3 Easy Things You Can Do Right Now To Be A Better Digital DJ

Last week’s article on a video interview with Detroit techno DJ Theo Parrish, in which he claimed that a good vinyl jock could “burn” a laptop DJ “every time”, produced some strong responses. While most people agreed that laptop DJs can be just as good as vinyl jocks, some people questioned how exactly laptop DJs “do their dues” to improve day-to-day.

As we stated back then, the whole aim of this site is to help you become a great digital DJ. So today we have a great piece of news for you; a request for your help; and some easy things you can do right away to start learning to DJ properly using your digital gear.

Here’s the good news…

Starting tomorrow, we’re running a new fortnightly series to help you learn some of the technical skills that good vinyl DJs know, and that all good DJs learn in the end as they become experienced. Things like audio routing, beatmatching, cueing, scratch control…

The series is aimed at people who have got new DJing kit for Christmas, or otherwise are just starting in digital DJing – for instance, maybe you’ve got a controller knocking around but are at a bit of a loss about where to begin.

We want you to know what the short-cuts in your software mean for your DJing, and to understand all those things that vinyl and even CD jocks traditionally learned – the things that new digital jocks sometimes take for granted.

So – come back this time tomorrow to read the first part! We’re really looking forward to bringing this brand-new content to you.

What you can do NOW:

But in the meantime, assuming you’re hungry to give yourself the best possible start, we have 3 suggestions of things you can do right away:

1. Browse through the good stuff from 2010 – especially the DJ culture material. That’s where you’ll find all of our training and background information – the stuff that’s nothing to do with the kit or the software, but everything to do with DJing as an art form. We have written easily a book’s-worth of tutorials, guides, background and training material, and it’s all free and waiting for you to discover it. Browse it all now!
2. Tell us what you find challenging about learning to DJ digitally – Maybe you feel you should “know” how to beatmatch manually. Maybe you can’t get things to “sound” right (ie it’s a quality issue). Maybe you’re scared to set up your gear in public. Maybe it is just you’re worried about being taken seriously! Whatever the obstacles you feel are standing in the way of you becoming a better digital DJ, we want to know in the comments below. It’s vital you let us know, to help us fine-tune our training material to be as useful as possible to you.

Digital DJ Tips exists to show you “How to DJ properly with digital DJ gear”. Let’s get serious about this in 2011 – it’s time to do the work!

Don’t forget – we really need you to tell us in the comments what worries you the most about learning to DJ digitally from scratch, what you find hardest, or what you struggle to understand. The more you tell us, the more we can help you.

Just why is laptop DJing growing so fast? Heres a few reasons.