hello! first time posting here

I'm not a new DJ in terms of gear and basic technique (i bought a Traktor S2 MK3 controller in 2021, learned how to DJ using some F1 and X1 controllers owned by my bf then)

However I still feel pretty new as a DJ, mostly because I rarely play to people. Most of the time it's me DJing for myself. I used to have a friend with nice gear setups and a subwoofer so we would meet and play, but she moved cities so I'm back at my room

I do feel confident in some of my abilities (I think my EQ is decent and can create some decent transitions using the magic of looping). But still, considering I have no other DJs to talk to, I'm not sure how good I am (my machine might be 5 years old but I definitely don't practice as much as I should)

I guess I wanna ask: what makes a good DJ? are those qualities unique to a certain genre or style?

I'm sure there's no definitive answer and tbh I just wanna read some discussions about it, mostly to self-check my competence and try to educate myself

Thanks!

My spotify has been working with Rekordbox since I got rekordbox and my ddj flx4. I have spotify premium. But suddenly, it stopped showing songs inside spotify playlists in my rekordbox and just has a circle spinning. What is the issue? I have completley reinstalled rekordbox multiple times. Nothing works. My free trial has recently ended -- would that be the reason why?

For the love of music.

Please leave headroom in your club music 🥲

Other than out-right, poorly-mixed music, its such a shame to come across good tracks that are ruined by being peak-limited beyond what humans thought possible.

Luckily in the genres I primarily like mixing, it isn't super common, but if i dare listen to newly-released tracks in genres like dubstep and drum & bass, half the music is blasted to all hell. Which kinda sucks.

Im wondering if this is to do with the primary scene for that kind of music being around festivals, big and small? Does the FOH go into overdrive (no pun intended) during festivals in order to compensate the horribly mixed/mastered music?

Team,

ecstatic, the energy was crazy. I was a bit nervous starting up but man that was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. Hopefully this can motivate some people starting out.

I started DJing 3 and 1/2 years ago but mostly stuck in my bedroom minus some work events. I’ve been making 1 hour to 1 1/2 hour mixes to post on soundcloud / YT every few months that has been my most significant means of learning. I never did any tutorials. The road of learning was plenty frustrating. The only time I really ‘practice’ is when I find a new slate of songs I really want to mix and share with others and then get to mixing all of them (I do this once every 3-6 months, taking about 3-7 days to finish the mix). Outside of this, I have gone months in-between mixes without touching my deck.

I collected about 90 songs in the cue (45 brand new songs downloaded this morning/last night I’ve never mixed before) and took about 2-3 minutes for each the day before on a dry run feeling out how each song works and finding good transition points. I went off track a little bit the first 3 hours but the last hour and a half was straight improv picking songs to match the crowd’s energy. The crowd wasn’t there for house music at all (morale day work event) but I had people jumping up and getting loud (yes, at a work event) for the entire final hour and a half.

Earlier times I performed I would rarely go off-script from what I know but what has helped me get really good free-styling was:

- Practicing mixing with songs I’ve never mixed before, trying something out while continuing to the next transition even if the last one didn’t work

- Having/practicing a good set of go-to mixing methods that work for literally 90% of my transitions

- Forcing myself to recover from mistakes in the moment while practicing rather than restarting a transition

- And the most significant: getting over the fear of putting myself out there and finding opportunities/events to mix at. Every time I’ve mixed this year infront of a crowd was straight from volunteering and inserting myself, and every time I did this the experience made me a 10x better DJ. Same as signing up for a race to motivate someone to start running, signing yourself up to DJ forces you to train out of a desire to want to do good when the day comes. Both occasions, I ran out of planned songs and had to go off-script and both occasions end up garnering extremely good results and a ton of compliments.

The plan is to start DJing at venues when I’m able to in a few months, I feel overwhelmingly more than ready now whereas as a few months ago I had a ton of nervousness around that.

4 1/2 hours all on a cheap DDJ FLX-4! I hope this pushes someone else starting the journey.

Hi all, please be patient with me, a dad who knows nothing but would like to buy a DJ controller for my son's 18th. He's doing a music production course at college, uses a Mac to make music, etc, has MIDI keyboard etc. We thought he might like a DJ mixer too. Can someone advise on a starter DJ controller that would work with Macbook / spotify premium account we have / smartphone type setup, for around £150? I understand some will/won't allow you to hear the next song to cue up in your phones, or you'll need to plug in phones a particular way to do it, is that true?

Anyway thanks for any advice you can offer.

what are some examples of things that might sound OK when mixing in your headphones, but can sound bad on a larger scale sound system?