The Blue Mikey is a small microphone for iOS that gives you stereo line input.

A while ago we were asked by a reader, “How can I record my DJ set on my iPhone?” The initial answer was that this is not possible (iOS devices don’t have a line input). Plus, we reasoned, dedicated audio recorders are coming down in price all the time, so why would you want to record on your iPhone or iPad?

But if it were possible then there are indeed advantages to recording your sets this way. One of the possible workarounds we identified in our first article was the Blue Mikey Digital which incorporates a stereo line input into the unit. It wasn’t available yet back then, but now we’ve been able to get our hands on one. Let’s take a look and see if this tiny little microphone/line input could be the answer…

First impressions

The Blue Mikey Digital is small and incredibly lightweight, perfect for popping into your pocket along with your iPhone or iPod Touch on the way to a gig. The microphone part can be rotated to capture audio when recording external sound – particularly useful for field recordings (if you want to sample crowd noise, passing traffic, train announcements and the like). On the back of the Blue Mikey Digital is a small switch that controls the gain adjustments. There are three settings, kept simple for ease of use and speed:

• Left: Loud source – this will drop the gain to reduce the risk of audio clipping (good news if you’re recording a live band at a gig)
• Centre: Auto gain – this should detect the volume coming in and adjust the gain accordingly
• Right: Quiet source – this will boost the gain to pick up the quietest of sounds, such as distant bird song or perhaps a lecture (useful for students or spies!)

On the top of the Blue Mikey Digital is the answer to our reader’s question: the stereo line input jack. It’s a single 3.5mm input socket, which means if you want to record directly from a mixer you will need a stereo RCA to 3.5mm cable – these are cheap and easy to find.

On the base of the unit is a 30-pin connector which connects to the base of your iOS device. I was using a new iPhone and as such I needed a 30-pin-to-lightning adapter. (By the way, the Blue Mikey Digital also comes with a tiny soft pouch, along with a guitar jack adaptor in case you wanted to record instruments directly into your iOS device.)

If you want to monitor (on headphones) what you’re recording via the Blue Mikey Digital using an iPhone or iPod Touch it is a little tricky because the unit overhangs the headphone socket. This isn’t an issue on an iPad since the headphone socket is on the other end of the device. A point to note is that not all audio recording apps support this type of “pass-through” monitoring. It is a setting tucked away on the FiRe 2 app that I used to conduct this review, and I believe something similar maybe possible with the GarageBand app.

There’s also a mini USB socket, so you can choose to charge your iOS device at the same time as recording. You would need to be doing some lengthy recording session to need this feature though.

Using the microphone

The Blue Mikey Digital is perfect for audio capture using the camera app as well.

There are so many audio recording apps available to choose from and the Blue Mikey Digital should work nicely with all of them without issue. I chose to use FiRe 2, a field recording app, which has a decent number of settings and adjustments available, including a wealth of file formats. You can edit the recording afterwards and upload it to SoundCloud and Dropbox within the app which is particularly handy.

A couple of important points to remember when recording using an iOS device:

• Always close down any background apps…you don’t want them interfering with your recording or draining resource
• Always switch to Airplane mode…otherwise you’ll also record your iOS device searching for WiFi networks

I started by recording my voice in a quiet room, using the iPhone’s built in mic at first (audio here), then with the Blue Mikey Digital on each of the three settings (Auto, Quiet and Loud). There is a noticeable difference between the built-in mic and the Blue Mikey Digital. It sounds as if there’s some EQ adjustments or filtering going on with the latter contributing to vastly superior results, whereas with the built-in mic the result was harsh and almost metallic.

I soon decided that recording my voice on the “Loud” setting wasn’t going to be a good enough test, so one Sunday I sat among six heavy, swinging bells in the belfry of our local church recording the sound of some method ringing. The end result was surprisingly good, the sound inside the belfry is incredibly loud so recording those on an iPhone with the built-in mic would have been impossible without a huge amount of audio clipping.

To counter this test, I recorded my daughter singing as quietly as she could using the “Quiet” setting on the Blue Mikey Digital. This worked as expected, picking up surrounding sounds as well.

The three LEDs near the base of the unit give you an indicator of how loud the recording is; if it flashes red then it’s too loud!

Using the stereo line input

Of course, the line input is going to be the feature of most interest to DJs wantig to record their sets. For using this feature I opted to record using the Auto setting. In retrospect, it would be good if the Blue Mikey Digital came with the option of switching all gain adjustments off completely.

DJ Hombre in the mix on vinyl, recorded using the camera app and Blue Mikey Digital.

I was worried that the Auto setting would result in my line recording bobbing up and down throughout, but it didn’t seem to make a difference during the mix. After playing for a while with vinyl and recording directly into the FiRe app, I got to wondering…if the Blue Mikey Digital works with this app, what else can I do with it?

I started using the Blue Mikey Digital as a cheeky way of streaming my vinyl mixes live via Spreaker. I also found that it works fine with the regular Camera app on iOS, so I could record a video of my DJ mixes with crystal clear sound and not via the speakers (as so many YouTube clips of DJs do, including one or two my earlier ones). Prior to this, I would have had to record the video and audio separately then match them up on a host machine before uploading. With the Blue Mikey Digital I can record both at once and upload directly from my iOS device – so more time to spend on having fun behind the decks.

This is where the Blue Mikey Digital would be incredibly handy to have, especially if it was a last-minute request to record the gig.

Most digital DJs will be asking why record on an external device when my software can do all of this this for me? A fair and valid point, but perhaps you don’t want to put that extra pressure on your laptop during a live gig and would rather have it dedicated solely for handling the wealth of complex functionality at your fingertips.

Some DJs maybe using several different sources to mix with (a laptop, CDJ, sampler and maybe an external FX box). In order to record your set you would need to do this directly from the mixer. The same would also apply if you’re trying to record a number of different DJs on one night; each could be using something different and will certainly be using their own laptop so a centralised approach to recording the event makes sense. This is where the Blue Mikey Digital would be incredibly handy to have, especially if it was a last-minute request to record the gig.

Conclusion

The Blue Mikey Digital is much more flexible than a simple microphone because of the line input and the near-universal compatibility with a range of different apps. It is most likely to be used by musicians recording vocals or guitars (and other instruments) into iOS DAW like apps such as GarageBand, but for DJs it is a useful addition for recording mixes – either just the audio, or as a way of getting great quality audio for your videos.

Priced at around US$69 it is getting expensive, given that you may be using it simply to overcome an Apple-enforced restriction. Unfortunately for non-US buyers, the price is even higher. You could purchase a dedicated audio recorder to achieve the same quality stereo results for not much more, although if you want to do all your audio recording (and possibly video) and upload using a single device, then the Blue Mikey Digital is certainly a portable, reliable single-stop solution.

If you’re thinking of buying, there’s a compatibility chart for you to double check whether your iOS device can be used with the Blue Mikey Digital or not.

Video walkthrough

Summary

We like:

• Recognised by most apps
• Stereo line input
• USB charging socket

We don’t like:

• Tricky real-time headphone monitoring on a smaller device
• No way to switch off gain adjustments
• No lightning adapter version

Star ratings:

Product details:
Size and weight: 2.5 x 2.5 x 0.5″ (64 x 64 x 13mm); 2.9oz (82g)
Price: US$69 / £77
Buy from: Amazon (US) / Amazon (UK)

Would you record your DJ sets on an iOS device? How do you record your DJ sets? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Now go to:
Review: Ninja Jamm App For iPhone
Review & Video: DJ Player v6 for iPad & iPhone
MixVibes Says CrossDJ for iPad Has Best iOS Keylock: We Find Out

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The post Review & Video: Blue Mikey Digital for iPhone & iPad appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

Available now for PC and Mac, Platinum Notes 4 claims to automatically improve the vast majority of digital music files.

Platinum Notes 4 is the first update to the music file improvement software from Mixed In Key in more than two years. For the uninitiated, Platinum Notes is designed to batch analyse all of your music files and make overall improvements to them like correcting volume differences, tightening up the bass drums, removing digital clicking, and correcting key discrepancies.

While some people baulk at the idea of letting software “automatically master” their music, others swear by the results Platinum Notes gets them – and the new version (review coming soon), has added a beguiling extra feature in the shape of a “warmth” filter, designed to add back some of the warmth allegedly lost from music in the switch from vinyl to digital.

We caught up with Yakov Vorobyev, the man behind both Platinum Notes and Mixed in Key, to ask him some of the questions you have asked us over the years since the last version dropped about music mastering and what Platinum Notes can (and can’t) do:

What is the main purpose of Platinum Notes?
To me, Platinum Notes is a guarantee that every file in my music collection will sound great on a loud sound system. It’s software designed to improve your tracks by giving the same volume and excellent contrast between quiet and loud parts. You’ll enjoy perfect audio files without any clipping or distortion.

Who is using it, and what for?
Platinum Notes is made for DJs. Speaking from personal experience, I get my tracks from different sources. I download promos from SoundCloud, and get lots of music from Beatport, Traxsource, Amazon and iTunes. None of them have equal volume, and many tracks have clipped peaks. This is not Beatport’s fault, they just sell the tracks that music labels provide to them. Our goal was to make MP3s and WAVs from different labels sound perfect together.

Yakov Vorobyev, founder of Mixed In Key and Platinum Notes, answers your questions about Platinum Notes 4.

My music collection is all 320kbps MP3s and 256kbps AACs. Will it improve those?
Most of my collection is 320kbps MP3s and uncompressed WAV files, and Platinum Notes works perfectly on them. In fact, we recommend that DJs buy WAV files and run them through Platinum Notes, since that provides the best source material.

Can it be trusted to fix things about my music files automatically, or should I be listening to them too?
I trust it to work automatically. This is our fourth generation product, so it’s stable and mature. The first version came out six years ago, so we’ve improved a lot over that time. Once you drop in the first 10 files, you’ll understand very quickly what it’s doing and you will trust the results immediately.

I don’t like the idea of applying something automated to my music without understanding what it’s doing – can you tell me in detail what exactly Platinum notes does when it processes a file please?
First, the file is decoded to an uncompressed WAV. Second, Platinum Notes analyses the volume of the file with our special algorithm that pays attention only to the drums. The benefit of drum analysis is that all your output files will have the same drum volume, which is really nice for beatmatching.

Gentle Warmth is like sitting by the pool in Ibiza during the summer. Hot vacuum tube is like listening to an old vinyl record at a record store….

Next, it detects any clipped peaks, and fixes them with a combination of an iZotope multi-band audio processor, and our custom algorithm for clipped peak repair. It makes your music sound smoother and less distorted. After that, Platinum Notes adds warmth using an iZotope Exciter.

We have three settings: “No Warmth”, “Gentle Warmth” and “Hot vacuum tube”, which regulate the intensity of the effect. Gentle Warmth is like sitting by the pool in Ibiza during the summer. Hot vacuum tube is like listening to an old vinyl record at a record store. Both are good settings, but we recommend the “Gentle” setting for most DJs. Any pitch problems are fixed during processing as well.

Finally, Platinum Notes adjusts the volume of the output file by using another iZotope filter called IRC Limiter. It’s an elite-quality plugin that makes music louder without clipping it.

I want to point out that Platinum Notes never overwrites your original files. It creates new tracks with a slightly different filename, so you’ll know which ones have been improved. There’s no danger of messing up your music.

Can you explain “decode to an uncompressed WAV”, please?
Platinum Notes decodes to a high-quality WAV so it can work with the highest-quality material during the processing phase. It keeps the music sounding crystal clear without any artefacts. I think it’s important to use high quality source material because it gives Platinum Notes more room to recover the quality.

I can think of a photography analogy. Imagine trying to print a beautiful poster for your wall. If your source file is a low-resolution JPEG, the poster will look fuzzy. If your source is a large RAW file from a top-quality DSLR camera, the poster will look crystal clear and beautiful. We recommend using WAV files for source material because they give Platinum Notes more room for improvement.

What did you get asked for the most with regards to the version, and have these changes been made in the latest version?
We added the new “Warmth” filter since it’s a really valuable tool for DJs. It’s nice to get a little bit of that “vinyl” sound without damaging the audio quality. We also updated the user interface so it’s easier to see the results of processing for each file. It feels good to look at Platinum Notes processing hundreds of tracks.

What other benefits/advantage does Platinum Notes have on top of those mentioned above?
It saves you a ton of time. I used to open my files in Sound Forge and edit each one using a combination of different audio plug-ins. It took forever. Platinum Notes can process thousands of my files without any effort – I just add my tracks, click “Start Processing”, and the whole thing gets done automatically. The typical “Auto-Gain” functionality in iTunes and Traktor cannot come close to what Platinum Notes does for each file.

What “big names” are using and endorsing the product?
Pete Tong’s a fan, and so are thousands of other Mixed In Key customers. People use it all over the world and it’s growing every day.

Who “ear tested” it? Whose job was it to listen to and tune the results being obtained from the software when you were developing it?
Recently, we hired two audio engineers in Miami to audit our algorithm and suggest improvements. Unfortunately, they agreed that the official template is as good as it gets. We were hoping for some new ideas.

As a result of our audit, we decided to create a second template called “Festival” that has a little more “air” in the hi-hats. It has the perfect balance of bass and hi-hats for me: I use it on all my tracks.

Why is it so expensive?
Platinum Notes is like the Rolls Royce of audio mastering. We use three different iZotope filters, a pitch correction filter from a highly respected German company, and several of our own algorithms. It’s crammed with studio-grade plugins and algorithms, so $98 is a very reasonable price.

• The new version of Platinum Notes is available at US$98 now.

Do you use Platinum Notes? What’s your experience of the software? if not, would you be tempted to? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
Tools & Workflow Ideas For Organising Your Music Library
An Essential Guide To Organising Your Music Library
Open Letter: Should I Go Digital?

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The post Platinum Notes 4: Your Questions Answered appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

mp3Tag for Windows is a powerful utility to let you perform all kinds of bulk actions on your musics’ tags.

In An Essential Guide To Organising Your Music Library (which was part four of this occasional series looking at ways of better organising your DJ music collection), we considered how we might like to classify the tracks and tags. My last stage of music library organisation is choosing the right tools and workflow to go from “download to deck-load”, which is what we’re going to look at today.

Before we get going, I’d like to stress once again that these are guidelines and not rules: They’re here to help empower youself to make your own choices. Ultimately, the important thing is to do what works for you!

How it used to be…
Before digital music became so prolific, collectors and DJs would create personalised and often abstract ways of grouping, ordering and sorting their record collection. Many would have piles of records and CDs ordered by purchase date, artist or popularity.

When preparing for a DJ gig, you’d be restricted to 100 to 200 or so records to choose from…

When preparing for a DJ gig, you’d be restricted to 100 to 200 or so records to choose from. Each week you’d sift through what you played before and decide which tracks should remain for the next gig and which new records you would add.

Sleeve artwork became the quickest way to identify records, and although it is still valuable to have this for digital tracks the primary way we now search is through text-based tags that we are creating or editing. So how do we edit the metadata and ensure our libraries have the right information in today’s digital environment?

From download to deck-load…

So you’re shopping for music, you’ve listened to a few tracks and have decided to purchase a cart of a dozen or so digital downloads. What next? We’ve already seen that in most cases the information embedded in the files by your music store is either incorrect or inconsistent, so you cannot rely on it. In addition, many people like to perform additional processing on their music downloads before they are actually imported into their library.

To give you an idea of how this workflow might work, I’ll share my personal method for getting my tracks processed before I start to use them. Remember this is just one way of doing it, but hopefully it’ll illustrate some concepts for you.

(By the way, I have a PC-based system and use iTunes and Traktor, both which of course are fairly popular library / DJ applications.)

1. Download
Whether purchasing direct from the iTunes store or some other online store such as Juno, Beatport or AudioJelly, the first thing I do is move the location of the digital files to my editing folder, aptly called “AV Editing”, if they are not saved their in the first place. This is where all my editing takes place.

If downloading from the iTunes store, the tracks will automatically be added to your library. For DJs and those who like to keep control of their music, it is recommended to not “Keep iTunes Media folder organised” or “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library” in the advanced preferences of iTunes. This way you can edit the metadata outside of iTunes if you prefer, relocate where you’d like it to be stored in your own folder structure and then import it back into iTunes. If you’re using a different application to manage your library then the same principle applies.

2. Edit
The best tool I’ve found for editing tags in the tracks is mp3Tag because it works on so many different formats, is quick, and is good for both beginners and more advanced users. When setting this up, you can store frequently used naming conventions and completely remove existing tags from “dirty” files if desired.

I tend to select whole releases and start by editing the release (album) title, the year (release date) and artist for all tracks in that release at once. I then look at the extended tags and clear or delete some of them such as the genre and comments unless I see some useful information in them that I want to keep or relocate. Finally, I go through each track and ensure the title and remix is correctly labelled according to my preferences.

You can create some neat macros in mp3Tag that allow you to transform one tag or part of one tag into another.

You can create some neat macros in mp3Tag that allow you to transform one tag or part of one tag into another. For example, I have an action that allows me to copy the year tag and force it into the iTunes release date field, something which cannot normally be edited within iTunes. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any remotely similar app for Macs.

If album artwork is missing then now is a good time to add it. I prefer to add it to the file itself. This adds a little extra size to the file but prevents the need for multiple cached copies to be stored elsewhere in the other tools and music playback devices you use. Two great sources for album artwork are the Discogs website and of course, Google’s image search. I found all but a small handful of obscure tracks from my 14K library during my library revamp from these two sources.

3. Rename and relocate
Once you’ve edited the tags themselves, a tool such as mp3Tag makes it even easier to “Convert Tags to Filenames” and allows you to choose which tags to use to construct the filename. I use “Album Year Track Artist – Title” but you can tailor it according to your needs. Alternative tools such as Bulk Rename Utility can also be useful for batch editing filenames, but the benefit of doing everything in one tool is that you can convert back and forth easily.

Then all you need to do is move the files to the folder(s) of your choice based on the structure you have set up beforehand. By being in control of that structure you ensure that you know where your files are and this gives you added awareness about your library.

4. Audio processing
Tools such as Mixed In Key and Platinum Notes (the latter of which has just had an upgrade) are quite popular among DJs for making adjustments and musical analysis of the audio in each file. Whether you use these tools or not is up to you but they can add some sparkle and information to help with your presentation. A word of warning though. Be aware of excessive claims by software to turn your MP3s into high quality lossless audio files or anything that actually manipulates the frequencies. This could wreak havoc on certain sound systems and potentially corrupt the original audio composition.

For my needs, I use a tool called iVolume to adjust the “Sound Check” level used by iTunes and iDevices to ensure a consistent volume when listening to my music. This is basically level normalisation but with the caveat that the audio in the file itself is not actually affected, just the playback software is told to alter the volume. In addition, I import and analyse the tracks in Trakor which then adds both the BPM and key information to the digital files.

iVolume, like MP3Gain, alters the volume of the file to make it as loud as possible but without changing the actual music, just a “flag” within the tagging,

5. Add to library
The final step is to import or add the new files into my music library, iTunes. All the metadata I added and edited in the files themselves is then read and pulled into the iTunes database, ready to use.

The final step is to import or add the new files into my music library, iTunes. All the metadata I added and edited in the files themselves is then read and pulled into the iTunes database, ready to use.

There are a few things I might amend within iTunes once this is done. For instance, I might ensure Album Artist exists if required, check whether the selection of tracks is a compilation or not, and of course add the new files to my “Rate Me” playlist.

This is the playlist I use to add information such as genre, star rating, comments etc. which I prefer to do while actually listening to the track. You may also need to import or transfer the new tracks into the DJ software of your choice if you haven’t already done so.

And there we are – we’ve reached “deck-load”. With all your tracks refined and organised, it should now be much easier to find, load and play your new tracks as part of your well organised library.

Baby steps are better than no steps…

Back in the second article of this series I recommended that you “start as you mean to go on” when it comes to music library organisation. Starting somewhere is important. Some may argue that this workflow is too much effort and again it’s down to you to determine where you start and what you’re willing to do. Nobody is saying you have to do this all at once (like I did) so here are a couple of extra tips and ideas to get you motivated.

Many of us listen to music via our phones, music players and tablets. Whatever music and playlists you have on those devices, why not organise this while you’re listening to it, a few tracks at a time.

“But I can’t edit tags on my phone” you might say. Wrong. There are things you can do. Sure it may not be as direct as with a keyboard and large screen but here’s what you could try:

• Rate each track using the star ratings in the music player (all iPhone/iPads have this)

• Create new playlists titled as genres. Add new tracks with the same genre to these playlists as you listen to them. When you synchronise your device with your music library the playlists should transfer across. You can then select all tracks in that playlist and edit the genre tag for all of them to be the same, permanently adjusting their genre. Repeat this technique for other fields that are common among tracks eg energy levels in the comments field
• Write notes about tracks that you need to adjust or organise. Put them in a separate “to do” playlist
• Prepare cue points and loops using apps on your devices or note down your desire to do this. Some iOS DJ apps now allow you to prepare your tracks for DJing while you’re on the move (Traktor DJ, djay). This is an excellent tool and although not strictly speaking, part of your music library organisation, it certain aids the workflow and speed to using the track when playing

Each of these are examples of making use of what you have to hand to aid your music library organisation. Nobody is forcing you to do this but it may just help.

Finally…

Having a workflow is important and there are plenty of other tools you can use. I’d really like to hear about your suggestions, particularly if you’re a Mac user. Your workflow may be a lot simpler than mine and it would be great to know what works for you and if you have any tips for all of us.

What workflow do you follow when adding new music to your collection? are there any extra tools that are part of your process? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
Over To You: How Do You Use The Genre Tag In iTunes?
An Essential Guide To Organising Your Music Library
Your Questions: Can I Have Your Whole Tunes List Please?

Want to escape the bedroom and play in public - fast?
Our 1000s-selling How To Digital DJ Fast video course shows you how.

Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
Sign up for our weekly email course for beginners now...

Trouble choosing a controller? Visit the web's #1 guide!
DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide 2013.

The post Tools & Workflow Ideas For Organising Your Music Library appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

Ever wondered how the big DJs perform such effortless, great sounding acapella mixes? We blow the lid on it in this new course, that’ll show you exactly how to find and perform killer acapella mixes yourself.

In just a few days’ time, we’ll be opening up our brand new video training course – The Acapella Mixing Masterclass. Designed to teach digital DJs how to mix properly with acapellas, it’s a valuable addition to our range of premium DJ training, and we’re really excited about bringing it to you.

It actually won’t be on public sale for several weeks yet. But for a limited time, we’re going to make it available privately to you, our site members – and at a huge discount of 45% on the public launch price. So watch your inbox for details of how you can grab your copy – and if you’re not on our mailing list, sign up now.

Why The Acapella Mixing Masterclass?

There are few better feelings in DJing than when you discover a perfect acapella mix – one of your favourite vocals slotted over an awesome instrumental track to give you an entirely new song. In key, in sync, perfect. It’s especially good when you get that feeling that you may be the very first person to ever have discovered the mix! It’s spine-tingling stuff and one of the real joys of DJing.

Always the “holy grail” of DJing back in the vinyl days, good acapella mixes instantly stand the few DJs who can do them out front the rest. And despite so many DJs struggling with this, the good news is that with digital, it’s actually a lot easier and more fun to mix acapellas. Things like key, BPM, keeping things in time, and tricks that go way beyond a “vocal over an instrumental” – all of these things are actually easier with digital DJ gear than with vinyl or CDJs.

Why is it that so many DJs continually tell us that they’ve given up trying to master this skill? That having performed a few terrible acapella mixes, they got frustrated and confused, and that even though they desperately want to learn to do this, they’ve decided it’s practically impossible?

So why is it, then, that so many DJs continually tell us that they’ve given up trying to master this skill? That having performed a few terrible acapella mixes, they got frustrated and confused, and that even though they desperately want to learn to do this, they’ve decided it’s practically impossible?

We realised it was just because if you don’t know what to practise or exactly how, even with digital, this is a skill that can be daunting. Where do you get good acapellas? How do you keep them in time with the backing track? How do you match the key? What makes a “good” acapella mix and a “bad” one?

And that’s what our new video course is all about. Designed especially for digital DJs, it teaches you everything you need to know to DJ with acapellas the modern way. Making full use of all available digital technologies (while still making sure you learn the right way – no lame shortcuts here), it takes you right from the very beginning through finding acapellas, preparing them, the principles of mixing with them, how to pick the right tracks to mix them with, how to key match them so they sound great, and finally how to perform digital tricks that vinyl DJs could only ever dream of.

What to do next

So here’s the deal. The course will be available privately later this week for a limited time, to our members only, and at a massive 45% discount on the public launch price.

After that, we’re taking it temporarily off the market so we can finish preparing the marketing material for the full “public” launch. The course itself, though, is now entirely finished – and so we wanted you to have a chance to get it first (at a much lower price).

All you need to do is watch your email inbox – we’ll let you know exactly when it goes on sale and how to get it. Remember, it’ll only be for a few days, so if you want it early and at the one-time only hugely reduced price, make sure you look our for that email – and if you’re not on our list, join now.

The post How To Get 45% Off Our New Acapella Mixing Video Course appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

What’s the best way to carve up your time if you’re a DJ who also produces (or a DJ/promoter, or a DJ with a full-time unconnected job)?

Digital DJ Tips reader Mathieu writes: “I actually produce house music (funky /disco house) as a ‘full-time job’. While it takes a lot of effort to do this alongside finding places to get gigs, things seems to be going well because I’ve managed to get some gigs in bars. But it’s still very hard and requires a lot of phone calls and/or unanswered emails and so on.

“So my problem is that I don’t really know on what I need to be focusing! Music production or DJ gigs? (I like both but promoting is really time-consuming.) Should I be looking to team up with a promoter to help?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

It’s a good question. There’s no right and wrong way to do this, and I know exactly how you feel (although I’m not a producer, I was a DJ/promoter for many years). It’s a hard act trying to juggle two or three roles.

If so, while you definitely need to keep up the production, you also need to find time to promote yourself as a DJ too…

It really comes down to what you want to be. Do you want to be a “superstar DJ”? If so, while you definitely need to keep up the production, you also need to find time to promote yourself as a DJ too. Or would you be happy only producing tracks, and waiting to see if a bit of production success means the gig offers start coming in (and not being too bothered if they don’t)?

One thing I do know is that working on your system – continually looking for ways to improve how you do things – means you can get much more done in the same time. Working on how you do things is, in my view, never wasted time.

So what do you think? Have you struggled with balancing your time between things like DJing, production, promoting (or a day job)? What would your advice be? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
The Proven, Secret, Time-Saving Trick Guaranteed To Get You DJing Success
The 3 Biggest Mistakes I Made at The Start Of My DJ Career
The Creative DJ In 2013 – Is This You?

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DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide 2013.

The post Over To You: Should I Spend My Time DJing Or Producing? appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

How much to charge for your DJing services varies massively from place to place, but there are some basic rules…

Digital DJ Tips reader Eijah writes: “My plan in DJing is to reach the stage where I’ve made a name for myself in my region, and I’m working really hard towards that goal by reading and taking notes on everything I can find here and elsewhere.

“I plan to play my first gig in August. I will have my PA system in May and I plan on getting the Numark Mixtrack Pro 2 and a PA mixer over the early summer by working summer jobs. My question is, for my first few gigs, how much should I charge hourly? Thanks for all the help!”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Great attitude, Eijah, remember gigs are everything, so get your first bookings as soon as you can! I can tell you’re doing this for passion not money which is good, and I can also tell that you’ve set your sights realistically.

What I don’t know is where you are, what kinds of gigs you want to play (I am guessing you’re not going to be picky at first, and will be happy to play mobile gigs, parties etc wherever you can get them, which is good), and so in all honesty, what you might be able to charge.

You’re not only charging for yourself as a DJ, you’re effectively charging for the rental of your gear, too. So while you’d never show these two calculations to someone booking you, you need to make them.

As a new DJ, you should definitely charge less that an experienced DJ would (you’re not as good), but a couple of things. Firstly, charging by the hour is maybe not the way to go: Negotiate a set rate. One exception is if you want to negotiate a set rate then an “add on” rate for any time over and above that (say, they ask you to play for another two hours at the end).

The second thing is this: You’re not only charging for yourself as a DJ, you’re effectively charging for the rental of your gear, too. So while you’d never show these two calculations to someone booking you, you need to make them. How much should you charge for gear rental? Well, that depends on how good your gear is and how much it would cost to rent it where you live.

So you may decide to charge $50 for your DJing services and $50 for your gear for a show, or you may decide to charge $250 for each component, meaning by these figures your fees will be between $100 and $500. The point is not to follow my numbers (as I say, I’ve no idea what the “rates” are where you are), but rather to understand how to calculate them. That should ensure you don’t undercharge, and also that you know how to confidently increase your prices as your gear expands and improves, and as you get better established.

Would you like to add anything to help Eijah work out how much he should charge for the rental of “PA plus DJ”? Please share your own experiences and thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
The Proven, Secret, Time-Saving Trick Guaranteed To Get You DJing Success
Beginner’s Guide To PA Systems, Part 1: Basics
I’m A Pro DJ, But I’ve Never Felt The Need To Mix

Want to escape the bedroom and play in public - fast?
Our 1000s-selling How To Digital DJ Fast video course shows you how.

Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
Sign up for our weekly email course for beginners now...

Trouble choosing a controller? Visit the web's #1 guide!
DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide 2013.

The post Your Questions: How Much Should I Charge For My DJing? appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.

Disco innovator, prolific producer, and collaborator with Donna Summer on the seminal ‘I Feel Love’, Giorgio Moroder is now turning his hand to DJing…

This week we’ve been flat-out finishing to our new video course, the Acapella Mixing Masterclass, which will get you from scared/avoidance of acapellas to confidently using them like a pro in your DJ sets!

More about that soon (we’re really excited about this one!), but for now, here are the articles from around the web that we’ve found ourselves going back to and talking about the most this last week.

1. Interview: Giorgio Moroder – The iconic Giorgio Moroder: producer, songwriter, composer…and now DJ! Following on from our disco round-up last week, we couldn’t help be be fascinated with the idea of one of the greatest synthesiser/disco composers of all time is now embarking on a DJ career, as he reveals in this Time Out New York interview. Read more
2. Why The Internet Is A Bad Place To Discover Music – Some great arguments in this Hypebot article about how if all you’re doing is scouring the internet for music, there’s a big chance you’re missing out on some good stuff… or missing the point entirely. Read more
3. Old Skool vs EDM? – We picked up on an article in LA Weekly about the difference between two of the arenas at Coachella (an EDM one and a so-called “underground” old skool one), and Alan over at Traktor Tips has written a passionate reply to that article that we think sums up well why it’s an unhelpful debate to be having. Read more

If Giorgio Moroder is now a DJ, who do you think will be next? What do you do to discover music away from the internet? And do we really need to argue whether there’s a divide between dance music the way it’s been for the last 20 years, and “EDM”? Please share your thoughts below.

Now go to:
The Friday Roundup: May 10 2013
The Friday Roundup: May 3 201
The Friday Roundup: April 26 2013

Want to escape the bedroom and play in public - fast?
Our 1000s-selling How To Digital DJ Fast video course shows you how.

Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
Sign up for our weekly email course for beginners now...

Trouble choosing a controller? Visit the web's #1 guide!
DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer’s Guide 2013.

The post The Friday Roundup: May 17 2013 appeared first on Digital DJ Tips.