own
music with the music that was recorded on the record or on the c.d. You can
slow down the recording, you can speed up the recording, you can ‘yoop’, parts
of the recording by dropping out the volume or crossing over the theater.
It all depends on what you choose to do. You notice I have these stickers here
on the record? This is just to indicate where I’m at on the recording. As the
sticker rotates clockwise on the vinyl that allows me to pinpoint where each sound that I’m actually trying to target is located right? This is how the track
sounds. And I’m just going to have fun with it. Now I’m just going to create
different rhythms.
Markers, right!, this is what allows you to determine where you are in that
recording. So as it travels clockwise around the record you can pinpoint what
sounds you want to zone or target. That’s the ‘kick’, that’s the ‘high hat’,
snare, kick, high hat, snare. Pretty basic. I know for beginners you’re probably
like, “”okay, yea this is not basic””, but it is as long as you understand what
you’re doing.
Just remember the sounds, and playing around with the timing. But it still
has to be on beat. You know that’s pretty much it. So that’s “”Beat Juggle””.
“

Transcript

“D.J Tricks or Trick Mixing

What I was doing is I was just playing a song and then I loaded up the
copy of the song and I pretty much doubled up or I was chasing. And then
incorporating some basic scrouching as well as baby scrouching and some
chirps. Pretty much just chasing, really one record is ahead of the other,
so it gives it that chasing effect, as I cross the fater completely over
to the left and right. When you’re trick mixing you’re incorporating juggling you’re incorporating tricks you’re also incorporating scratches.

“

Transcript

There are various softwares out there, there’s virtual DJ, there’s Traktor Scratch Pro, there’s Stork, there’s Serato. From my experience, what I have noticed is, the main tool, commonly used DJ software out there is Traktor Scratch Pro and Serato. I personally use Serato. I’m currently learning how to use Traktor Scratch Pro. It’s really a preference thing. I know a lot of beginner DJ’s choose to use Virtual DJ and some of them other software that are similar to Virtual DJ out there online and then they end up gradually investing their money into the more professional programs such as Traktor and Serato. Those are the main two programs that professional DJ’s are using all around the world. I will recommend to just walk in to a shop and hopefully they have it setup already where you can play around with it and you can compare to see which one offers the most features and which one is user-friendly. Pretty much, when it comes down to DJ software, that’s the most important. Is it user-friendly? Do you feel like you’ll be able to get the hang of it quickly, so you can start using it right away? DJ software’s main purpose is for you to use your MP3’s, or your WAV files, or your AIFF files and you can mix music the way you would normally with regular vinyl. Whatever program you’re looking for, there’s tons of tutorial of nice people, generous people that are actually taking up the time to put up videos, such as this one, where they just give you advise on what you can and cannot use or what you shouldn’t use. But at the end of the day, it’s really up for you to decide.

Transcript

You need to ask yourself, do you wanna play vinyl, do you wanna play CDs or if you want it all in one midi controller. Look online, you know rockandsoul.com, or go into a shop- Rock and Soul has an actual shop you can actually walk into, speak to sales reps and just talk to them about whatever equipment they might have, and uh try to figure out prices. You have to ask yourself, “do I wanna play vinyl?” if yes, then you wanna look for one of the best turntables on the market. Techniques is definitely one of the best turntables on the market, they’ve been around forever and a day. Uh, if you’re a CDJ type of person, you definitely wanna ask yourself what kind of mixer you want- four channel, two channel. If you don’t want to have separate components, you wanna have something that’s like plug and play, all in one, then you can get one of the midi controllers, buy Nextax or Newmark or Pioneer. You want something a little bit more advanced, then uh, you know it’s gonna require some more research and if you wanna get into the digital media, uh, DJing with Soratto or programs like that, uhm, again, ask questions and have a sales rep give you a breakdown of what those programs, uh, provide. Once you gather all your information that you needed, put yourself together your own DJ rig that you feel comfortable with.

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“D.J Tutorial For Beginners
If you’re curious about the D.J art form definitely feel free to also maybe
sigh up for a class. I instruct a class here at “”Rock and Soul””. You can come
in and schedule a day for you to give it a little test run. And then ask yourself
if this is something that you want to pursue. If the answer is yes, then there’s
tons of people here and maybe you might have some friends that can help you out.
To give you a more in depth breakdown of what it takes to be a D.J.
It definitely involves a lot of practicing, research and organization. One of
the first things that I teach in the beginners lesson out here at Rock and Soul.
Is focus on counting bars because it’s very important to know how to do that first.
Starting out if you don’t know how to count bars you’re probably going to be lost
with keeping time. Lost with just understanding when to start you’re mix and when
to exit out of you’re mix.
So I have a song loaded up on my left deck here and pretty much on counting
bars you’re going to start off on “”the one, one, two, three, four””, “”two, two,
three, four””, “”three, two, three, four””, “”four, two, three, four). If you notice
that’s four bars of music that we just counted. And I counted to the beat and you
want to also say to yourself the bar that your in. You don’t want to count “”one, two,
three, four, one, two, three, four””, and so on and so forth.
Because if you’re not paying attention, you’ll definitely lose track of which
bar you’re in. “”one, two, three, four””, two, two, three, four””, three, two, three,
four, four, two, three, four””. That’s four bars of music that’s how you count bars.
That is a very helpful tool to use when planning out your mixes and you’re planning out you’re blends. Just knowing when to start you’re mix, when to exit you’re mix,
and to keep a nice steady flow.

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“Pretty much every mixer has standard features. For instance, this mixer is a two channel mixer. So, if you have a two channel mixer as well, most of the features that are there on this mixer you’ll find on your mixer somewhere. The layout now isn’t always the same but the functions and features are pretty much the same, more or less. For this mixer is a RANE TTN57, 2-channel mixer. You have two channels right, starting with the first knob; it’s labeled ‚Äògain’. So that’s just the volume control. It’s also referred to as ‚Äòtrim’ on some other mixers. Underneath that you have your EQs, your HIGHs, your MIDs and you’re LOWs. And then, this mixer offers kill switches which you can actually cancel or kill or mutes that frequency. So your HIGHs, MIDs and LOWs. So you have your volume control for the signal that’s going into that channel. So this is the volume control for your left deck. This is the volume control for your right deck. And then you have your cross-fader which allows you to mix both signals together. When it’s to the extreme left, you only hear the left signal. When it’s to the extreme right, you only hear the right signal. I hear the signal that I’m playing on Serato. Right now I don’t have it going out to a main play system. I have my own personal monitor set up so I’m going to raise that volume and there you go. I have the volume coming out of my own personal monitor. Gain adds more volume or decreases volume. So if I bring down that level for my gain you barely even hear anything. Let’s raise that back up. You have your HIGHs, MIDs, LOWs okay. Then you have your killer switches which kills the frequency. So I just cancelled my high frequency, brought it back in. Mid frequency cancelled, brought it back in. Low frequency cancelled, brought it back in. Then you have your pan. Pan allows you to only hear the left or only hear the right or hear both. So, pretty much that’s how it works if I had a microphone plugged in and I would plug it in into the mike jack. And then, you also have to check to see if your mixer has any built-in effects. Also there is contour. For those that don’t know what contour is it allows you to either have a soft fade-in or fade-out with your signal or hard, you know, you know signal meaning like it comes in right away. So I’ll give you an example of what I mean. So, for those that ‚Äòscratch’, that’s the contour setting that you will like to place it on. You will like to have it on the fast contour setting not the slow. Fast you’re able to bring in the volume or bring in the signal at full volume right away okay. That’s pretty much it.

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Transcript

There are different events out there,there are clubs,private parties,private functions,there’s also like city gigs,college parties or there might be like actual dance competitions which I DJ a lot.I start off by locking in my price.Once I lock in my price,I have the address,I know what time I need to be there to setup.So if the event starts at 7.00,I am not gonna be there at 7.00 because I have to give myself time to set up.So I am gonna show up at 6.00 or maybe 5.30.If I need to drive long distance,I also have to take into consideration that there might be traffic,you never know what the weather is gonna be like for that day,so you wanna definitely plan ahead give yourselves enough time.A good friend of mine told me when you show up early you are on time,when your on time you are late,when your late you might as well not show up,Right?So something to keep in mind.Also getting your music together,for that type of an event like B-boeing competition I usually play old school hip-hop,funk,some disco.So I organize those crates, make sure that I have those crates set up.And I also have music for ciphers like when people are dancing and just like warming up and then I have music for the actual competition for the battle.So I don’t wanna play anything that I am gonna use for competition and play it in a cipher because i don’t like to repeat songs.So depends on what the event is you wanna definitely organize your music and pretty much set it up for that event.Also if there’s any promotional material that you would like to bring with you to brand yourself,coz it’s all about branding,right? So I go by the name DP one,if you know this I am wearing a DP one shirt.This is done purposely so that I can brand myself.Whenever I am ‘DJ’ing and playing outdoors,I also might wanna set up a banner.I wanna bring up some stickers to pass out.I definitely bring my business cards,you never know whom you gonna meet.You wanna make sure that you can generate more business.Also you might want to have customized drops ready,so when you are playing you can let people know who’s spinning because you don’t want that credit to go to someone else.Doesn’t hurt to get on the mic as well and let the people know who you are and if there’s any other events that you might be ‘DJ’ing,promote those events.And you can also promote whatever event you are about to do,or the events that are up and coming using Facebook or Twitter or like sending out an email blast.So this is how you plan to have a successful event.You want people to come to that event,right? So you definitely have to spread the word as well as the promoter.You have to take all these things into consideration and this is the best way going about a doing something.

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“There are so many DJ mixers out there on the market. It depends on what you’re looking for, you have the standard 4 channel mixer and then you also have the 2 channel mixers. You can get a 2 channel mixer like this one, this is a Ring TTM 57.

I would start with research, asking a lot of questions. Ask yourself do you want a basic, beginner mixer or do you want something more special? You don’t want to just go by price because if you buy a real cheap mixer for like 100 dollars, you know sometimes it’s true you get what you pay for.

Also don’t go by the most expensive price, just because it’s super expensive doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you, it might be too much. Go by the descriptions, by the brand also you can try to see if there is any aux in’s? Does it have any built in effects? Sometimes that might determine if you’re going to buy the mixer or not. Most mixers don’t come with any sound effects or anything fancy. It’s just a mixer, where it receives signal and it sends out signal.

But then there’s other mixers, like this mixer, where Salano will be built in, so there’s a USB port and Salano is built in and just plug and play. You can get a good mixer for a decent price within like the 1 to 300 dollar range, to start out. But, like I said, it definitely requires a lot of research. I personally use Ring products, especially with the TTM 57, it’s perfect for parties, events, touring because Salano’s already built in, so like I said I just turn on the mixer, turn on my laptop, open up the program, connect the USB cord and I’m ready to go.
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Transcript

If you’re a home DJ and you want to figure out how to get crackin’ you can pretty much invest in a basic DJ set-up where there’s turntables, CD-Jays or all in one unit. Get yourself a nice powered speaker so you can bypass using an amplifier and all this unnecessary cables. If you’re using CD’s, keep your CD’s in order, put them in a CD booklet. Keep them nice and neat, make sure they don’t get scratched and also make sure you take care of your vinyl collection as well. Put them back, put them in their jackets after use, make sure you clean your records, clean your CD’s. If you’re using a midi controller with software, take out the time to understand your software, fully you get to know the library of music that you have and just practice. But, that’s a basic setup, say the scenario is you just purchased two turntables and a mixer, set the two turntables up with your mixer, powered monitor. If you’re using a laptop, your PC or your MAC, you set that up with whatever program you purchased and you’re ready to go. It’s pretty much that simple. This one was a bit more difficult than the many others I’ve transcribed for you in the past. It was hard to tell when he began a new sentence or was continuing on with the previous one.

Transcript

So this is how you cue a record. First, you need a record. Place the record on the turn table, grab the head shell by the head shell handle, and what you’re looking for on the record are the grooves, alright. The thick–the thicker–grooves indicates where a song begins and where the song ends. Place it on the record. Make sure the actual headphone cue is to the left because this is a left signal on the turntable. Press “play” on our turntable. I hear the signal on my headphones. You’ll want to cross the fader over to the left deck and as I raise up my volume, this is what I’m listening to. Okay, so that’s the beginning of the recording. If I want to increase the volume, I’ll just increase the volume of my output, or the volume of the gain. Move the record forward or back until you get to the beginning of that recording. That’s the beginning of this recording right here. And make sure you here it in your headphones, which I do. And that’s pretty much – pretty much how you cue up a record.

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You have to first understand what the one means. It’s just meaning the first count or the first beat in a bar, right. So this is the top of the recording, this is where I would like to start from, right. So, okay. So what may aim is is to make a smooth transition on to incorporate a universal cut that most hip hop or R&B DJ’s use as a transitional cut. This is called chirping, right. I’m going to chirp the next song, then I’m going to drop on the one, right. So the top of the recording or whatever you choose for the one-two beat, right. So you can listen to the recording, you can drop it from there if that’s your one. The one can’t just be from anywhere, it’s what you start counting from, right. You’re going to drop on the one, right. But I’m going to actually go to the top of the recording, all right. One. So that beat, that’s the one. This track counting bars, three, four, five, two, three, four, six, two, three, four, seven, two, three, four, eight, twookay? I just dropped on the one. Focus when you’re dropping on the one or you’re transitioning with scratching or you’re releasing on the one count, on that beat, that first beat is for it to be on time, that is the golden rule is make sure your release is on time. Make sure the transition is clean, and make sure that the transition makes sense because you don’t want to just throw on anything.

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“Okay, so this is shuffling genres or genre hopping as I would like to call it. Pretty much you’re jumping from genre to genre whether it’s Hip Hop going into 80’s or R&B going into Rock. A lot of the events I get hired to DJ at, most of them are open format so they want to hear a little bit of everything. They don’t want to hear too much of one genre. When you’re genre hopping, you want to make sure you’re not all over the place, you don’t want to play a Hip Hop track, a Disco track, A House track, a Reggae track, a Rock track, an R&B track, a Hip Hop track. You don’t want, you want to kind of like pace it and take your time and it definitely has to make sense.

On my right deck I have a Hip Hop track and on my left track I have a Rock track. So, once again this is the Hip Hop track. Cool, so I just went from a Hip Hop track to a Rock track and, if you noticed they’re 2 different genres. So that’s genre hopping or shuffling genres. So that’s what I would do throughout the whole night. I figure out cool ways to transition from 1 genre to the next. When you genre hop what you want to do is you want to follow up and play a couple of songs within that genre and then when you feel like it’s time to switch you will do so tastefully.
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Transcript

“For this particular rig here, I have 2 identical turntables. I have a mixer in the middle. I have my laptop computer and I have my reference monitor. I want to make sure that the song I have loaded up on the left deck is going to be heard on the headphones and through the reference monitor.

First thing is you want to make sure that your turntables are plugged into the right channels, right? So the left turntable is plugged into a phono channel, which is channel 1. Then the right turntable is going to come out of channel 2, on a phono channel, right? Turntables are always on phono, CDJ’s or Ipods or Sarato or Tracker they’re always online. You have the cartridge connected to the tone arm. You have your volume up on the gain. You have the volume up on the channel that you’re going to play your signal. This signal is coming out to aux out which is connected to my reference monitor. So the way it’s flowing, I have my song in Sarato loaded up on the left deck, I have my needle on the record. Once I hit play on the record you’ll hear that signal flowing through this channel, channel 1 and then I’ll be able to also hear it on my headphones. As I have my cue to the left deck when I raise up the volume and as I raise up the volume for aux out I’ll be able to hear the signal coming out through the aux out.

Volume levels, I’m playing my track, I can hear it on my headphones and now I raise up the volume and there goes the volume for the track that I’m playing on the left deck. So understanding the signal flow is the music is coming from the laptop connected USB into the TTM 57 Rane mixer which has Sarato built in. I have my needle on the record, as I hit play the record, that track is playing the signal, I see the LED lights on the mixer that means it’s getting signal. As I raise up the volume I hear a signal, it’s coming out the aux out, so pretty much it’s just understanding ins and outs. And in signal is input, an out signal is output. Understanding what’s connected to what and just understanding the overall flow so you can get the signal to come out through the main PA system or personal monitor and also your headphones.
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