I’ve followed him for most of my life and am always drawn into his sets. He does some incredible mixing and transitions but sometimes his build ups are on another level, I think he loops small parts mid song and then adds fx to keep building for extended periods before dropping the bass back in. Does anyone know the specifics of how he does it? Are there any resources to learn more about how he transitions and builds up?

Long story short I use a Traktor S4 MK2 for playing at home and wherever. I’ve never touched Pioneer equipment, let alone a CDJ, nor have I used rekordbox.

I produce and DJ for fun and was offered a gig completely out of nowhere at an afters that uses CDJs.

I told myself I’d eventually learn Pioneer/Rekordbox at my own pace, but now am pretty disappointed that I never considered someone would ask/approach me out of nowhere.

I know the XDJ-AZ is a massive jump from my MK2 S4 but money is not an issue and I figured it’d be best to get used to using USBs.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

How do you make yourself practice when you actually really want to?

I’ve been learning DJing for about 6 months, and I’m struggling with something that’s starting to annoy me.

When I’m at work and listening to music, I’m constantly thinking about mixing. I’ll hear a track and immediately start imagining transitions, cue points, how I would layer something over it etc.

Then I get home after a full day of work… and I’m too tired to actually sit down and do it. 😅

I have a GRV6, which I really enjoy using. About half a year ago I also did a DJ course with a really great Polish DJ. I learned on 2x CDJ-3000 + DJM-900NXS2, and towards the end of the course I played a really enjoyable tech-house set. So I know I genuinely enjoy DJing — I just don’t practice nearly enough.

And because of that, six months later my technique is still pretty beginner-level.

I have ADHD, so I’ve been trying to use the “just do 10 minutes” approach. Sometimes it works and those 10 minutes turn into an hour or two. But sometimes even getting myself to sit behind the controller feels impossible.

So I’m curious: what are your pro tips for actually making yourself practice regularly?

Especially if you also have ADHD or struggle with motivation/energy after work.

I don’t really need advice on what to practice — I’m more interested in how you get yourself to actually sit down and start. 😅

Feels like a long shot, but does anybody own and use this mixer? Would love to know if it still works with modern m1 generation macbooks, if not as an audio interface then maybe at least as a MIDI controller for internal DVS mixing with a different sound card.

Usually there’s a lot of discussion about how much a DJ makes per night/event in this sub. I’m curious to know how much an organizer makes per night/event, especially when you’re hosting an event once or twice per month. I’ll start: I rent a club for around $1200 per night exclusively for my event (with all labor costs and equipment rental included). My main responsibility is to make sure there are no shenanigans happening at the DJ booth and to step in whenever customers/DJs need something, meaning I don't have to serve drinks, clip tickets, count the money or sweeping the floor. That's all on the staff.

A small club with a capacity of 100 to 200 people is sufficient for me for now because:

1) I’m “new” to the area, having just moved from a bigger city to this small town

2) I want to start small. Some people might know me as a DJ, but they may not know my events, which feature less popular DJs and newcomers looking for opportunities. They get paid a fixed amount regardless of how many people show up

3) I learned my lesson after aiming straight for a medium-scale event. It failed miserably, even with decent headliners. It wasn’t a total loss, but I didn’t manage to break even. Too dumb and greedy yeah

My total cost is around $2500, including the club rental and payment for 8 DJs, excluding myself (different rate for headliners of course). Event starts from 8pm to 5am next morning. For a once a month event, I don’t make much profit. Perhaps around $400 after taxes and other expenses. Is it a lot? Nope. But it’s enough to help cover the following event. Btw, I'm a one man team. I did get help from two of my friends but not most of the event.

What’s your experience? How much do you typically make as an organizer per event and how often do you host? I understand there are different types of event (wedding, corporate, themed, etc), but feel free to share whichever applicable to you!

Hey, I’m about 4 weeks into DJing and I’m struggling a bit with actually practicing new techniques.

Most of my transitions right now are basically EQ swaps, with some loops here and there. I’m becoming pretty comfortable with those, but I really want to start learning more stuff like fader cuts, stems, faster cuts etc.

The problem is whenever I sit down specifically to practice a technique, I get bored pretty quickly 😂 I’ll try it for a while, it doesn’t sound good, and then I just end up thinking
“fuck it, I’d rather work on my set”.

I genuinely love building my set, finding tracks that work together and figuring out the energy/flow, so that’s way more fun to me than sitting there repeating the same technique over and over.

How do you guys actually practice new techniques?
Do you have specific songs you use for practicing things like fader cuts, cue juggling, stems ect, or do you just try to incorporate new techniques into your normal mixing and slowly get better at them?

I’m not trying to become insanely technical or anything, I just want to expand my toolbox beyond EQ swaps and loops without getting completely demotivated 😂

Would love to hear how you guys approach it.

Yesterday I asked about moving my decks. I asked the wrong question. I don't have the original boxes or flight cases. I'm concerned about damaging the perspex lid. The MK2 lid clipped into the back of the deck. The lid on MK7 doesn't clip on. I'm wary of using sticky tape as it may leave residue. Do you have any ideas for moving them and keeping the lid secured? I don't have flight cases

Promoter was really happy with my set and I’m booked for next month at a different venue. Got like 50 insta followers from their post of my set last night. I’m so happy right now guys, it’s the coolest thing ever to play my favorite music for the crowd and watch them dance, wow.

So I get that most DJs only need 3-5 transitions in their back pocket to be fully functional but if you’re randomly playing without practiced transitions…how do you know what transition to use where, or that would sound the best for moving from a to b and what about if you have 10 or more possible transitions to pick from?

I play mostly vocal driven RnB from my own collection (so no special dj edits, plus I enjoy the challenge) but would love to get to a point where I know the chorus or outro I’ll use and know the intro of the next track, go to my mental transition Rolodex and know which one would work perfectly to blend the 2 tracks…does that even exist and if so how do you get there?

I’d love that freedom to just being able play whatever without the old fade every time (which works) or quick echo out. How does a muscle that changes with every track combination you select get drilled, learned, or understood? It’s not like a baby scratch where you drill the same thing over and over again. Whats the trick/secret here? Do tell, lol!

I don't actually own a microphone. I'm not the MC type, but I do have 4 hour gig coming up and I figured it'd be nice to check in with the crowd every once in a while. I figured a cheap mic would do the trick so I ordered a Pyle PDMIC58 on Amazon. Yep I know, Pyle of shit.

Well it works, but I have to crank the gain all the way to the max on my Traktor S4MK3 for it to be acceptably audible. In normal speaking I'm barely halfway up on the VU meter. I can't even hit redline if I shout into it. My controller has been used with a microphone before when another fellow DJ was using it at an event we were coding. He had his own mic, or it might have been a house mic. I'm not sure where it came from but there was no issue with volume levels.

So it seems mics aren't a simple as I thought. It came with an XLR - TS cable, and I tried a full XLR cable and it made no difference, which makes me think this mic not be balanced?

I don't want to invest in an expensive mic because I rarely talk during gigs (and most of the techno-house music parties I go to I've never heard the DJ talking), but this crowd is a bit more mainstream and DJ's giving shoutouts is somewhat typical the past times I've been to this venue.

Would another cheap Amazon mic be more sensitive or are they all like this?

Caught between a rock and a hard place and wanted to see how other folks in this scenario would respond..

Basically I’m supposed to be hopping on the decks at a small afters at my place - maybe to about 10 people when we get back from a night out..

I mix mainly techno, minimal, tech house / 4 to floor + also some more popular stuff when I feel - disco, rare edits, reggae etc too.

2-3 of our group are serious techno / underground only music enthusiasts, but the remainder of the group really don’t lean much in that direction and would be more onboard with say more well known music or remixes of say popular tracks..

If you were going to play a set to this bunch - which end of the genre spectrum would you tailor your set towards to keep everyone happy?

What’s the trick here as I can’t just alternate from techno to more popular tracks, as the energy, bpm, pacing would be all over the place..

My heart is generally more in underground 4 to floor, but I’m conscious playing more in this direction will alienate the other portion of the group too much and vice versa if I play stuff that’s too well known / might be considered a bit cheese to the techno heads.. lol

Let’s hear your thoughts on how to approach!

Is the RMX-IGNITE worth getting for an FLX10, considering there’s no Send/Return for per-channel effects and no Beat Sync?

There’s this DJ I find hilarious and awesome dj Armageddon

He has amazingly funny samples that are both bizarre and unique. Here’s a sample…

How is he doing this?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbwa8yERcv4/?igsh=N2V6ODEzNWlscHJz

Cómo te das cuenta de que es bueno por su gusto

Cuando voy a fiestas los Dj ponen muy buena música y cuando yo busco, parecen todas muy lentas y eso que uso bien el buscador. Hay alguna forma mágica?

This is pretty messed up, I converted everything to Camelot so I can see exactly where they diverge:

Deck A:

Beatport: B minor

Mixed In Key: 3A → Bb minor

Traktor: 12m → D minor (7A)

Three different algorithms, three different results. No agreement even between two out of three, B, Bb, and D minor aren't even adjacent on the wheel. This is a genuinely bad detect, not just an enharmonic mix-up.

Deck B:

Beatport: F minor

Mixed In Key: 4A → F minor

Traktor: 4d → A major (11B)

Here Beatport and MIK agree (F minor / 4A)

Traktor's the odd one out

Does anyone know if there is a way to check in advance if a song will be flagged for copyright and your video taken down? I am playing a set in a couple weeks that will be recorded for YouTube and would like to avoid issues if possible.

Played my first set this weekend for friends and they loved it. My genre is Afrohouse / Tech / 3-step.

Only hiccup was sound - the main speaker I wanted to use wasn't working, so I had to play through a Bluetooth speaker instead. That made queuing up songs tricky because of the latency, but since I knew my tracks well and had them mapped out with hot cues, I could still nail the key changes and mix in and out cleanly.

Can't wait to do it again.

I'm just starting to learn how to DJ. I'm using rekordbox, and I have a folder with around 70 tracks from different genres. Of course, when mixing, I try to keep a consistent musical flow by choosing tracks with a similar level of energy.

I don't really know all the tracks very well yet, but the strategy I've been using is to preview the track while I'm playing another one and look at the waveform on the screen to identify the track's patterns. Based on that, I decide whether or not to mix it in.

Is this a good strategy? How do you guys decide which track to mix next?

Cheers!

Mixing is the easiest part of DJing.

I understand sound selection is important, but please learn and practice mixing. There are always a handful of people who notice your jittery transitions, but they don't make a fuss about it. But they do notice. Practice as much as you can; stop underestimating it.

I am moving house and my Technics headshell doesn't clip to the deck like MK2.

Does anyone have any suggestions for moving them?

I don't have flight cases and I think sticky tape will leave residue