New dj looking for some help

[ballaholic91]

Well right now im using a Gemini CDM 3600 mixer with some crappy speakers and a pair of american audio hp 700's I received it all for free from a friend because he upgraded but he went off to college and left my hopeless with all this equipment. After looking around on here I am seeing that Gemini products are not the best and shouldn't really be used. I want to sell my equipment and buy something more reliable and easier to use. I plan on only mixing house, top 40, mash ups, and a little bit of electro. I want to know what would be a good set up I could buy for around $500 dollars or so. It also needs to be laptop compatible because I keep wasting money on cd's just to attempt to mix a new song. I also need to find a way to record what I am playing so I can post it to soundcloud or other websites so how would I go about doing that? I plan on djing through out college if I feel confident enough to actually play in front of people. I also want to know when you all say practice how do you practice without getting stressed out and quitting because that's what happen when I attempt to practice after twenty minutes. Any and all help is great appreciated.

[RikkiGTR]

I'm not sure about equipment for $500 - some of the other guys could help you out there. I will however offer advice for practising.

Firstly - you WILL suck in the beginning, it will be awful most of the time, but you will never improve if you keep quitting after 20 minutes! And why are you getting stressed out? No need for it at all, just relax dude :D
I remember when I started mixing vinyl about a year ago; I was devastated how horribly bloody awful I was, but I just kept at it, kept spinning, kept plugging away until one day (after a little tutorial on YouTube) the penny dropped and I understood the concept.
Practice every day (or as often as possible), turn the volume down so you're not worried about what people close by might think. Relax. Breath. Take it slowly. This is a marathon; not a sprint.

[alazydj]

I'm with Rikki here.

You will suck. It is a good thing. I still suck...maybe not to your standard, but it's the drive to make my mixes tighter and my musical knowledge deeper.


Keep the 'crappy' CDM 3600 dude. Work HARD to be great on that thing. What will happen is that you will be down right killer on a 'proper' set up.


Also, use the RCA record out and plug it into your laptop's "Line in" port. Download the freeware "Audacity"....win.

I say put that $500 into a savings account and spend your time tuning your craft.

[RikkiGTR]

Excellent advice DougMore :tup:

Save the money, learn to mix on your current gear. Then upgrade to something better, and then improve and evolve as you go along. That's pretty much what I've done.

[B3NNY]

What kind of decks do you have? Sounds like some sort of CDJ. Maybe instead of getting rid of your gear you can add to it instead. I would do some research and look at maybe getting a used Rane SL1 (about $350 used) or a Native Instrument Traktor Scratch Audio 6 (about $300 new). This way you could use Serato or Traktor and mix MP3's on a laptop. Then later on down the road, you could always replace the equipment you have now. Just a suggestion

[Irrational_Fear]

Yep Dougmore talks a lot of sense there.

There's a lot to be said for learning on 'crappy' gear. If the equipment is all working there's no point in uprading yet- keep going at it until you nail the basics. There's no point geting better equipment with extra stuff until you've got the basics down, it won't magically make you better and will likely just complicate things. Just keep spinning, practise nothing but the basics- yes it will be frustrating at times but that's what learning is about- eventually it WILL click. :tup:

It took me about 8 or 9 months of playing almost every day to learn to beatmatch etc, and this was on archaic cd players that had little more than a play button and a pitch control, and a mixer that wasn't even dsigned for DJing (had no EQs or anything). But the best thing is no matter how frustrating it was I couldn't wait to get back onto it again the next day as i was playing music that I frickin' LOVED!

Save the money, practise like hell, get the basic concepts down- and by then you'll also have a much better idea of exactly what equipment route you want to go down, meaning you will be less likely to spend money buying gear that perhaps isn't best suited to the way you want to play.

[Andrew B]

Keep what you have and practice. Instead of buying CDs, buy mp3s and burn them to CD.

[xyloft]

Keep what you have and practice. Instead of buying CDs, buy mp3s and burn them to CD.

buy "club mix" mp3s, depending on genre these are typically longer versions with longer intros and outros. i find a lot of commercial CD's have great songs that are all 3.5 minutes long. a lot harder to mix.

[ampnation]

As mentioned if you want to record your mixes, record to audacity and then if you get one you like, burn that to CD. That way you only burn CD's on stuff you didn't trainwreck on.

[ballaholic91]

Thanks for all the help guys. I will keep my equipment and im going to look into a way i can hook up my laptop to my mixer i so i can use virtual dj instead of burning cd's from my itunes. One problem im facing is my hp pavilion entertainment pc doesn't have a "line in" port so ill have to do a bit more looking around for a solution to that

[ampnation]

After looking closer at that Gemini unit and what you're trying to do, I still say get audacity, but do this too...
Instead of replacing the Gemini, buy Traktor Scratch Pro A6 which comes with full version Traktor and control vinyls. Your unit LOOKS like a controller but is more akin to a mixer and 2 CDJ's all stuck together. It doesn't have midi.
By using a DVS setup, you can play files off your computer directly without having to burn CD's. Instead this system uses control CD's. In the mix, you get a high quality sound card and later you can replace the Gemini unit with some higher quality gear. Traktor Scratch Pro A6 runs $299.
As Brian Redd would say, "Practice and enjoy"

[ballaholic91]

Well im going to attempt to practice but im not sure on how and what to practice with any advice? Im thinking of just focusing on two songs and getting the transition right between them. Once I have that down i'll try the second song into a third song and then do all three. I'll post again to tell everyone how it goes. Wish me luck.

Songs im going to try to put together are:
Pursuit of happiness by Kid Cudi (Steve Aoki remix) to No beef by Afrojack and Steve Aoki