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Topic: Am I a DJ Now? What to do next?

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So I just Dj'd my second house party! *Fist Pump* . The most recent was a New Years party for a friend and a crowd of about 50 people. I have been reading these forums, watching YouTube videos, reading a lot of Digital DJ Tips articles and decided that it was time, all in a one month span. I played for about 4 hours and everyone seemed to like. The people were dancing and wanting to take shots with me all night, I felt like a VIP lol. However, was one malfunction.

A drunk girl came over and tried to scratch the song thinking it would be funny and for some reason this froze the second jog wheel. It just stopped loading songs into VDJ. So, luckily, taking advice from everything I read, I kept spotify open in the background just because I read that you always have a backup plan should something happen. So for a one song I had time it perfectly with spotify until I could reboot VDJ. I couldn't stay mad because she was hot lol.

Now that I have taken the leap, I thought it would be good to share my setup and ask the VDJ forums simply what is next? How did you get to the next level? How many sets did it take?

I went the cheaper route...I think. Here is the setup. Total Cost out of pocket was $125 and of course I used VDJ


Numark MIXTRACK DJ Software Controller - $99 (Brother Brought for Christmas)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003UVASTO/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00


I used this USB Sound Card AMAZING!!! - $8 (Syba SD-CM-UAUD USB Stereo Audio Adapter, C-Media Chipset, RoHS) - It worked perfect for allowing me to distribute sound to my speakers and headphones for monitoring with VDJ.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MSS6CS/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i00

My laptop stand. $22
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AYONXU/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i01

Blue LED Sunglasses - This was for extra flava - GET THEM!! SO cheap! and they work great! $1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002NGDEAW/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00


I used two sets of speakers but these were for more of that flava $59
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ALYGI2/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00


My headphones: They work great for me, not the most stylish though - $35
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GHIPYI/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00

Feel free to ask any questions and give me suggestions (I'm still a beginner). I welcome any feedback good or bad. Maybe link me upgrades.
 
Posted Wed 02 Jan 13 @ 11:34 pm
Just my 2cents:

1) Next step is upgrade to PRO!! Why you may ask..is that situation with the drunk girl. In my experience there's going to be alot of people wanting to scratch, look and obviously its hard to say no all the time;) you are currently using the LE version which is just like a trial to see if you like the software. I'm leaning towards that may be the reason Vdj froze on you. (LE=very limited and not much setting configurations)

2) You got to get some real dj speakers;) At least a decent pair of PA speaker on tripods preferebly.

Hope this was of some help on you're journey. Good Luck!
 
Posted Thu 03 Jan 13 @ 6:50 am
Yeah I used two sets of different speakers and it sounded fine...guess lol. Speakers actually were the most confusing part when I was looking. Do you have any recommendations in a decent price range and portable? Than, that leads to my confusion, do I have to get a mixer or amp to go with the bigger speakers. Thanks!
 
Posted Thu 03 Jan 13 @ 8:21 am
I'm surprised you actually managed to get it loud enough and complete a whole gig with some little computer speakers!

Get yourself some powered (amp built in) PA speakers. They'lll be much more suitable.

I'd suggest paying at least $400 per pair to get something reasonable that won't die within weeks. The more $$$ the better though.

Buy a pair of tripods so you can get your speakers above head height (helps sound coverage).

Then once you have some better speakers, you'll probably notice how bad your sound card is - so get something which has ASIO drivers & at least four outputs (2 x stereo decks) so that it can be used with an external mixer should you upgrade from the Mixtrack later.
 
Posted Thu 03 Jan 13 @ 8:45 am
Yeah I used two sets of speakers. The other set came from a stereo system. In a closed room the sound was good enough.

This sound card seems to be popular?
http://www.digitaldjtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/numark-dj-io.jpg

From the looks of all the advice so far, Speakers and sound card are added to the priority list. Thanks for all the help. I will be trying to make some mixes and re-edits this weekend and create my own spin on current tunes.
 
Posted Thu 03 Jan 13 @ 12:27 pm
GabeTHEGeek wrote :
So I just Dj'd my second house party! *Fist Pump* . The most recent was a New Years party for a friend and a crowd of about 50 people. I have been reading these forums, watching YouTube videos, reading a lot of Digital DJ Tips articles and decided that it was time, all in a one month span. I played for about 4 hours and everyone seemed to like. The people were dancing and wanting to take shots with me all night, I felt like a VIP lol. However, was one malfunction.

A drunk girl came over and tried to scratch the song thinking it would be funny and for some reason this froze the second jog wheel. It just stopped loading songs into VDJ. So, luckily, taking advice from everything I read, I kept spotify open in the background just because I read that you always have a backup plan should something happen. So for a one song I had time it perfectly with spotify until I could reboot VDJ. I couldn't stay mad because she was hot lol.

Now that I have taken the leap, I thought it would be good to share my setup and ask the VDJ forums simply what is next? How did you get to the next level? How many sets did it take?


danielsr2006 wrote :
Just my 2cents:

1) Next step is upgrade to PRO!! Why you may ask..is that situation with the drunk girl. In my experience there's going to be alot of people wanting to scratch, look and obviously its hard to say no all the time;) you are currently using the LE version which is just like a trial to see if you like the software. I'm leaning towards that may be the reason Vdj froze on you. (LE=very limited and not much setting configurations)

2) You got to get some real dj speakers;) At least a decent pair of PA speaker on tripods preferebly.

Hope this was of some help on you're journey. Good Luck!


GabeTHEGeek wrote :
Yeah I used two sets of different speakers and it sounded fine...guess lol. Speakers actually were the most confusing part when I was looking. Do you have any recommendations in a decent price range and portable? Than, that leads to my confusion, do I have to get a mixer or amp to go with the bigger speakers. Thanks!


Hey Gabe I'm more or less in the same position as you. I DJ'd my second gig on New Years too. It was for family and at first I was told there was going to be about 30 people there. It ended up being just 8 of us... depressing that I couldn't get any outsiders feedback but it was still good practice. I've got a MixDeck not a Mixtrack so I'm not messing with sound cards but I did upgrade from LE to pro a few weeks ago. You can try out Pro for 20 days and see what its like. Thats what I did and found I can make play lists and do a lot of the work at home before even doing a gig, so I bought it. You can also get other sound effects and things too.

I also bought a set of Numark speakers when I got the Mixdeck (http://www.numark.com/product/npm5) and they are a lot better then computer speakers, but I would also like to get a real set of PA speakers. The other thing I have found out is I can go rent a set of speakers with stands and everything if I was going to need them for a Hall party or something. Check around town at the music shops and see if any of them rent speakers. I could get a great set up with stands, cables and all for under $100 for a night so its worth checking out.

Do you have a table that you can bring to gig's? I bought a 6 foot one from Wal-Mart that breaks down and folds in half for easy transportation.

Did you do any thing special for requests or did you just play whatever was keeping the party movin? I've been thinking about signing up for the Net search but considering I'm no where close to having a gig every month let alone every weekend it's just going to be a waste of money at the moment. What did you end up playing the most of? Top 40's or house/dance?
 
Posted Fri 04 Jan 13 @ 2:44 am
DJWrenocide wrote :
I've been thinking about signing up for the Net search but considering I'm no where close to having a gig every month let alone every weekend it's just going to be a waste of money at the moment.


I think that if you're a DJ (or even just a music fan) then you'd be buying music on a regular basis anyway.

Second to that, if you have an upcoming gig then you really ought to be aware beforehand of what music you'll need, and make sure you have it (purchased) prior to the event.

Relying on a subscription service where the music is never yours, and also relying on the availability of internet access at the venue, is (IMHO) not the way to do it.
 
Posted Fri 04 Jan 13 @ 9:51 am
Wow, it has been a long time since i been here! Life has been busy with new job and such. Hopefully people won't get mad for reviving a old thread but i never got a chance to answer questions.

@DJWrenocide

"Do you have a table that you can bring to gig's? I bought a 6 foot one from Wal-Mart that breaks down and folds in half for easy transportation."

No, my first gig i borrowed a table from work lol. They let me use it over the weekend. It was turned out to be really small but good enough to hide speakers under. http://cdn.decorpad.com/photos/2010/11/20/ba09f0632378.png

I bought a black drape put it infront of the table to hide the speakers. It looked legit.

Second "Did you do anything special for requests or did you just play whatever was keeping the party movin?"

I actually downloaded a list of the top 200 most requested songs. Also I pay spotify $10 a month for their service. They have a offline feature that you can use to play music. (Use this only as backup) and it takes some trickery to time the music to bounce between two different programs.
 
Posted Mon 10 Jun 13 @ 8:14 pm
Where can I upload and share my mixes with friends?
 
Posted Mon 08 Jul 13 @ 9:31 am
 
Posted Mon 08 Jul 13 @ 10:08 am
 
Posted Mon 08 Jul 13 @ 2:00 pm


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