Strictly T

haha good on you! I live in Manchester in the UK and the city centre is full of Pop Idol, X Factor and Britain’s got talent wannabees inflicting their horrible music on the masses. I often think if they can play this shite all day why cant me and my mates set up our DJ equipment and play some tunes.

Sadly in Manchester there is no way the authorities or police would give you a licence or allow you to continue you if you did. I think it would be classed as a rave.

Hee Won Jung, post: 31002, member: 948 wrote: Know the place you are playing at…Go there on the night that you are suppose to play…see what the crowd is like and what the vibe is like…Nothing worse than going to a place wanting to play Banging Electro and its a Hip Hop night LOL.

Also make sure u know what equipment they have and what you need to bring with you…and have spares of whatever it is you need…extra cords etc. As well Take a CD with some music or a USB stick just in case things go south and you need to reboot your computer or whatever.

The biggest lesson though is…HAVE FUN! oh and dont play music out of time slot…like Crazy Banging PSY Trance at 9pm…

I couldnt agree more with your last point – one of the lads we DJ with plays really fast BPMs at the start of the night and doesnt think to build things up it can be quite annoying!

There is a lot of good vinyl only techno out there. It can be quite annoying but I think it is a good way for artists to make some money. I think it is easy to think you are missing out because there are a lot of good tunes on vinyl but the labels are only going to spend the money on vinyl if they know it will sell or they will lose money.

Hey mate I started playing out on a Mixtrack Pro – my advice – go to a music shop and buy a headphone amp, they are cheap. I couldnt hear a thing in my headphones when mixing at all. It is the best purchase I have made:)

Norris sk8, post: 25135, member: 2788 wrote: Living in Manchester and being 21 there is a hell of a lot of competition breaking through as a DJ. I find that nearly everyone I know who is DJing in clubs is either, a really good producer, very good at marketing and DJing very comercial nights or DJing very small clubs and making little to no money out of it.

I love DJing so much and I practice so much. I really want to get into playing clubs and I do think I am up to it. I have tried producing and have made a few alright tracks but I just cant get into spending so long at a computer making a track, I just dont find it practical enough.

What im trying to say here is im sure there are many extremely talented DJs who arnt getting to play out purely due to the fact they are not into producing. And there places are more than likely being taken by people who may produce fantastic tracks but there DJ technique is below par.

Im sure this doesnt apply to all scenes but it certainly seems to be the way as far as DnB, Garage and Dubstep go. Just to add to the problem digital DJing is pretty taboo amongst these genres making it even harder to get noticed.

If DJing is really what I want to do should I just try to put my impatience aside and improve my producing skills or should I find another way into the clubs?

Hey mate – not sure if it works for your genres but we are in Manchester and just set up our own little night over the last few years, pretty random and underground and made no money but one of the guys has been asked to play at Sound Control off the back of this so I guess he is likely to get paid and it is a start! I think one of their promoters came to one of our nights.

If you have a group of mates into the same music – I would try and do something yourself, the main nights in Manchester are pretty saturated now and feel all the same I think the city is crying out for smaller more interesting nights. If you keep focussed on the music and having fun I am sure over time you may get your chance!