You’ve been practising your transitions, working on your technique, and hopefully things are starting to click as a DJ. But here’s the question nobody tells you to ask: how do you know if what you’re doing sounds any good? How do you know that you’re improving?
The answer is to record your practice sets and listen back. It sounds obvious, but most beginners don’t do it – and it makes a bigger difference than almost anything else. In this free lesson from our Complete DJ Course, I walk you through how to record your sets and exactly what to listen for when you play them back.
Why recording yourself is so valuable
There’s an irony at the heart of learning to DJ: the one person who doesn’t hear your DJing for how it really sounds is you. When you’re behind the decks, you’re too busy concentrating on what’s coming next to actually listen the way a dancer or a casual listener would.
Read this next: Why Doing Nothing Between DJ Transitions Is Fine
Listening on your phone the next day, away from your gear, changes that completely. In that moment when you hit play, you’re not hearing it as the DJ – you’re hearing it as someone listening to it, and that feedback is priceless.
How to record your sets
Most DJ software has a built-in record function, but if you’re DJing with streaming services, it’s not exactly straightforward. Streaming and in-software recording are incompatible due to licensing agreements, so you’ll need a workaround.
The main options are covered in the video lesson above, but the two most common are:
- Routing the audio out of your software into a separate recording app like Audacity or Howler
- Using a dedicated hardware recorder like the Pioneer DJ REC app (iPhone only) or a simple dictaphone with an input
The mindset shift matters just as much as the method, though: press record at the start of every single practice session. A bit like reality TV – once you forget the camera’s there, you just become yourself, and it’s no different with DJing. It’s a good thing you can conquer Red Light Syndrome before it even starts by hitting record – every time.
How to listen back
Get the recording onto your phone so you can listen away from the decks. I cover two ways of doing this in the lesson, and both are worth your time.
The first is casual listening: playing it in the background while you’re doing something else, the way most of your audience will hear music. The second is listening like a DJ: focused and attentive, evaluating your timing, track selection, transitions and effects. Think of it the way writers are taught to read other writers – look for technique, don’t just enjoy the story.
What tends to happen is that the moments you thought were disasters sound better than you feared, and some bits you were pleased with don’t quite hold up. That honest feedback loop improves both your practice sessions and your ear – it really is the single best way to improve your DJing.
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Next Steps
Recording and critiquing your sets isn’t just one more thing to add to your practice routine. It’s the habit that ties everything else together. Every technique you work on gets sharper when you’re regularly listening back with honest ears.
Read this next: What Separates Good DJs From Great DJs?
Ready to go further? This lesson is part of our Complete DJ Course – a structured programme that takes you from the very basics to performing with confidence. You can take the course on its own or grab it as part of an All-Access Pass – every course in our library for a single one-time payment.
Do you already record your practice sets? What’s the biggest thing you’ve noticed when listening back? Let us know in the comments – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Phil Morse
