You know you're a WANNA BE DJ when....
1. YOU talk over every song!
2. YOU send shout-outs to everyone INCLUDING YO moma!
3. YOU always be yelling over the song like we kan't hear ya.
4. The "Echo" sound affect.
5. YOU always gotta be reppin sum label!If you want to add one feel free to let me know I willthrow it up.
As for me I've been in the DJ industry for a long time. Hell I was beat mixing when Burger King was a Prince. Danm near figured out how to scratch on an 8 track. Edited music when reel to reel was in fashion,finally broke down and purchased belt drive tuntables "You know the ones from Radio Shack" that came with the non removable catridge. Through those trial and error years I honed in my skills on make shift slip matts perfecting the art of scratching,cueing,phazeing etc... Then came the SL1200 (the industry standard) This turntable has dominated as the most popular physical device used by DJs for controlling pre recorded music. Typically a DJ would have a combination of turntables and CD players feeding into a mixer while the output is sent to an amplifier. Back in the day it was more MONO than STEREO. The single greatest piece of advice that can be given to someonestarting out is -- PRACTICE! Many aspects of DJing are reasonably intuitiveand will present themselves the more you practice. The core of being this sortof entertainer is being able to work your music. Learn your songs well, andget your beatmixing down solid. A natural progression will start from there. When I started out it was a "TRAIN WRECK" waiting to happen. In high school It was the same as every DJ who wanted to make it big the school dances the church events block parties working late nights as a dish washer to buy Vinyl. Once you can over come playing in front of friends and family you will be seasoned, While asking for input you may find that one relative that thinks theyknow enough to do your job and may feel it necessary to tell you how to handlethings.
As my equipment grew so did my venues. I traded in my old ways and progressed as did the industry from relics to equipment like the Rane mp-24 and DN 2500's crown i-t4000's.
Soon afterwards, with the CD revolution, I made the jump to disc’s naturally and that’s my chosen format these days - although I still do purchase a LOT of music on vinyl. Some of the newest things in the DJ world are products such as Final Scratch and Abelton Live allowing DJ’s to spin “analog records†and digital music files, remix and sequence loops on the fly. The CD decks and mixers have even become more expansive offering things like onboard effects. Laptops have changed the DJ world as well. I’m still looking at laptop DJ’s and making my opinion about them. I do have Native Instruments Traktor on my computer and tinkered with it a bit, which is quite fun. In some aspects, I’m a bit of a purest in that I like the actual CD in my hand and the feel of crossfading and tweaking EQ knobs, yet I have witnessed some amazing DJ sets performed on laptops (DJ Gleek performed a great laptop set recently at one of the Venue parties) and would certainly be open to doing one special DJ set via laptop to see how it goes. My current setup is… Pioneer CDJ-100s CD decks. Numerous clubs have these in the booths and I ABSOLUTELY love having these at home. Front loading CD decks with digital jog break effects (more fun to use while spinning trance). Easy to cue things up quickly and they start on a dime. I’m using the Pioneer DJM 300s mixer. It’s a tiny yet powerful 2 channel DJ mixer- exactly what I need. I had my eye on a Behringer after mixing with DJ Crashsite68s. Trying to find the Behringer model in Detroit proved to be difficult and when I saw the Pioneer (and it’s very much the same) I decided to get it. The whole set up is nothing over the top really. These tools I use mostly when doing smaller venues.
