Liquid 2000 - Like

Liquid was a club that I really enjoyed playing in. In it's hay days, it was one of those clubs you had to visit in KL. Mind you it was a gay club, yes it was a gay club and I'm proud that I played there and met so many nice people and made so many friends. It's one of those clubs where music was all you needed and with some good company, you'd wish the night never ended.

How to DJ with Mixing techniques

Mixing is a pretty straight forward thing. The main objective is to get both the beats to sync and sound like one. In order to achieve this, you need to first set or get your bpms right. I talked about bpms in the previous post. Unlike bpms, where you can start counting the beats at any part of the song, mixing requires you to catch the first beat of the song. It is important to understand that you will need lots and lots of patience. This can be a very slow and frustrating time but once you've mastered this skill and continuously have the passion for music, dj'ing can be very rewarding. Also, before you carry on reading, ready yourself with your headphones. Always remember, one side is to listen to the current song playing on air and the other is for listening to your headphone. So, don't use both cups, just have one on. Learn to differentiate both songs. You need to be able to separate both songs. Its is kinda like tapping with one hand and sliding with the other at the same time. 

Cueing and mixing

• The first thing you do is get two songs from the same genre. Try to get two songs that are instrumental. This will be a lot more easier for you to learn to mix as there will not be any vocals to confuse you.
• Let the first song play and prepare to cue the second song. Now, you need to find the first beat of the song. This is very important. Catching the first beat is very simple. Play the second track and when you hear the first beat 'doop' (beat sound), pause the track. Now slowly turn the platter back until you hear the beat sounding 'doop doop doop doop' really fast. This is the sound of the beginning of the beat, the edge. Once you've got that, hit the cue button. Congratulations, you've just got you'r first cue!
• With the advantage of having a bpm counter on either your cdj (most do), you can already pre-drag your pitch control to the desired bpm. It's a matter of getting the perfect pitch. Since we are only gonna learn to beat mix now, don't concern yourself with bar mixing for now. 
• Ok, once you've got your first beat ready, which should be on standby or cue'd and you've pre-adjusted your bpm, lets mix. Listen to the first song playing, time yourself to the beat. I recommend you tapping your hand or feet to the beat. When your ready, on the next beat, hit play. Now because you've already pre-adjusted your bpm, it should sync with the first song or it may just be a little bit off. Ok, so you got the two songs playing,  

For a more detailed explanation, I will post a video soon (cam is broke) on how to cue and mix. 

MP3 and recommended download sites

Lets talk a little bit about DJing with mp3s and using dj software to mix. As you know, mp3 is a very common standard format, though there are many more formats to choose from. There’s really nothing wrong with DJing with mp3. Many will tell you that it’s not cool to DJ with mp3. I will tell you now, It’s way cool. Not only is it cool but it’s also and easy option if your the type who travels constantly. The days of carrying around heavy record bags and even CD bags are slowly fading away. All you need these days are basically a simple back pack to carry your laptop and probably your portable hard drive.

Firstly, mp3 formats are available for download on hundreds of sites. Some free and some paid. I will not get into those free sites for reasons you already know of. Here are a couple of sites that I personally use to get many of my songs.

• Beatport -

Beatport is the recognized leader in electronic dance music downloads for DJs and club music enthusiasts. Download high quality MP3s and WAV file formats. Weekly top ten DJ Charts. Buy from 600k+ tracks of House, Techno, Electro, Trance, Drum & Bass, Minimal, Dubstep and ten other dance music genres. Ten free digital downloads to get you started.

• Traxsource -

Traxsource, the hottest source of house music wav and mp3 downloads on the net! Download The future of House

Ok, so those a just a couple of sites I use to buy my stuff. There are many more sites out there. A simple google search will do. When you get into those sites, they offer a few options on download formats. As I stated above, most common will be the mp3 format. Here’s a screen shot of my crate. Have a look on the right side where it shows the format options for downloading.

Now, why I chose mp3 is because they are cheaper and easier to carry around. Unlike vinyls and don’t get me wrong, I love vinyls (I have loads of them at home, where I still listen to them), they offer easier portability whether you burn them onto cds or use a software. I remember, I used to order vinyls online and had to wait for weeks for them to arrive. I just couldn’t wait for them. Now, a few clicks and it’s on my desktop, ready to be played. The other benefit is that you can burn your mp3 files directly onto a cd and directly play them on almost all CDJs out there. The newer models now allow you to play mp3 formatted cds. Isn’t that awesome?!

I’ll be talking about dj software on my future  post. Till then, see you soon and take care!