Beatgridding your music has been a necessary evil for digital DJs who want to use features like sync, loop, beat-tied effects, accurate hotcues, and so on, for many years. However, while beatgridding 2.0 improved on beatgridding 1.0 by handling songs with slightly varying BPMs a little bit better, not much has changed over the years – until now, that is – because new software is now able to use AI to basically kill manual beatgridding entirely. People, beatgridding 3.0 is here – and we talked about it in this pod, and what it might mean for DJs.

We moved on to talk about audio engineering for DJs and why it’s important for DJs to have at least a basic grasp of what audio engineering is, and how they can use it in their hobby. Whether it’s simply tidying up individual songs or making DJ mixes sound better, or going further and extracting audio from bigger pieces of work for use as a DJ, knowing your way around audio editors, audio repair software, and even audio routing software is a surefire way to improve what you’re capable of doing… way before you get to your decks.

And finally, this month we looked at motorised platters, spinning jogwheels, and asked the question: Why? They haven’t gone away, which you might expect to have happened since turntables stopped appearing in DJ booths, and – lo and behold – now even turntables are on the way back. What is the enduring appeal of having something spinning on your DJ gear? We came up with some answers.

As ever, this pod is supported 100% by the students of Digital DJ Tips and it was recorded in a live webinar with lots of student feedback. If you enjoy it, and you can, please do give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really does make a difference.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:15 Episode overview

1:43 The death of beatgridding

16:05 Audio engineering for DJs

28:24 Motorised jogwheels

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

A really busy Your Questions show this month with hundreds of questions from our students, the best of which feature here.

We talk in some depth about quick mixing, what it is, when to do it, and - more importantly - how to do it. We talk to a head teacher who's started to get the DJ bug and land himself some gigs, but now wants to know how to get more and more. And a student wants to know why older songs sound so bad when played directly against modern music, and what can be done about it when you're a DJ wanting to play both types.

There are many more questions featured in this packed edition of the show, so we'd like to extend a huge thank you to all of our students for asking them.

As ever, this pod is supported 100% by the students of Digital DJ Tips, and it was recorded in a live webinar with lots of student feedback. If you enjoy it and you can, please do give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts - it really does make a difference.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:15 Episode overview

1:25 Tips for "quick mixing" on the fly?

9:52 How to branch out from single-genre mixing?

13:19 Advice for building confidence as a DJ?

20:48 Tips for improving the sound of older tracks?

27:58 Best way to approach a DJ set playing background music?

32:19 How do DJs pick which transition techniques they use during a set?

39:17 Any DJ apps that help with preparing mixes?

42:16 Ways to get DJ gigs in a small town?

45:13 How to book more DJ gigs?

47:14 What's the best way to EQ tracks in a DJ mix?

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

Following the epic DJ fail at Coachella by Grimes, rather than piling in and criticising her, we thought we would use that as a springboard to talk about ways that DJs can avoid the inevitable errors that happen in any DJ set. The conversation on this podcast quickly underlined the fact that these things do happen, but that there are things that you can do to make it less likely, and to recover quicker should it happen. I also shared a classic story from my own past that still has me cringing now.

We moved on to talk about the best place to livestream your DJ sets in 2024, which is a discussion that came out of Twitch saying this week that they are planning to fully legalise DJing with other people's music on their platform, which will be the final feather in the cap of a platform that is overwhelmingly the place DJs choose to do this stuff. We looked at what you need to DJ livestream, why you might want to, and all the other platforms you could use as well as the obvious here.

And finally, following Record Store Day 2024, I presented an unashamedly one-sided argument as to why every DJ should own some kind of turntable, which developed with the help of our wonderful student community into a bit of a trip through old music formats and also a bit of a love letter to the turntable.

As ever, this pod is supported 100% by the students of Digital DJ Tips, and it was recorded in a live webinar with lots of student feedback. If you enjoy it and you can, please do give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really does make a difference.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:14 Episode overview

3:32 How to recover from DJ set errors

18:28 The best place to livestream DJ sets

41:36 Why all DJs should own a turntable

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

In this month's show we tackled a wide range of questions. We spoke about producing music when half deaf, worries about DJing when visually impaired, keeping children interested in DJing, why the hell your software needs to have a database (and whether that database looks after itself), and lots of other questions across our big areas of DJing, gear, music, mixing, performing, and success.

As ever, this pod is supported 100% by the students of Digital DJ Tips, and it was recorded in a live webinar with lots of student feedback. If you enjoy it and you can, please do give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts - it really does make a difference.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro

0:15 Episode overview

1:35 How can I produce music with a hearing disability?

5:41 What's happening during a B2B (back-to-back) DJ set?

8:37 Is it OK to enable large fonts in DJ software?

10:13 Tips for programming a mobile DJ set around a specific artist?

14:22 Should I quick mix or play full tracks?

18:20 How to add more "producer-style" live remix transitions to a DJ set?

20:36 What's the best USB-powered DJ controller?

24:52 How do changes in my DJ library affect the DJ software database?

28:44 When is it safe for DJs to update their operating system?

32:08 Advice for keeping kids motivated while learning to DJ?

38:11 How to get your question answered

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

A very tech-oriented edition of the show this time. We're looking at new Bluetooth features that have been added to DJ equipment and asking when DJs should be using these, and when they should not.

We're also looking at the whole subject of rotary mixers because AlphaTheta, formerly Pioneer DJ, has just launched a mixer called the Euphonia, which is an extremely high-end (and very expensive mixer), utterly different to anything they've ever made before, being a rotary mixer, isolator, and effects unit that looks like it belongs to a different age. Our discussion talks about the legacy of rotary mixers and how they ended up being the way they are.

Finally, we asked, have cheap DJ controllers had their day? To answer this question, we look back at the evolution of digital DJ equipment and how the equipment that you find in DJ booths and the equipment that you find in bedrooms has slowly been converging over the years, to the point where high-end gear of all types pretty much does everything nowadays. However, as you'll see, we do think there is still an important place for entry level DJ gear.

As ever, this pod is supported 100% by the students of Digital DJ Tips, and it was recorded in a live webinar with lots of student feedback. If you enjoy it and you can, please do give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It really does make a difference.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

0:15 Episode overview

1:29 The dos and don'ts of Bluetooth in DJing

20:58 What are rotary mixers all about?

34:03 Do simple DJ controllers still matter?

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

1:57 Why do some DJs judge others for using the sync button?
8:49 Does the Engine DJ 3.4 update include the Denon DJ Prime 4?
14:10 What's the best way to clean up a messy DJ library?
21:00 How many genres should DJs include in a mixtape?
27:37 Tips for improving EQ blending between tracks?
38:22 Any advice for upgrading DJ lights?
42:25 How our DJ training works

In this month's show, we start by looking at the perennial debating point among the wider DJing community of whether or not it's acceptable to use the sync button. It's one of those topics that certain people never seem to be able to get past. But we take a different view, looking at it from a few angles to get you thinking about not only how you're using the sync button, but how other things you do in your DJing may or may not help you to do a better job.

Other topics covered this month include removing duplicate files from your library: how they get there, what's the best way of getting rid of them, and how to stop it happening in the future, in which we also touch on the difference between being a music hoarder and being a DJ collecting songs to use as tools.

When it comes to making DJ mixes, one question people ask is how many different musical genres should be featured in any given mix? And so we help one student to figure out the best way of approaching this in his regular Mixcloud mix series.

We also have a question on transitioning using EQs, and we talk about the best way to objectively figure out how good your DJ transitions sound (or otherwise). There are also questions on DJ lighting and how to build a great light show, including the technology to use, and the thorny issue of when DJ software updates stop working on your gear because your gear is not the most current.

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.

In this month's three DJ topics, we start by looking at Recordbox 7 software which has just entered public beta. Does it deserve the jump from Recordbox 6? What new features are there? What has the community been wishing for in Recordbox and does it deliver this time? We take a deep dive under the hood with an exhaustive look at everything we found in this pre-release version of this major DJ package.

Next we move to looking at DJ stands and accessories. Once you've bought your DJ gear, where are you going to put it? How are you going to get it to the right height? What other accessories do you need for everything that you bought to make sure it all functions correctly and is looked after properly? And how are you going to look your best when you take your equipment to public venues to DJ? From gear stands to classic hacks to little tricks from our community, it's all here to help you set your DJ gear up like a pro.

And finally we look at the state of music streaming services in 2024 as far as DJs are concerned. Which ones work with DJ software nowadays? What are the limitations? Should you be DJing from DJ streaming services or should you be buying your music? Or is it a case of a bit of each? With at least one exciting new entrant in the market, we take a look at where we're at today.

As always this show was recorded in front of a live audience and so there are lots of questions and tips directly from our community as well as from your tutor Phil Morse. We hope you enjoy the show.

Want to get your question answered on an episode of this podcast? Digital DJ Tips course owners get to ask questions in their student-only group. Your first step to getting involved is to buy a DJ course, so come and join our community at https://www.digitaldjtips.com.