Also see: How to mix records.

To begin with I feel I must give all wannabe DJs a bit of a warning. DJing is not cheap. DJing should not be used as device to look cool or pick-up chicks. If you want to DJ you need to be prepared to invest some serious money in it and, please, do it for the love of the music!

Basic Equipment

  • Two turntables: Turntables come in two forms; belt drive and direct drive. Belt drive mechanisms are only used in cheap (sub £200) turntables and unless you're really strapped for cash I suggest you choose direct drive. If you've got the money then a pair of Technics SL 1200/1210 are well worth it, not because they're the best but because they're the industry standard. You can pick up a pair for around £700 at places like http://www.sapphires.co.uk. Any direct drive will do though; you can always buy better equipment as you get more addicted to DJing.
  • A mixer: Mixers come in many forms are range in price from around £80 to over £1000 for those with a silly number of channels. For basic DJing as long as it's solid, has two channels and a fader it'll do just fine. More advanced mixers include hamster switches, kill buttons and 3+ channels.
  • A pair of headphones: Easy enough to come by. Prices range from around £10 to over £100. The only real thing to watch out for is how powerful they are. When you've got music coming out of the speakers and other noises to distract you, you'll need a pair of headphones that can play really loud.
  • An amp and speakers: If you're just playing in your bedroom then any half decent hi-fi will do. If you're looking to play parties and medium-sized venues then you'll need a proper amp and speakers. Basic amp and speaker packages start at around £400.
  • A fan: Sounds silly but DJing is sweaty work. You'll need a fan. Trust me on this one.
  • A record collection: This is the most important thing at what really sets you apart from all the other DJs. Your record collection is unique to you and only you. I first got started in DJing through my love of vinyl and to play even a 2-hour set you could be looking at playing 50+ records. The other equipment sounds expensive but it's all easily replaced, a record collection can never be fully replaced. I find to keep up with the latest music I need to buy at least 10 records a week and sometimes a lot more.
  • Flight casing for all of the above: If you intend to play anywhere other than your own house it's advisable you get your stuff flight cased. This can easily add 25-50% to the amount you've got to pay for a basic set-up but it's well worth it.

       .-----------.          .-----------.
       | Turntable |          | Turntable |
       '-----------'          '-----------'
       |                      |
       |      .---------.     |
                            '------|  Mixer  |-----'       .------------.
                                   '---------'-------------| Headphones |
                                        |                  '------------'
        .---------.
       .------|   Amp   |-----.
       |      '---------'     |
       |                      |
       .---------.            .---------.
       | Speaker |            | Speaker |
       '---------'            '---------'
         Figure 1: Basic set-up

Of course, this is only the very bare basics. You might want to eventually buy CD and MiniDisc decks, a microphone, a mixer with more channels or features, etc. It all adds up.

Another thing to consider is the size of your set-up. Don't forget that if you want to play outside your own home then you'll have to transport all your gear there. 2 people, flight-cased turntables, CD decks, mixer and amp, fan, huge speakers and 3 boxes of records in a Renault 5 is a tight squeeze. Trust me, I've tried it.

Vinyl, CD, MiniDisc or .mp3?

These days you can DJ with practically any music format. Companies like Pioneer make superb CD decks that have all the usability of vinyl and far more features. There are also programs such as Virtual Turntables by Carrot Innovations for the PC that allow you to DJ without any physical DJing equipment. Fantastic.

However, I would suggest you stick with vinyl at first. Vinyl is easy to use, the sound quality is unparalleled and all house music is released on vinyl way before it's released on other formats. In fact, a lot of stuff only comes out on vinyl. In addition to this, if you get good and get the chance to DJ at a club you're guaranteed to have a pair of SLs in house but you can never be garenteed of a decent pair of CD decks. Vinyl is the industry standard and learning to use it well is the most important DJing skill, apart from knowing a good record. I could write a whole essay here about the way vinyl seems to have a certain soul and character to it, which digital formats seem to lack. But I won't.

Mixing

Mixing is an art all of it's own and needs a lot of practice to get good at. The best advice I can give is to have a go and don't worry about messing things up every now and again. You'll have it mastered in no time.

Spreading the word

Now that you know how to DJ, you'll no doubt want to play publicly. The best way to start is to play, for free, at your friends' houses. Everyone likes to have a live DJ at his or her birthday/house party and this is where you come in. If you're good the word will soon get around that you're for hire and placing ads in the local paper might help too. You could even try approaching pubs and small local clubs as they sometimes hire. If you're at school or at university then you're in a superb position. Schools are always organising events for their students and a free DJ is always welcomed. Universities and their unions/bars always need DJs to play and they'll usually give anyone with a bag full of records a go if you ask nicely. If you're good they might even hire you full time. Just remember to be friendly to everyone you meet and have fun!
This is only a very basic guide and really the best way to learn is to ask anyone you already know who DJs. They'll know the best place to pick up equipment in your area and if they're nice (and most amateur DJs are) they'll no doubt let you have a go with their equipment before you splash out hundreds of pounds/dollars/francs/turnips on something you might find you have no real interest in after all.
I figured I would throw in my 2 cents. I am not a DJ, but my job puts me in daily contact with both "superstar" and bedroom DJs alike, so I can at least relay their advice.

If you think you want to DJ, get a cheap pair of Numark or Gemini decks first, just to see if you can do it, and have the patience to do so. If you find yourself getting bored with it, or just can't seem to do it, don't go any further and get a pair of 1200s and a decent mixer.

If you manage to stick with it, get some 1200s secondhand, if they're well taken care of, they'll be good as new. That way you can blow more money on a good cartridge like the Ortofon Concorde, (called such due to it's resemblance to the airliner), or one of the Shure models. A good mixer is a must, you can use it for years later..don't get a low-end mixer and expect to make money off of it, it will more than likely break during your first party or event. Invest in something like the Pioneer DJM-600 or the Rane 2016. Six grand'll get ya an Allen and Heath Xone:V6 tube mixer, the current gold standard! That one's more of an install mixer, I just listed it for factual reasons.

As far as amps and speakers, rent until you can get some cash together for a good, solid system. Don't go with the self-powered cabinets like the JBL EON series, the sound quality is mediocre at best. Go with 2 nice amps, Crown K2, or QSC Powerlight series, and get some decent EAW or standalone JBL cabinets. If you're scrounging for change, just get the full-range cabinets and invest in subwoofers later on.

As far as getting gigs, start out the obvious way. Do house parties and such, but try not to compromise your style. You want people to hire you as being a house/trance/breaks/whatever DJ, not a human jukebox. Record demo CDs, and pass them out at clubs, festivals, try to leave a few in the flyer section of your local vinyl outlet. Send them out to booking agents, promoters, and regional clubs as well. Go to the Winter Music Conference in Miami, pass them out to everyone! People love free stuff. Post mixes online wherever you can, from dance music oriented chatrooms, to club message boards, and DJ forums. If you're good, you'll get booked at some point.

Good luck!
The equipment advice listed by Mr. Tunney is sound, but I feel it is inappropriate for the node how to DJ. Perhaps it should be listed under something like “Gear needed to DJ” or something, as this tells you very little about the actual technique of beatmatching and mixing.

I’ll do my best to illuminate further on this specific topic, in light of techno/house/acidhouse DJing, and give pointers on how to get started, although this is a daunting task. It’s rather like trying to write a manual on how to bicycle. You just have to do it.

First, if you’re burning and itching to get into DJing. DON’T SPEND GOBS OF MONEY ON IT FIRST. You may not like it, and it’s not for everyone. If you dream of being an unholy arrogant rock star god of the wheels of steel, do yourself and dancers everywhere a favor and go buy a guitar. Forget about DJing. The electronic music dance movement, IMHO, doesn’t need any more rock stars, and tends to reject them anyway. It’s just not about that, at all.* It’s about the music. No amount of attitude, arrogance, or drugs will make the music you play, and the mixes you instigate, sound better. Only excellent records and skill will do this. 90% of being a DJ is the procurement of records, once the skills are acquired.

( * This is one of the main reasons I became involved with this musical subculture, a bit over a decade ago now. The ‘artists’ and ‘performers’ were rarely differentiated from the ‘audience’. Usually performers were right down on the dance floor, behind or between some ungodly pile of speakers.)

Humbly find someone who knows what the hell is up. Approach DJ’s whose style and musical tastes you like, and ask questions. (Preferably not in the middle of their set. It’s really, really hard to beatmatch and mix well while some fool is drooling over your records and turntables and asking gobs of questions.) However, DO watch what they do, and DO “trainspot”. Become familiar with the equipment, the process, the titles and labels the DJ plays. I still trainspot. It’s the only way to find the really dope shit, musically speaking. You hear something you like, you go see what it is. Talk to the DJ after (or even before) his or her set. Many DJ’s are quite friendly, enjoy feedback and interaction, and like helping someone else get involved. It justifies the massive amounts of time and money they’ve wasted on their addiction. Addiction loves company, you know?

This is the only point I’ll make about hardware, mostly in rebuttal to Mr. Tunney’s comments. Yes, the Technics SL-1200 MK2 turntable is industry standard. Yes, it is a mouth wateringly sexy piece of hardware. If computers were designed as well as this turntable, we’d all have pocket supercomputers that never crashed or lagged, that are waterproof, and could be used to hammer nails into concrete all day long. The SL-1200 is just that good. They’re tanks. You can (but don’t!) stand on the platter, hit the play button, and it will slowly begin to spin you up to 33.3 RPM. They are also expensive. The absolute lowest, genuine verified price I’ve ever seen for them new, in the box, factory sealed was about $400.00 US dollars, each. So, two of those, and a decent mixer will set you back about $1000-1250 US. That’s not including an amplifier, speakers, headphones, slip mats, record needles and cartridges, or even records*. Ouch, huh?

(* An excellent friend of mine who really knew what he was doing with these things spent about fifty grand on records in about two and a half years. He could have bought a house, but instead he’s got a bit over ten thousand pieces of delectable, rare, and top quality experimental acid/house/techno vinyl, a tiny room packed with records and no bed, and a really crappy car.)

There is a cheaper solution for a DJ rig, and perhaps an even better one at that. Go scour swap meets, thrift stores and pawn shops for ANY turntable that allows pitch control. Don’t spend more than 10 bucks for it, unless it works exceptionally well and has an intact cartridge, head shell, and needle. (A decent cartridge and needle combo is 15-150 bucks, each. Remember you need pairs.) Realistically, you can put together a flimsy little practice rig, with an amp and some speakers, for under 100 bucks. I know, I’ve done it a dozen or so times now, for myself and friends.

And, there’s a hidden benefit to this. If you can learn to mix and beatmatch reliably on some POS, sloppy as hell DJ rig, you’ll rock on a set of 1200’s. You’ll be used to cueing your records on some jittery, bouncy floating beltdrive platter that takes 15 seconds to get to speed. You’ll get used to riding the pitch on some tiny-ass knob that’s nearly impossible to control, and the lag time from twisting the knob to the time for the platter to compensate accordingly could be counted in multiple seconds. This is actually a benefit.

Imagine you’re training for a triathlon. You ride a rusty-chained huffy beach cruiser with halfway flat balloon tires. You jog the beach in oversized, untied combat boots. You swim in sweatpants and sweatshirt. You train like a madman with this sad excuse for gear. Come competition day, you switch to a 4 pound graphite-composite bike with a waxed drive-train, shoes that are Kevlar-soled sprinters that are weighed in grams and a shark-skin drag reducing swim suit. Suddenly, you’re a god among mere mortals, and after all that slogging you feel like an exceptionally fine tuned machine.

Embrace this, and you’ll be able to DJ anywhere, on anything, with any media. You’ll never, ever complain about some beat up 1200 with a spotty pitch control, or having to use something other than a 1200, ‘cause the chances are it’s better gear then you’ve got at home. (I’ve met way too many DJ’s that are prima donnas, and practically refuse to DJ on anything but a freshly unboxed pair of Technics 1200’s. So sad. A true DJ can use anything and I mean anything. Tape decks with speed control, reel-to-reel machines, computers, CDs, MiniDiscs, mp3s, sampler boxes, crappy belt-drive turntables. ANYTHING.

(Sorry, so far, this has turned into yet another tirade about equipment. Without further ado, specific advice about how to DJ.)



Sequence of actions for a basic beatmatch and mix, with a slight focus on the how and why of doing it live.

First some statements: For this exercise, we’ll state that Turntable #1 is on the left as you face the rig from the operator’s position. Turntable #2 is on the right, and each turntable is plugged into it’s respective channels - Channels #1 and #2, which correspond to the left vertical volume slider for channel #1, and the right for channel #2. This is obvious, but needs to be stated.

We will also be assuming this is occurring in a live audience environment.

Track (X) is playing on turntable #1, and has been playing for approximately 45 seconds. Turntable #2 is empty, the tone arm set aside on it’s stand. By looking at how much groove is left for track (X) to end, and noting how much groove has been consumed, you guesstimate that there are approximately 4 minutes and 30 seconds of track (X) remaining. You also note to yourself that you actually want to begin and then finish your mix much sooner than that. This is because (A), there is a interesting break and shift in the patterns of the song in approximately 2 minutes, and (B), track (X)’s complexity of rhythm, sound and melody gradually decrease from said interesting point onward. You note that the dance floor is grinding, and the last thing you want to do at this particular moment is dwindle into minimalist ambience.

(Though other times, that would be the perfect break to tease the crowd with. Just not this time. You just know it’d be wiser to take it up a notch at this point. People are looking at you, wanting more. Some are even waving their hands in a manner that seems to say, “Up! Push it up, please, Mr. DJ man!”, pushing their palms at the ceiling. You know you should usually give them what they want, and occasionally only what they need, else you’re breakfast fodder.)

You go to select your next track, searching with the thoughts in mind of what is in range, what would create an interesting and new sound with this, and where it is you’re going next. Like chess. Think as many moves in advance as you can, but be prepare to rapidly adapt and react to the dynamic situation. You’ve found your next track, a terse, simple, almost minimalist but thumping and grindingly bass heavy floor-stomper.

Knowing your records, you know the track (Y) you’ve just selected is a bit slower than track (X) that’s currently playing. You know because these two tracks have played together before. Coming up to face the rig after likely squatting on the floor to browse your record bag, you note the pitch control slider of turntable #1 is sitting at about +2.5%. You know that track (Y) is about –2.25% slower than track (X). You set the record containing track (Y) on turntable #2, and visually check the state of the mixer’s controls to make sure turntable #2 is not live, or sending, and drop the needle part-way into track (Y). You also set turntable #2’s pitch control to a rough placement of about +4.75%.

You put on your headphones. For this, one ear or both ears is user preference. You’re simply listening to track (Y), ignoring track (X) that’s blaring all about you. You listen for the downbeat in track (Y), or any convenient rhythmic point you can match to track (X)’s similar rhythm signature. You float your hand over the record on the far side of the tone arm, giving yourself enough room to backslide once you’ve grabbed the edge of the record by simply placing your fingers on the edge of the record and preventing the record from spinning with the turntable. (This may be obvious, but you need a slip mat for this.)

You’ve found your downbeat, and you grab the record. You slide it back and forth a bit, backing the downbeat backwards and forwards under the needle, noting where the beat actually begins in relation to your hand position. You may want to readjust your hold point for easier point finding.

Now you listen to track (X), on turntable #1, continuing to hold the record with the needle resting just before the downbeat you’ve just selected. If you need both hands free, keep holding the record and slap the start/stop button, waiting for the platter to stop completely, and leaving the tone arm in the groove.

If you have a pre mix cue on your mixer, use it. (We won’t get into that here. I’ll assume if you have it, you can use it.) If you have monitors near your rig, you’re lucky. If you have none of these, you’re listening to track (X) on the PA speakers. Keep one ear in the headphones, and one ear out there listening to track (X). (Some people find one ear works better than the other for each task. Remember, each ear sends to a different hemisphere of the brain.)

Prepare track (Y) for cueing, one hand holding it, the other hand on turntable #2’s pitch control.

On the downbeat of track (X), release track (Y) to synchronize the two downbeats. You sort of toss the record forward in time, helping the record accelerate rotationally from 0 RPM to somewhere near 33.3 or 45 RPM.

You should immediately have a hand on the pitch control of turntable #2. If you’ve gotten a good synch off of your release, it might not be apparent immediately which way turntable #2 needs to be adjusted.

Adjust and tweak, adjust and tweak. Your goal is a beatmatch between the two turntables and records that stays within 1/32nd of the song’s beat for more than 8-24 measures without adjustment of either of the turntable’s BPM via the pitch control, or touching* the record. This is a solid beatmatch, especially if you can leave them alone for most or all of the song, and they stay more or less in synch.

(*In house/techno, touching the record is baaaaaad. It creates unattractive warping of the music in both tone and tempo. This doesn’t include scratching, but most house/techno DJ’s rarely scratch. See Hip-Hop. This brute force tempo adjustment is called “pushing” and “pulling”, IE, to manually force the record faster or slower. If you need to do this a lot, especially during a mix, you need to practice with the pitch control more. Note that “pushing” and “pulling” are different than “brushing” or “dragging”. Brushing and dragging a very fine, temporary adjustment of the turntable’s RPM by lightly spinning your fingers in the label area of the record to advance the turntable slightly, or lightly dragging your fingers on the label or rim of the turntable to decrease it slightly.)

Ok, so you’ve got a rock solid beatmatch set up, and you’ve done all the preceding in thirty-seconds to a minute’s time, right? Now it is time to play.

Tracks (X) and (Y) are synched nicely. You’ve matched your volume levels without bringing track (Y) in yet, channel #2 is live, but the crossfader is still far left at Channel #1. You know that that interesting break is coming up in track (X) shortly, so you want to start teasing track (Y) into the mix. Although at this point theoretically, and if it was what you desired artistically, you could simply toggle the crossfader back and forth like a hyperactive pong game in time to the beat, neatly splicing track (X) and track (Y) into single beat slices for each track. Sometimes this rocks. Generally, it is to be used sparingly, and with great flourish, style and confidence when it is. In this instance, we’re going to do a subtle and convoluted variation of your basic, and simple, 1 to the 2 crossfade.

Listen to the tracks. What would complement track (X) from track (Y)? Softly bring those parts in, manipulating the crossfader to the right a bit, in time with those parts of track (Y). You’re painting bits and pieces of track (Y) under track (X) at the moment, because you’re not taking the crossfader over more than 10-20% into track (Y). (Once (Y) breaks 51% on the crossfader, it is now over track (X).). Tease it and work it.

You’ve come to a bit in track (X) that’s reminding you that that break is just a few measures away. This part of track (X) has the bass kick drum and all accent percussion fall away, leaving only the melody for about 12 measures of it’s signature. You begin to bring (Y) in, firmly and heavily, timing it to reach about 50-50% on the crossfader as the break in track (X) arrives and (X)’s percussion falls away. The beats mix nicely as you’ve teased it in, and you’ve kept it all in synch with brushing, dragging or slight pitch control touches if at all. Track (Y) takes over the percussion of mix, but the melodies of each track are mixing together still.

Doing bridge gaps like this can be tricky. There’s no reference of tempo other than the melody from track (X), and sometimes you don’t even get that. Here’s where you earn your pay for the evening. If you’ve synched the two records rock-fucking-solid, they’ll give you no trouble, unless the music itself changes pitch*. If not, you need to pay serious attention to what is going on. If they fall out of synch, and track (X) comes back in with a beat over track (Y): Congratulations! You’ve just train-wrecked in front of 3,000 now annoyed dancers! Stay on top of it. It’s like trying to stand and balance on a bowling ball while playing with a yo-yo.

(*This happens, a lot, especially in trance, goa trance, or psychedelic trance. those songs routinely change tempo mid song, and particularly on breaks. Watch for it. Also, it’s easy to train wreck. Drop a record on each table, don’t bother to synch them, and play ‘em at the same time. Train wreck.)

So lets assume you’ll be clearing the breakdown gap in synch, and with ease. You let track (Y) ride solid at about 50%. As the beat that’ll come back in on track (X) approaches, you bring the crossfader almost all the way back over to 100%/0% on tables #1 an #2 respectively. On the measure the beat comes back in on track (X) slam the crossfader back to 50%/50%. (Either know where to stop, or put your free thumb down in the center of the crossfader to slam the crossfader handle into as a stop.)

Play with (X) and (Y). Maybe do some toggle switch cutups or ping-pongs. Play with the EQ. Have fun, work the crowd. Tease the crowd.

Stylishly and artistically fade all the way into track (Y). When you’ve reached 0%/100% on the crossfader, drop channel #1’s volume control to 0%, lift the needle and tone arm off of track (X), and put track (X) away in it’s sleeve and/or your record bag.

You’re done! Select the next record for turntable #1. Repeat the above with interpretive and stylistic variations.




June 6th, 2001 UPDATE:

Though this article was originally written here on E2, specifically for E2, it now has been published with my permission also at eklipzemagazine.com, in the June, 2001 issue now online. (And only slightly edited, whoot!) I've insisted on my credit byline containing my alias, and a mention of everything2.com as the original source. Hopefully this is a good thing. If not, my profuse and advance apologies. I believe the editorial power structure here will hold, regardless.

How to DJ using CDJ equipment

Note: Before reading this, I would highly recommend reading the writeup Loquacious wrote above. He covers the general knowledge of DJing in a far more coherent manner than I could ever hope to be capable of, and it is applicable except for some details to DJing with CDs.

While I've noticed that the art of vinyl DJing is well documented in E2, I notice that the art of DJing using CD's is woefully underrepresented. So allow me to enlighten the community on the particularities of using CDs to DJ.

(Note: This information was compiled and figured out through pure experimentation using a pair of Pioneer CDJ-500 CD players and a metric fuckton of psy-trance CDs. YMMV)

First, we'll be referring to the decks as "CD-A" and "CD-B". All of the basics of vinyl DJing apply, of course, at least in the sense that a track will be playing off CD-A, and that you will be mixing in another track from CD-B.

Now, while CD-A is playing, use the search buttons and the jog dial to find the downbeat on CD-B. You'll want to make sure the crossfader is completely toward CD-A, and that you can only hear CD-B through your headphones. Please note that there are 75 frames per second on a CD, as this slight distinction from vinyl can be important. You'll want the track to be paused when you are close to the downbeat, so that you can search it frame by frame using either the search buttons (a tap will move the track one frame) or the jog dial. The correct frame to cue the track to will either be the frame that you initially hear the downbeat, or the frame immediately before. Once you have it on the correct frame, press the cue button.

OK, remember that really annoying noise you were hearing of the CD player playing one frame over and over again? That should be gone now. If it isn't, you did something wrong.

Now, the play button should be flashing on CD-B. This indicates that the track is cued and ready to go. You have two, possibly three ways of starting the track.

A. Press and hold the cue button. This will play the track for as long as the button is held down, and returns the track immediately to the cue point when released. This is great for when you are beat-matching your tracks, but I wouldn't recommend it for the live mix, unless you have more than two arms.

B. Tap the play button. An important piece of information here is that the track starts when the button button is pressed down, not when it is released. You can return the track to the cue point by pressing the cue button at anytime.

C. Use a fader start. This option is only available using a DJM series mixer with a CDJ series CD player by Pioneer. (Not quite true. Apparently there are a few other mixers and maybe cd players that offer fader start.) This works by turning on the fader start option on your mixer, and then simply moving the crossfader toward CD-B. I personally find this option to be unacceptably inaccurate, in both timing and volume levels. However, since returning the fader completely back to CD-A also returns CD-B back to it's cue point (or vice versa), this option could be used to create some interesting effects.

Now comes the beatmatching part. You'll of course be using either the play or the cue button to start (as you don't want everyone to hear you putting everything together) so go ahead and drop CD-B in your headphones. Instead of pulling or pushing on the record like with vinyl, you'll be using the jog dial to adjust the track. The pitch fader is identical. Note with the jog dial that one rotation always, *ALWAYS* equals one second of time on the CD. You can use this to experiment with 'sliding' the track back and forth, and if you memorize the position of the dial when the track is beatmatched, you can get a pretty good visual representation of the 'drift' between the two tracks by comparing it by how far the jog dial position drifts. Once you have everything beatmatched comes the fun part.

THE MIX!

Again, you have a couple of options. A fader start is a possibility, especially if you feel like teasing the first few measures of CD-B a couple times. If you really feel like getting fancy, you can use the looping function to set up the mix, but that is another subject for another node. Right now we'll concentrate on a straight mix.

If you want to, you can drop the track in your headphones, adjust them, and then fade into the speakers slowly. But with CD decks you have an option that I don't think is feasible on vinyl. (Update: It is feasible.) If it is feasible, CDs certainly make it easier, possessing the ability to drop the beat, at speed, in less than 0.01 seconds.

If you're feeling particularly brave (and skillful) you can try dropping the first beat live.

The first way to do this is, of course, using a fader start, but like I said, this method strikes me as not being very accurate.

The other method is, with CD-B cued (And hence silent. Trust me, check the input levels on your mixer. It is sending *NOTHING* so you can do this.), move the crossfader over until it is where you want it to be when you drop the track. Ready yourself on the play button, and then press it so that it hits bottom at exactly the point where you want the track to drop in.

While this method of mixing sounds *HELLA* cool when done correctly, the problem is that a split-second discrepancy on the drop can mean that you're opening a mix with a trainwreck. Ouch... But like I said, if you're feeling brave it's well worth the risk when you pull it off.

Oh, and one last thing. If some asshat attempts to belittle your skill and dedication to the art due to the fact that you spin CDs, kindly and subtly break their fucking jaw. You've worked just as hard and with as much dedication as any vinyl DJ, and there's no reason why you should take any shite from anyone over your choice of medium. Remember: They had the exact same attitude towards electric guitars when they were first invented. And acoustic guitars are the standard in guitar-based music now, right?

Oh, wait...

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