Prepare the tune for playing – That means setting the channel gain so the tune isn’t too quiet, or distorting checking its eQ (to make sure there’s not too much or too little bass, and it doesn’t sound too muddy or harsh, for example) getting its tempo right and picking the place you want to play it from, cueing it up at that point (usually a downbeat or what I call a ‘one beat’, which just means the first significant beat of a section).Route that tune’s audio to your headphones by pressing its ‘Pre-fader listen’, ‘Headphones’ or ‘Cue’ button.
Find and load the next tune – Get the tune you want to play next on to an unused deck, making sure that deck is not live (i.e.Remember your first ever driving lesson, where clutch and hand brake and accelerator and ignition and steering wheel and indicators all blurred into one unknowable mess, only to slowly make sense as you had them all explained to you methodically and took your first spin around the block? This chapter is the DJ version of that. Here I’m going to talk you through what DJs are actually doing when they play a DJ set – step by step. This chapter blows the lid on the basic technique. It’s like driving: sure, driving a small city car is different to driving a luxury automatic 4×4, which is different to driving a container truck, but the similarities far outweigh the differences. The good news is that the steps are remarkably similar no matter what DJ gear is involved. The physical movements, the actual process of DJing, is both a mystery and a fascination to those who don’t yet know the sequence of steps. He (for it was nearly always a he) used to approach the booth and ask quietly, ‘Do you mind if I come in and watch what you’re doing you for a bit? I won’t say anything, or get in your way…’ From old friends wanting to escape the packed dancefloor for a bit, to girls looking for somewhere to dance where they will be seen more by everyone else, to other DJs wanting to chat or – worse – look through my music, there always seemed to be someone keen on joining me.īut while I was generally pretty harsh on people who, as I saw it, wanted to invade my workspace, there was a certain type for whom I often caved in.
In my long career as a professional DJ, I’ve dealt with all types of people begging to be in the DJ booth with me.