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Welcome to my "DJ'ing for Beginners" tutorial series. I've wanted to put this information online for about ten years, and just recently I finally decided that I was ready to do it properly.
DJ'ing for Beginners, Part 1 of 4:
In this video I talk about my own experiences within the industry, reasons why you'd want to be a DJ, different career paths (mobile, festivals, club resident, radio, etc), different ways to perform, the pros and cons of vinyl vs CD vs digital, some basic beat-mixing and turntablism background, and more.
Here's the outline that I used when putting together this first part of the series:
Introduction
- Introduction, background, education, career, my own musical tastes.
- Background as a DJ and a club manager.
- Future plans as a producer & teacher, and plans for future videos.
- The general format of this video and series, as an overview with lots of links to subjects that need to be covered in more detail.
- If you're on mobile, you can't see annotations, so the blog postings will also provide the useful links to other videos.
- Mentioning books.
Why Would You Want To DJ?
- Fun, social, and a great career if you enjoy music.
- Don't take the social aspects too far. Have fun, but stay in control when you're performing.
- Different types of DJ's, including: mobile DJ's, club residents, playing at parties and festivals, radio DJ's.
- Many DJ's cannot or do not make a living through DJ'ing. However, it is possible.
- How to "make it big" as a DJ.
Different Ways to Perform
- Originally, vinyl was the most common realistic alternative. Now, there are literally dozens of ways of performing.
- Traditional methods: vinyl.
- Switch to CD players, with pitch control.
- Nice to be able to have waveform display on CD players.
- Hybrid turntables, ie. vinyl plus CD plus mp3. Not popular, discontinued.
- You can use software with time-encoded vinyl to play mp3's and other digital files.
- Laptop DJ's: pros and cons.
- DJ software that is digital only.
- DJ software that incorporates time-encoded manipulation.
- Ableton Live.
- Purchasing music: vinyl vs CD vs mp3. Characteristics of each, ie. 7" vs 12" vs LP, compilation CD's, bit rates on mp3's, etc.
- Future possibilities: DJ'ing from tablets and phones.
- Live PA, performance art.
Styles & Techniques:
- Beat mixing or beat matching.
- Different styles of music, ie. EDM, mainstream, hip hope, etc.
- Turntablism.
- You need a background in audio equipment.
- Taking requests and playing for the crowd, versus playing a unique style.
Virtual DJ
If you're interested in learning to DJ with digital software on a laptop, the three main options are Virtual DJ, Serato, and Traktor. I haven't done a tutorial series for Serato or Traktor yet (coming in the winter of 2017/2018), but here's a link to the Virtual DJ for Beginners" tutorial series that I haven't mentioned anywhere else:
Here are all the other videos that were mentioned in Part 1 of the "DJ'ing For Beginners" series:
A detailed examination of the Mobile DJ industry:
An introduction to Turntablism (from DJ Angello):
"Long Train Running" routine by Skratch Bastid & Chris Karns:
Also worth checking out is the Studio Scratches channel on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/studioscratches/about
Finally, if you'd like to download or listen to an audio transcript of this video, as an mp3 from Soundcloud, here's the link:
If you like the sound of any of the tracks played during the breaks between sections, I've got all of them available as free downloads. Go to SoundCloud and do a search for: "dj bolivia global underground"
DJ'ing for Beginners, Part 1 of 4:
In this video I talk about my own experiences within the industry, reasons why you'd want to be a DJ, different career paths (mobile, festivals, club resident, radio, etc), different ways to perform, the pros and cons of vinyl vs CD vs digital, some basic beat-mixing and turntablism background, and more.
Here's the outline that I used when putting together this first part of the series:
Introduction
- Introduction, background, education, career, my own musical tastes.
- Background as a DJ and a club manager.
- Future plans as a producer & teacher, and plans for future videos.
- The general format of this video and series, as an overview with lots of links to subjects that need to be covered in more detail.
- If you're on mobile, you can't see annotations, so the blog postings will also provide the useful links to other videos.
- Mentioning books.
Why Would You Want To DJ?
- Fun, social, and a great career if you enjoy music.
- Don't take the social aspects too far. Have fun, but stay in control when you're performing.
- Different types of DJ's, including: mobile DJ's, club residents, playing at parties and festivals, radio DJ's.
- Many DJ's cannot or do not make a living through DJ'ing. However, it is possible.
- How to "make it big" as a DJ.
Different Ways to Perform
- Originally, vinyl was the most common realistic alternative. Now, there are literally dozens of ways of performing.
- Traditional methods: vinyl.
- Switch to CD players, with pitch control.
- Nice to be able to have waveform display on CD players.
- Hybrid turntables, ie. vinyl plus CD plus mp3. Not popular, discontinued.
- You can use software with time-encoded vinyl to play mp3's and other digital files.
- Laptop DJ's: pros and cons.
- DJ software that is digital only.
- DJ software that incorporates time-encoded manipulation.
- Ableton Live.
- Purchasing music: vinyl vs CD vs mp3. Characteristics of each, ie. 7" vs 12" vs LP, compilation CD's, bit rates on mp3's, etc.
- Future possibilities: DJ'ing from tablets and phones.
- Live PA, performance art.
Styles & Techniques:
- Beat mixing or beat matching.
- Different styles of music, ie. EDM, mainstream, hip hope, etc.
- Turntablism.
- You need a background in audio equipment.
- Taking requests and playing for the crowd, versus playing a unique style.
Virtual DJ
If you're interested in learning to DJ with digital software on a laptop, the three main options are Virtual DJ, Serato, and Traktor. I haven't done a tutorial series for Serato or Traktor yet (coming in the winter of 2017/2018), but here's a link to the Virtual DJ for Beginners" tutorial series that I haven't mentioned anywhere else:
A detailed examination of the Mobile DJ industry:
An introduction to Turntablism (from DJ Angello):
"Long Train Running" routine by Skratch Bastid & Chris Karns:
http://www.youtube.com/user/studioscratches/about
Finally, if you'd like to download or listen to an audio transcript of this video, as an mp3 from Soundcloud, here's the link:
If you like the sound of any of the tracks played during the breaks between sections, I've got all of them available as free downloads. Go to SoundCloud and do a search for: "dj bolivia global underground"
I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:
If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:
Thanks so much for visit, and for your support! I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.
Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:
YouTube: youtube.com/djbolivia
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/djbolivia
Blogger: djbolivia.blogspot.com
Main Site: www.djbolivia.ca
