Stephaan Vandenbroeck

I tend to prepare long sets. I practice at home and since it’s so easy to save playlists, with cue points, in- and outs, etc, included… I make sure the mix sounds just right. For me, practicing that way is more fun, it gives me a purpose and I get a nice playlist out of it that I can use at parties.

Ofcourse, at a party , you can not follow that playlist to the letter. But playing a couple of songs from that list makes a dj’s life easier, less stressful. On the other hand, it takes away a lot of the fun, because all you do is push the buttons at the right time. You never get the feeling “Wow that mix sounded real good” (as you prepared everything at home), but on the other hand you do avoid the stares of people when one of your mixes totally fails.

So should you prepare for a gig? Failing to prepare is preparing for failure !

Not a big fan of timecode cd’s either. The track never seems to start on time. The vinyl timecode does work perfect. Shame, because I would like to use timecode with my old & trusty Cdj1000mk3 too.

However, I read somewhere that someone who is a Rekordbox user is satisfied with cd timecode. Maybe worth checking that out, but I doubt it’ll work as it should.

Any turntable will work. The Reloop 8000 model is also a midicontroller, so you can use it to trigger cuepoints, set loops, etc, but the turntable part of it is no different than any other turntable.

Ofcourse you will need a soundcard (approved by the dj sofware you’re using) and timecode vinyl. If your soundcard isn’t approved or recognised by the sofware, you won’t be able to switch on scratch control.

Ah if life only was that easy, plug in and play.

Hey Archdrewid,

Welcome back to the world of dj’ing. Sure, you don’t have to rip all your cd’s to Flac, but you will 🙂

Like you, I’ve been in and out of dj’ing for most of my life and when I got offered a “residency” in a local pub, I decided it was time to take the plunge and change from vinyl and cd’s to digital. At first, I digitised the tracks I thought I would need for the residency, then I proceeded to rip all my cd’s to Flac, tag them, import them into Traktor, analyse them, then check the grids, download coverart, etc. After more than 3 years of almost daily doing at least a couple of songs, I’m now the proud owner of a well organised track collection. All my cd’s are ripped and I’m taking on my vinyl collection for those not digitally available songs.

Sure, it was a lot of work and it wasn’t always fun, but it was a bit like collecting. My collection grew every day, a nice feeling. Sure, I’ve got alot of tracks on my hard drive that I will never play, tracks I don’t even like and maybe this goes against the “How to keep your tracklist well organised” rules, but I know I’m ready for every occasion.

The world of dj’ing has changed dramatically from the 80ies and 90’ies. Back then, only fools and horses (well, maybe not horses) got into dj’ing. It wasn’t easy to learn, expensive to get a decent practise setup, you had to search for the records you wanted (and for sure, you always wanted that hard to find bootleg), no internet, no Discogs, just recordstores. Music & gear back then wasn’t as cheap and readily available as it is now. And there was no superstar hero status as there is now. Then a dj was someone who stood in the booth and played music, people hardly noticed him, even the guys who brought the drinks had more succes with the ladies…

Now everybody wants to be a dj and some of them are realy good at it too. Those damn kids, they learn so fast, you’ve gotto hate them 😉 But hey, now you can enjoy the same weapons, cheap controllers, download pools, Sync, etc so I’m sure you’re trip through dj land will be funfilled.

Have fun !