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DJ Equipment is the feature of our Top 10 New DJ Mistakes To Avoid…

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MISTAKE #2: Spending Too Much Money On DJ Gear…

What do most new DJs do when they have decided they want to become a DJ? They buy DJ Gear! And if you’re anything like me, you probably look up to some of the pro DJs and see them playing on some SICK DJ gear…

Most pro DJs now a days will have a couple of Techniques turntables going, some Pioneer CDJ-1000s, a sick Pioneer 4 channel mixer and a few cool looking effects units… And of course you make the correlation that if you play on that gear, that your chances of becoming an awesome DJ are better…

So most new DJs will rush out and buy the top pieces of high end DJ gear on the market! They will run to their local music shop or a DJ gear store online and will drop a few thousand dollars in the process… even though they don’t have the money.

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DJ Training

Last night I treated some friends and took them to the grand opening of a brand new club here in our city. Despite there being a MASSIVE line up outside of the nighclub, we all rolled right past the line.

I love getting my friends into nightclubs and hooking them up with free drinks. If you want to be able to do things like this as a DJ, sign up for free DJ Training Videos by clicking HERE right now!

After the grand opening we headed to another nightclub where Superstar DJ Joachim Garraud from France was Djing. Again, getting my crew past the massive line wasn’t an issue.

I thought it was going to be a solid night out at the nightclub where I would groove while watching the DJ and talk with djs in training with aspiring DJs at the club. I didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary.

I ended up getting BLOWN away by the DJ show that Joachim put on. The guy busted out this piano guitar (a DJ keyboard that was hung around his neck like a guitar) and started jamming out on it while he was mixing!

The crowd went nuts. Its so simple but its creative, fun and it takes DJing and DJ training to a whole other level.

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A lot of you know me for my one line of advice that I always give when it comes to DJ Gear: Buy cheaper gear to start out with and spend the remaining money on building a music collection and educating yourself.

As with most things in life, there is one exception to the rule. This one piece of gear is essential to your DJing from day one. The piece of Dj equipment I am referring to is Dj Headphones. It doesn’t matter if you’re just learning to dj taking dj lessons or you’re already playing gigs, get a good pair of headphones. If you are just learning how to DJ, sign up for free DJ Lesson Videos by clicking HERE right now!

A good pair of DJ Headphones is essential for a number of reasons:
- You are going to spend hundreds of hours with them on your head in the studio and the dj booth. They have to be comfortable.
- You are going to beat the headphones up. They will be dropped, kicked, spilled on, stretched and pulled. They need to be sturdy to take this everyday DJ wear and tear.
- Some headphones put out a higher frequency. This high frequency damages your ears a lot more than a low end frequency. Buying a cheap pear of Iphone headphones and using them to DJ will leave your hearing spotty as you get older.
- Dj booths, studios and parties are loud environments where the DJ needs to hear what is in his headphone and not whats going on around him or her. You want to block out the noise around you at all costs so you can concentrate on a song or mix. Quality sound-blocking is a must for any DJ.
- They have to be flashy and look cool. You want people to know you’re the Dj right?!?!

The good news is that high quality DJ headphones aren’t that expensive (compared to most dj equipment) so they’re worth splurging for.

Here are the top three headphones recommended for comfort, durability, frequency, sound blocking and cool factor:

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Lets be honest, nobody likes to see a DJ with his head stuck in a laptop up in the DJ booth. He might as well be checking his email or writing up his grocery list for after the gig!

You have to give programs like Ableton Live and Traktor DJ Studio credit. They are kickass pieces of DJ software that can do some pretty incredible stuff. Even just the ability to get the Dj Software to beatmatch for you opens up so many doors for your DJing. If you want to learn more about digital DJing, sign up for free DJ Lesson Videos by clicking HERE right now!

But the obvious downside was that all of this computer based software did not do well with the performance aspect of DJing…. until now.

Over the past few days I have seem some really cool pieces of software that really get the DJ involved. Take the video above for example.

A dj from Uruguay, Gustavo Bravetti, does an awesome job of demonstrating how creative you can get. He shows how you can use ableton live and Nintendo Wii controllers for your DJing.
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“What dj equipment do you recommend I start with?”

This is a question I get asked daily from my Dj students. Its usually proceeded with “I have a budged of $xx and I’ve been told I should buy turntables or CDJs…”

While I have a FREE DVD coming out that will teach you everything you need to know about DJ Gear, let me give you the answer to this in a few words. In the meantime, you can learn a lot about DJ Gear through our Free video DJ Lessons. Get yours now by clicking HERE!

Don’t buy turntables if you are just starting out.
Don’t buy expensive CDJs (Pioneer CDJ 1000s – dj cd players).
Don’t buy a $2000.00 laptop

Most DJs that start out want to get the coolest pro DJ gear possible. This is a waste of money at the start because you will just be learning basic mixing techniques to begin with (cue & throw, beatmatching, pitch riding etc).

Instead of throwing away thousands on gear when you start, buy some cheap CDJs and a cheap mixer, or even better a DJ Software and digital controller package. These will be low cost solutions that you can learn mixing on quickly and easily.

The best part is that you will have tons of cash left over. Use this cash to build your music collection (which is most important) and to learn more about DJing by getting dj lessons or buying some programs (DVDs) to get you mixing better, to learn to promote yourself and to learn how to get big gigs!

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So you want to Learn To Dj. Awesome!

Your mate that used to DJ says “go out and buy a pair of turntables and start learning to mix. You log onto the message forums and old school DJs say “buy turntables and learn the real art of DJing”.

You you want DJing advice, sign up for free DJ Lesson Videos by clicking HERE right now!

Here are the facts…. When the physical music industry fell apart 10 years ago, a lot of distributors went out of business. They owed the record labels a lot of money which they couldn’t pay so a lot of record labels also ended up going out of business. The distribution channels for vinyl records fell apart, so much so that 99% of labels stopped printing vinyl.

This is the number one reason why DJs stopped using Turntables. It wasn’t because records were too expensive. It wasn’t because vinyl was too heavy to lug around. DJs stopped playing on Turntables because they had nothing to play!

A lot of the DJs went against my advice and bought tables only to find out that they couldn’t find music to play! The only markets for buying vinyl were Ebay and local classified listing sites. Nightclubs too abandoned the turntables for dj cd players such as the Pioneer CDJ 1000s.

The great news for the die hard vinylists and for people that are learning to DJ is that you can now DJ with vinyl and have access to all of your favorite songs. The best of both worlds.

How is this possible….?!?!?!?

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I was DJing in a Nighclub last night and a young guy came up and asked me what Dj Gear I was playing on. I showed him…. The Pioneer CDJ 1000s (dj cd players), the Pioneer DJM 600 and traktor DJ software.

If you want to learn about DJ Gear, Mixing & Beatmatching or Playing Gigs, sign up for free DJ Lesson Videos by clicking HERE right now!

I asked him why he was curious about my gear and he said that it is because he is Learning To DJ and he had just bought his DJ equipment.

Naturally I asked what he bought and he told me the Pioneer DJM 800 dj mixer and the Pioneer CDJ 1000 dj cd players.

He said “I just started to learn to dj last week… “. I nearly fell out of the DJ booth and this is not the first time this has happened.

The reason why I almost had a Dj heart attack is because his dj equipment is worth over $5000 USD (…if he got a good deal). There is no reason to spend anything close to this when you are starting out.

If you are just beginning to DJ and have decided to buy gear, for the next few weeks or months (depending on how dedicated you are) you will be learning the basics of DJing. Cueing, throwing, beatmatching, blending, cutting, EQing, Dropping etc. All of these skills can be learned on a $100 mixer and two $200 dj cd players just as easily as on the $5000 setup that this young guy just bought.

No wait scratch that… You can learn the basics even FASTER on simple dj equipment as mentioned above ($100 mixer) because there are less extra features to learn. If you spend all of your time figuring out how to use effects and loops and other advanced features that come on a $5000 mixer, you won’t learn to mix as quickly as if you just focused on the basics first.

So here is what I recommend…

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I just found this post on one of my favorite blogs, Beatportal.

Richie Hawtin explains how he is able to mix off of two labtops and one mixer with two different programs.

If you want to learn about digital DJing, dj gear, mixing, beatmatching, playing gigs or anything else, sign up for free DJ Lesson Videos by clicking HERE right now!

All I can say is that he is one intense DJ. I want to Learn To Dj like him!

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Richie Hawtin’s DJ setup

Richie Hawtin is known for his love of new technology and currently employs a rather complicated setup to DJ with.

Anyone who has recently stood beside Richie in the DJ booth will no doubt have been scratching their heads because alongside an Allen & Heath Xone:92 mixer.

He also has two Allen & Heath Xone 92 mixer:1D controllers and two laptops running.

“You know I’m one of Richie’s closest friends and I’ve known him for years, but even I have absolutely no clue what he’s doing in the DJ booth,” says Jon Gaiser, one of Minus’ biggest artists.

Richie explains to Beatportal exactly what the hell he’s doing behind the laptops.
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