I got into Dj'ing through a friend of mine. He'd caught the bug about two years before me, and though I screwed around on his equipment from time to time, I didn't have the love of dance music that G had, so it wasn't the same for me.

Then I heard a tape of Sasha playing, and found exactly the genre of dance music that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I spend the next couple of months scouring shops, the radio, anywhere to try to get more mixes from Sasha, Digweed and Oakenfold, and listened to them religiously. All the time I was listening to this lot, I was trying to work out what separated them from the other Dj's that were big at the time, and, of course, kept getting lost in day-dreams about how cool it'd be to be a Dj myself.

Then G moved to Holland to play professional hockey, and wanting his records to go to a good home, asked me if I'd buy them from him. Damn good deal though, about 500 records for £100!!

He'd sold his decks about a year earlier to fund his love for labelled clothes, so I had to go find some stuff of my own. I checked through the second-hand newspapers and found two Soundlab DLP3R decks and a DSM-15 mixer for £180. Ok, this was pretty basic stuff, but I didn't know any better at the time, all I really knew was not to get Belt driven decks.

So I spent the next four or five months practising like mad on these eye-sores, skipping college so I could practice more, getting frustrated at my slowly increasing talent and then one day it all just kind of clicked. I describe it like learning to drive. For months you think that the car is in control of you, and you just don't feel at ease, then one day, you sit in the drivers seat, and it all comes into place, you know you're in control. From that point on, it's all about learning all the intricacies.

That's how I got started.

Firstly, find the genre that makes your hairs stand on end like I did. It's no good jumping into a genre that you 'think' you should play just because it's the most popular at the moment. If it doesn't float your boat, you're going to get really disenchanted with it anyway. Remember that dance music does the rounds, one year house will be king, then trance, then garage, and so on. So if you pick the genre you love most, even if it's not the biggest thing at the moment, you might luck out, and at the point you know you're good enough to play live, there might be a resurgence of that genre.

Not that I'm saying aim for what's popular in the charts, things tend to go to shit when a genre gets charty popular. Look at the amount of bollocks that was released through 1999 on the back of trance being the big thing. Hopefully, now that it's beginning to fade out a bit, we'll get some good music written again!

The other thing I'll say is that when you're starting off and trying to learn all the basics of Dj'ing, make sure to have fun. If you sit in front of your decks for hours at a time trying to learn how to beat-match, and you just aren't enjoying it, you're going to get pissed off and fed up in no time. What I advise to people is that for every 5 minutes spent learning something, spend 10 minutes just screwing around and having fun. If you end up thinking of it as a job, or work, then all the fun has gone out of it, and you just won't enjoy Dj'ing anymore.

To help out the learning process, make sure to know all your tunes inside out. I've said this before on my site, but it's a good idea to put everything you are going to play onto tape or MD and listen to it all the time so you know all your tunes like the back of your hand. The down side to this though is that you'll start to get bored with your tunes after a while. It's all in the mind though, the clubber in you gets bored of the tunes, but remember the Dj in you. When (or if) you make it into a club, you're going to be playing tunes over and over. If you just had a clubbers mentality, you'd get bored with them, but as a dj, you have to look at the whole picture, how that one tune slips into the jigsaw of a mix.

There's more I could say, but it's all strewn through my site - and I don't want to be the only one doing all the work here!!

In the scheme of things, the hardest thing in this business is managing to get work. In Britain, it's said that there are about 45,000 bedroom Dj's, a lot of who got the bug at the same time, so there's going to be thousands of new dj's all trying to get jobs in about a year or two. Even if it wasn't for the amount of people who you'll be competing against, there's just the matter of trying to get a club owner to take notice of you as a dj, and take the risk to put you on the decks. Club owners are very set in their ways, which is a good and a bad thing. It means once you get in there, you're in there for a long run.

But, when it comes to the actual Dj'ing side, I think one of the hardest things about Dj'ing is the choice and order of tunes you're playing.

Anyone can learn how to beat-match given enough time, but it's the order you mix the tunes, the choice of what tunes you mix together, where you do the mix in the tune, when to bring down the energy, when to pump it up. It's that energy creation that's the hard part. I'm not going to go all wanky and say that you have to "tell a story" when you Dj, I'm just saying that if you don't put thought into the mix with reference to the crowds states of energy, then you're kind of defeating the purpose. You can't just mix tunes together because they mix will - well, you can - but if you want to actually make some kind of mark in this area, some thought has to be put into the mix.

The easiest part of it is the job itself. Getting up in the morning and knowing that in about 12 hours you're going to work - to do something you love doing is great. All those people in the world who are tuck in jobs that they hate doing, and only do it for the money know exactly what I'm on about. To go to work and hate it is a real killer to your soul. To go to work and to love it is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself.

Not really, no. I've tended to try to steer clear of genre classifications through the time I've had my site up on the net. There's too many people with their own ideas of what makes a tune "House" what makes it "Trance" and what makes it "Garage".

The purest essence of all of them is the same though. The point is to make the crowd happy. The techniques through all the genres might be a bit different, but the end result is normally the same, to make people smile and dance on the floor.

This goes back to what I was saying about playing a set that has a level of energy through it. The ones who just bang out 20 tunes in an order that mixes nice are different from the ones who choose tunes to create a varying energy on the dance-floor.

As I say in the Styles page on my site, if you gave the same records that Paul Oakenfold has to a bedroom Dj who is good at mixing, but doesn't have any experience of working a crowd, you'll find that the bedroom Dj will have a great mix, but it'll be flawed with a lack of emotion, whereas Oakey will play the tunes in an order to really pick up the crowd.

Unfortunately, there's also a thing of a dj's reputation preceding them. People will be happy with whatever some of the super Dj's play, purely because it's them, but if a lower Dj played the same set, people would dub them as shite! But the bottom line comes down to tune selection, and the order of the mix in relation to working a crowd.

Nope. I did go to college to do a Sound Engineering course for a year at Stow College in Glasgow, but frankly, it was shite. The main lecturer (Derek) was the biggest wanker I've ever met in my life. How he managed to get a job teaching people with such an attitude is still beyond me. (Oops, I'm ranting again!)

I think the sound thing has helped when it comes to my attention to detail in respect to the quality of sound production, but I think that all stems from my course at Cardonald College in TV production (where everyone is nice - not a wanker to be had there!).

So it might be an idea to go somewhere down that line if only to teach you the proper recording techniques, and how to properly control your mixer, but apart from that, the best way to get ahead is to bunk of college, and stay home to practise!

There's a bit too many to mention, but the one I will mention is that it took me about two months to realise that there's a lot of tossers in this business. There's a lot of jealously from working Dj's towards up-coming dj's. There's a lot of rudeness too, where people won't return phone calls, will be rude directly to you face, and basically lack the manners it takes to be anywhere near professional. Really in my experience, I've found that between other Dj's and club promoters, about 60% of them are dick-heads, with the other 40% being genuinely helpful to your career.

Just tread carefully, have an open mind, and a thick skin when trying to deal with tossers!

I'm a head-down do the mix Dj. I talk when I have to, but I'm not going to lie and say I enjoy it. There's moments when it's Ok to hear a dj barking over the mic, but everytime I'm in a club and hear a Dj chanting over the mic, I just want to leave.

Musical style, I'd say it's Progressive. I would say that it's spilling into the Trance scene a bit, but here in Britain, Trance has become synonymous with chart based shite - so I'll just stick to Progressive thank you!!

I take care to try to make my mixes as seamless as possible, and try my hardest to spend the night reading the crowd to give them what they want in terms of energy and power of the tracks.

They're both the same thing in my mind. It's just the art of blending two tunes together. In my sense, this blend is (hopefully) as unnoticeable as possible, but there's a lot of different styles where the Dj will blatantly "Announce" the mix between the two records. Both have their good and bad points, but both are perfectly acceptable as a craft.

Why is it popular? Well, I think for a start there's people who see the reverence that the bigger Dj's get when playing in a club. 2000 people chanting your name, loving everything you do, in really close, intimate quarters.

Apart from the ego trip though, I think that a lot of people develop a real emotional attachment to whatever genre of music they listen to, and it's a great way to build upon that attachment, to be able to mould it in a mix. It's like all the young Rock N Roll people, who hear a band they idolise, and want to re-create what they do in their own styles.

In its simplest state, a Dj needs two players (Vinyl or CD) a mixer, a pair of headphones, something to play it through so you can hear it, and some tunes.
The actual quality of the equipment you're using depends on the amount of money you spend. The more advanced equipment you get, the more you'll be able to manipulate the sound. But for a beginner, it's best to get basic spec equipment while learning the basics of Dj'ing. (this stilll doesn't mean get belt driven decks though!!)

Is Dj'ng just a hobby for you or is it your career?

 It started out as a hobby, but right now I'm juggling Dj'ing with being a Freelance film editor. Funnily enough though, it's the Dj'ing that's taking off more, so I'd say yeah, it is my career.

Practise. In both cases, one of the best things to do is to listen to CD's from existing Dj's, and work out how they did the mixes between the two tunes, then try to copy them.

There's quite a lot of information out there that offers advice on how to learn the basics of Dj'ing, my site (I hope) is one of them.

When it comes to developing a style, it's a hard one to describe. It just comes from your heart. You'll know yourself the genre you want to play, then through practice you'll just develop a style of mixing the two tunes together without actually knowing it. It's not until people hear your stuff though that you'll know if it's a style of your own, or if it's actually any good!! But the bottom line is PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE.

Anything from 0 to £50,000 a night. It all depends on how good you get.

In the club scene, when you start off, you'll find that you're probably only going to get work if you work for free, or maybe a few drinks. As you get better, you'll start getting in around £50 a night.

Once you're actually reasonably established in your own town, things can jump up to around £400 a night, then as you get bigger and better, the sky's the limit for how much you can request. Go to HERE to see the section if this FAQ on money.

I'm not too sure. Actually, I'm not too sure I am that different from a lot of the Dj's out there. Because I learnt how to Dj though emulating people like Sasha and Oakenfold, which is the same way a lot of people have learnt, I really wouldn't know how unique I am.

I think though that if theirs is anything that does separate me it'd be things like Tune selection, mixing style, and the way I work a crowd.

As I said before I love the fact that I love what I do. Why? Well, it's because I get to hear the music I love all the time, and the fact that there's an ego/power trip thing happening when you're the one who is controlling how good a night the 1,000 people in front of you are having, has nothing to do with it!

Really though, it's just that I love the music I play, and I love playing it for other people.

How do I burn a seamless mix onto CD?

If you have your 74 minutes of mix, and you're wanting to put it onto CD, then the first thing to do is stick it on your computer. for more info on this, click HERE . That tells you how to hook up your decks to the computer, but the same goes for hooking up a MiniDisc player, or Tape Player etc.

So, now that you have your mix on the computer, decide whether you want 1x74 minute track for your CD, or if you want to be able to advance through the 15 or so mixes on the Cd. What do I reccomend? Individual tracks. There's a really easy way to do this. Get a program called Nero Burning Rom. (www.nero.com) In the options for the full track you're wanting to burn, you can just play through the track and add your splits as you go. Then, set the pause to 0 frames for all of them and off you go. REALLY easy.

The hard way to go about this is using a program like Cool Edit , which gives you a time code for each frame of the music, chop the mix up into it's 15 different pieces (assuming your mix has 15 different tunes). for example. If your first tune starts at 0:00:00:00 and the second tune starts at 0:04:15:10, then split the mix at 0:04:15:10 and save that as an individual file. Your next tune ends at 0:09:35:23. So, cut the tune from 0:04:15:11 (notice it's one frame ahead of the last cut point) to 0:09:35:23 - and save that as a separate file. Go through this process through the whole mix, so that you now have 15 individual .wav files to represent your mix. It's an idea to give them numbers when saving, not titles - it makes life easier. Just save each file in sequence (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 etc.)

Now, the important thing here is that you have a program which does the recording onto Cd. The one I use is Dart Pro. You can get this from www.dartpro.com . Go through the process to add in the first track of the mix. There will be an option in your program which will allow you to adjust the gap between the tracks. Set this to ZERO. There might (hopefully) be a selector on this part which says "apply to all tracks". Select it. If it doesn't, then you'll have to go through this process for each track. Now, simply add in each track in sequence, wait until everything is in, change all the gaps if you have to - then set it to go! Kazzaaam, you've not got a properly made Cd - I hope!!

Well, the first thing you need to do is get your mix onto the computer. Please refer to 5) How do I hook my decks up to my computer? for information on how to do this.

Next you need to get a copy of Real Producer. (There's other Real encoding progs out there, but this one is the best I've seen) Go to www.real.com to get a copy. From time to time, people ask me about this and tell me they can't find it. IT'S THERE PEOPLE!!! Look for Real Producer Beta. You'll find it along with the proper retail program, you don't want the retail one (it costs money). There IS a link to it on there - believe me. When i get time, I'll try to find the exact URL for it, but I don't have that time right now.

So, you've downloaded it. Great. Now follow the instructions to encode your mix into the .rm (or .ra) media.

Once you're done, look for the button that says "Create Web Page". Click it.

What you're interested in is the .ram file that it makes for you. You can ignore the .html file it makes, unless you want to use that to hold the link to start your mix.

Open NOTEPAD (or similar simple text editor - NOT WORD or any word processing prog, you want it to be a simple ascii editor like NOTEPAD). Locate the .ram file on your hard-drive (it's where you put it) and open it.

What you'll see is a line which shoes you where the .rm (or .ra) file on your hardrive is.

If you double click the actual .ram file (not the line in notepad) then the mix will start on your computer. What you need to do is change the line in this file to show where the mix will be on the internet, not on your hard-drive

So, assuming you named the mix "mymix" and you saved it simply to your C:\ folder, then the line should look something like this:-

file:\\C:\mymix.rm

This is the line you need to change (the only line in the file.) Highlight this line, and press delete (or whatever you do to remove stuff)

Change this line to where the .rm (or.ra) file will be. Ie, if you have your space with freeserve, and your user name is asswipe, then you'll put in this line.

http://www.asswipe.freeserve.co.uk/mymix.rm

Or (best to give two examples) if you're space is at http://www.djmagnifico.com, then the line looks like this:-

http://www.djmagnifico.com/mymix.rm

Do you get me?

Anyway, JUST TYPE IN THIS LINE. DO NOT ADD ANY CHARACTERS, DO NOT PRESS ENTER, DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT £200 FOR PASSING GO!! Seriously, leave the line as just the line.

Now save this file. Rename it if you like, just make sure to remember what you called it, and keep it as a .ram format.

Now, upload your mix media, and the .ram file you've just altered.

While you're waiting for hours while the mix uploads, work on your HTML file to start the mix. Remember NOT to link to the actual mix, this just makes it download to your hard-drive. Link to the .ram file.

Once everything (including your HTML file) is up there, you should be sorted. It's an idea to give visitors the option of downloading the mix anyway (just link to the .rm (or .ra) media) for this to happen.

Any problems, don't ask me......;-)


Hehe, click it, if you're a fan of Kevin Smith stuff like me, you'll love all this



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