The ad from the local paper says it all: looking for a multi-skilled DJ to bring in a crowd, and we’re not too worried about your mixing skills.  What has gone wrong in the club scene that having mix skills is no longer a priority?  In case you have been living under a rock, draw power is high on the list of promoters criteria now. Being able to bring in the crowd is considered by some to be greater than being able to keep the crowd.  How do you keep up with the Jones’ and get gigs in this type of club climate?  Read on…

Continue reading Wanted: DJ – Mixing Optional

Some DJs do it all the time, while others do it only occasionally. Some DJs never do it and have no intention of doing it. We could be talking about hooking up with groupies, but in this case, we’re talking about mixing in key — also known as harmonic mixing. This is not an article on how to mix in key, but rather about key mixing in the real world of the professional DJ. We look at the advantages, disadvantages and downright pitfalls of attempting to mix for an extended period of time harmonically in key. Read on to find out how those keys can affect your performance when playing to a live audience, for example, in some instances they can make you sound awesome but sometimes they can backfire horribly.

Continue reading TO KEY OR NOT TO KEY

Whether you’re looking for the latest tracks and acapellas or searching for new avenues to expose your own productions, digital record pools are a great dj tool. Record pools, now more commonly known as music or dj pools, are symbiotic arrangements between professional djs and record companies. Djs get access to a large pool of new music for minimum or no cost and the record companies get feedback and exposure. This concept has been in effect since the mid 70’s and, more specifically, since disco club pioneer David Mancuso and others created The New York Record Pool.  Over the past 5 years, digital music pools have become more popular and with all the new options it can be a bit confusing which ones are worth your time or money. Read on for our thoughts and breakdowns of some the top options available today.

Continue reading Digital Record Pool Round-up

2009 was a hell of a year for the digital dj world. We saw a lot of great announcements but not that many great products. There were a bevy of releases and offerings that didn’t quite live up to their expected promise or just flat failed completely. So to wrap up the year, we would like to share a short list of some more notable failures and a few dj technologies that did hit their mark.
Continue reading Epic Dj Fails of 2009 (and some good stuff too)

As big proponents of harmonic mixing, the DJ TechTools staff started out with a simple question: which program that analyzes a song’s key gives the most accurate results? To find out, we looked up the keys using sheet music for a selection of 50 pop/rock songs and then analyzed those songs using four key-detecting apps: BeaTunes 2, Mixed In Key 4, MixMeister Fusion and Rapid Evolution 2. Read on to find out the results.

Continue reading Key Analysis Software Smackdown

How many times have you searched through the hundreds or thousands of tracks in your library and found yourself trying to remember what a particular track sounds like? I’m sure some people will say they know every single song in their collection at all times, but that was a lot more believable when you only showed up to the club with a crate of vinyl or a book of CDs.

When you are squinting into your 13-inch computer screen at 1am in a sweaty club, with three girls tapping you on the shoulder telling you what track they want to hear for their friend’s birthday, I doubt you can still remember what that demo your friend sent you last week sounded like. You’re pretty sure it should mix well. It’s in the same BPM range and relative key as the one blasting on the dance floor, but will it really work? Was it a laid-back warm up song, or a great groove track? Did it have a solid bouncing bassline or a large woman belting out a passionate chorus? I have been in this position so many times, I devised a system that should help you to never question your next track again.

Continue reading Organize Your Music By Track Type

In the dj world its all about the name. If club owners, booking agents and the public recognize your name then a successful career is not far away. Getting your name out there will require years of hard work, dedication and a dash of luck but its all going to be lost if your name is not memorable. So how does one dj set himself apart from the crowd and make his name memorable?

mem·o·ra·ble
Function: adjective
Etymology:
Middle English,  from memorare to remind,
: worth remembering : notable <a memorable occasion>

So according to that definition, you need to remind people of your name and make it worth remembering. One true and tried method used by djs and corporations alike is to make yourself a great logo. While a logo may go against everything your artistic personality stands for, the fact is that a logo WILL help people remember your dj name and take it more seriously. Our friends over at Mixed in Key created a handy tutorial on dj logos and here is a portion of that article:

Continue reading Build your Dj Career

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Today is Friday, October 31rst so that means its time for tricks and treats in digital dj domain. Here is the letter of the week:

I just read your tagging tutorial and you mentioned you will/did? do a part 2. I looked around (maybe not thouroughly enough) but I could not find it. I am looking forward to purchasing a vci-300 in the future and started tagging my files and would like to see how you and others do it.

Any help on this would be great.

Stephan

Thanks for the letter Stephen, and for pointing out we never did a tagging part 2. For those that didn’t see the first one I recommend you start by reading that article here. There are so many ways to go about organizing your music and I am sure our readers will have many more great suggestions than I do. Here is one trick I have employed that works really well and will be even more relevent in Traktor Pro. Continue reading Tag your Songs

Since MIDI is becoming a major part of how many people dj it seems appropriate to understand as much as possible about the format. A few questions have popped up about midi latencey, how to reduce it and which cables or interfaces are the best to use. Instead of shooting in the dark we asked an expert, namely Florian Bomers- creator of Bomes Midi Translator, the tough questions about midi.

Continue reading Midi Latencey Interview with a Pro