Electronic Music
Mixers, controllers and where to start behind the decks, plus sound design in Live and a home studio that behaves itself. The festival dispatches have retired to the Vaults.
18 articles
Playing Out: Soundcheck, Reading the Crowd and Going Back-to-Back
What goes in the bag, matching the last DJ's levels, reading a room, the backup playlist, stage presence, and the rules for going back-to-back.
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DJM Effects Explained: Colour FX, Beat FX and Slip Mode
Every colour FX and beat FX on a DJM-900NXS2, what each is for, the order of operations on the hardware, the dos and don'ts, and slip-mode tricks on the CDJ.
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Getting Heard: Social Media, Mixes, Press Pictures and Gigs for DJs
Social media that doesn't eat your week, mixes people finish, networking that works, press pictures and a bio, and the one message that gets a warm-up slot.
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Back Up Your rekordbox Library, and Practise With One Hand
How to back up and restore a rekordbox library, keep it findable with My Tag and intelligent playlists, and the one-handed drills that fix your hand order.
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How to Record a DJ Mix, and Master It for Upload
Four ways to record a DJ mix, planning a set from rekordbox histories, how to review a mix, and mastering it to -10 LUFS for Mixcloud and SoundCloud.
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How a DJ Booth Is Wired, and How to Beatmatch by Ear
Wire CDJ-3000s and a DJM mixer with PRO DJ LINK, beatmatch with the screens covered, read phrases in the waveform, and know exactly where to mix in and out.
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DJ Etiquette, and Your First 40-Minute Set
How to play a recorded 40-minute set like a gig, and the etiquette that gets you booked again: arrive early, respect the slot, and hand over without dead air.
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Mixing Across Genres: Hard Cuts, Double Drops and Acapellas
How house, techno, drum & bass, hip-hop and disco each want to be mixed, plus clean hard cuts, swapping drops on the downbeat, and layering acapellas in key.
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Hot Cues, Memory Cues and Active Loops: A Clean Mix on CDJs
Set hot cues, memory cues and active loops in rekordbox, format a USB any CDJ reads, set trim by the meters, and when to use quantize and master tempo.
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CDJ Firmware, rekordbox Updates and Beatmatching Without a Screen
Why a USB that worked last week won't load tonight, carrying CDJ firmware on your stick, saving My Settings, and the drill that makes the screen optional.
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Ten Ways to Mix Across a Big Tempo Change
Ambient bridges, wide-tempo slowdowns, vinyl brakes, delay outs, spinbacks, washes, rolls and sync loops: ten ways to move between tempos without a train wreck.
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How to Set Up rekordbox and Take Your First Mix to the CDJs
Where DJs buy music, setting up rekordbox, fixing beat grids, the Camelot wheel, exporting to USB, and every control on a CDJ-3000 and a DJM mixer.
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Top DJ Mixers in Today’s Market
Top DJ Mixers in Today’s Market Years ago I had the original Made 2 Fade two channel mixer – it's far, far away from the technology used today in DJ mixers. My creation hardly featured any EQs. Nevertheless, it was hardly of any importance at the time, since the mixing was more like a piano having b
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5 DJ Tips for Beginner DJs
In the ancient era, all that DJs required were some promising skills along with an appropriate demo tape and a few great records which helped them in luring promoters to book them. Nevertheless, everything has changed now, ever since the internet has come into the picture with a notable evolution in
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Sound Design with Macro Variations in Live 11
By Heinrich Zwahlen The ability to store the state of Macro Controls as preset variations in Racks has drastically increased the functionality of these already...
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Best Midi Controllers for Producers on the Move
The excuse of being ‘stuck in the studio’ can be a poor one. For electronic music producers and DJs, portability is key to a successful career. For example do you remember the dancefloor killer ‘Groovejet’ by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis Bextor? Well not only did it go to number one in 4 countries selling 600k in the UK alone, but also the track name comes from the fact the instrumental was made on a plane!
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Music Video Ideas for Artists — That Aren’t Music Videos
Did you know that YouTube traffic makes up nearly a ⅕ of ALL internet traffic? Similarly, quite a bit of that is music consumption. It’s also common for labels to upload an audio tracks as video for YouTube,
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DIY Home Recording Studio Tips
As early as 2010, if you wanted to put together an album you were pretty much forced to shell out cash to a local recording studio. Or, even worse, you pretty much needed a record deal with a label of some sort.
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