dj/producer | Digital DJ Tips

May 3rd, 2013 News & Opinion

The Friday Roundup: May 3 2013

by Phil Morse

Vinyl has a certain romance that digital files can’t compete with, says the writer of one of the stories we’re covering this week in our Friday Roundup.

In the second of our new Friday series, we’re sharing some of the articles that we’ve found most inspiring online this week, to save you the bother of trawling around the web looking for them yourself! (You can still catch up on last week’s links here.)

This week, a very personal piece about what vinyl means and why it has a place alongside MP3s, some common-sense advice on why it’s sometimes OK to not be doing anything when you’re DJing, and the first of what looks set to be a useful three-part tutorial on using Traktor DJ on the iPad.

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March 25th, 2013 News & Opinion

Why You Don’t Have To Be A Musician To Be A Good DJ

by Phil Morse

DJ Rap with her musical credentials emblazoned across her chest… but how important is it for ‘everyday’ DJs to be able to read, write or play music?

A reader asked whether it’s possible to be a good DJ without also being a musician, or without being able to play a musical instrument, which I thought was an excellent question. (Thanks, Kevin!)

In order to answer Kevin’s question, we need to look at two distinct types of musical teaching/learning, and also delve a little into the nature of what DJing is (and isn’t). We’ll also discover that the answer to this question depends on how far you want your DJing to take you…

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August 14th, 2012 Training

Why Become A DJ/Producer?

by Phil Morse

There are plenty of good courses, both attendance and online, that can teach you production techniques to add to your DJing - but if you do choose to do it, make sure it's for the right reasons. Pic: Point Blank Online

In the first article in this three-part DJ/producer mini-series, What Exactly Is A DJ/Producer?, we looked at what a DJ/producer actually does. Today, we’re going to look at whether to get success in 2012 you have to add that “producer” bit after “DJ” in 2012, or whether it’s still OK to just be a “DJ”.

In the final part, we’ll give you five practical steps you can take to successfully add some kind of producing to what you do, with a view to it helping you to get more DJ gigs. We’ll also point you in the direction of what we think is the best training online for DJs who want to become producers.

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August 10th, 2012 Training

What Exactly Is A DJ/Producer?

by Phil Morse

One of the new wave: New York's DJ Brooklyn Dawn, who in order to help her to carve out a DJ name for herself, has also got herself a name for producing beats.

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand for the past five years, you’ll be aware that when it comes to getting a career in DJing that reaches beyond wherever you happen to live, it’s no longer enough to just be a “DJ” – nowadays, the holy grail is to be a “DJ/producer”.

Get production credits and you’ll get DJ gigs too, young hopefuls are regularly told (often by companies selling production courses for DJs). If you can’t make mashups, you’re at a disadvantage before you begin (we said that, in Make Mashups Not Mixtapes). Bashing buttons to move beyond simply playing other people’s productions is the new DJing (everyone from companies that sell boxes of buttons to deadmau5 says this).

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