Why I want to DJ

Hi all,

I’m such a huge fan of trance. I remember my 1st Euphoria album back in ’99. It was advertised as being “for the mind, body and soul” and it really was. I had found the genre of music that I could really relate to, the type of music that affected me on an emotional level. The albums kept getting better and better that year and the next. What I enjoyed about these compilations was that the tracks were mixed so the entire album would take you on a journey. Over the years I’ve heard many different styles and techniques for mixing and that has made me want to try out these techniques and come up with a few of my own.

My first attempt at DJing

A couple of months back I decided to try it out and see whether it was for me before I bought some equipment. I went down to London and purchased a 5 hour session for a couple of hundred quid. I took down some CDs with me full of MP3s. The equipment I was practising on was the Pioneer CDJ-1000 MK3 and the Pioneer DJM-800 mixer.

Man was I terrible with my 1st effort at beatmatching. I picked the skill up pretty quickly though and with some tweaks from my tutor (every 5 seconds) I was producing some decent noise.

Next I had to learn how to transition between tracks. There are many ways to do this (which I will be learning over the coming months). My tutor told me of a method where I count 8-bar phrases and use the low frequency EQ knobs to switch over from 1 channel to the other.

I have to say I was having a lot of fun. I picked things up very quickly and was ready to make my 1st mix CD. This is when things got tricky as I had to now use headphones to mix. Anyway, the recording had started so there was no going back. I began to lay down the tunes and the end result was pretty decent, I’d certainly buy it myself. Maybe I’ll end up putting the mix on the site some day so we can talk about what was good and bad.

What’s next for me

My aim is to create mixes that people will listen to and feel deep within. My dream is to play in big clubs. In fact, I was in Ibiza back in July and one of my best nights was with Tiesto at Privilege (an amazing club, check out some pics on Google). I could picture myself up there blasting the trance and watching as the melodies take people to a higher level, just magical. I’d have my own unique style of mixing, blending the melodies so well that people wouldn’t even know the track had changed.

Until next time….

I think this is enough for this post. Next time I will be describing my equipment and how I have set it all up. After that I’ll just wing it.