DJing

How to learn the basics #

Club ready DJ school - online courses
We are crossfader - genre-specific online courses
Electronic music school – offline in Berlin and Köln

What gear to use #

At the moment my setup is two XDJ 1000 mk2, one XDJ 700 and DJM 750 mk2 mixer. It's a rather luxurious setup to have at home, but I invested into it to be able to take it to parties. All of the gear was purchased second-hand, and on top of that I had to do a DIY repair job on the XDJ 700.

I started out with simpler gear though: Akai MPC40 MK2 -> Pioneer DDJ-400 -> Denon SC Live 4 -> Pioneer DDJ-1000. DDJ-400 is a lovely and cheap piece of kit that I can highly recommend. Here's a starter kit that is affordable and fun:

A laptop or a computer. Alternative: a tablet or a phone with Algoriddim Djay.
Pioneer DDJ-400 as a controller. It is still easy to find one used for ~130-150€. DDJ-FLX4 is its newer version.
Any headphones, ideally DJ-specific. Sennheiser HD-25/AIAIAI TMA-2 are the default choice. A bit pricey but simple fix and customize over time.
Any affordable speakers, ideally studio monitors. Older, used models work perfectly fine (ADAM T5V, JBL 305p or KRK Rokit 5).
Optional: a USB stick from a known brand for when you want to DJ without a controller. I use SanDisk Dual Drive because it has a USB-C as well as regular USB connector.

I use Rekordbox which is the default software for Pioneer gear, but there's also Serato, Traktor and a few other major brands.

How to organize the library #

A screenshot of the proposed folder structure on Mac with the sources folder open as an example

All of the music lives in a single crates folder with the following structure:

sorted

{artist} - {track}.mp3

sources

{amazon,beatport,bandcamp,itunes,patreon,vinyl,...}

{platform name} {date}

waitlist

{downloaded folder}

sorted is a flat folder with all the tracks that I processed, sources folder contains the "original" files grouped by platform and waitlist contains copies of all new music before it is processed and moved to sorted.

I buy music in batches of 10-15 tracks, so the folders are normally called something like sources/bandcamp/bandcamp-2023-11-03, except for the vinyl – there the subfolders are named after the record sources/vinyl/Four Tet – Rounds.

Step-by-step #

All downloaded music goes under the waitlist folder
Then I process the waitlist in batches:
- Unarchive and remove all zip files and non-music files that often come with a purchase
- Convert all wavs to mp3 using ffmpeg:
  - find . -type f -name "*.wav" -exec sh -c 'for f do ffmpeg -i "$f" -codec:a libmp3lame -b:a 320k "${f%.wav}.mp3"; done' sh {} +
- Download the artwork, the label, the album name and the release year for each of the tracks with One Tagger
- Analyze the key and energy of the track using Mixed In Key.
When I'm ready to move new music to Rekordbox:
- Create a playlist under Incoming folder and name it after the current date
- Drag all the waitlist files to sources, and from there to the new Rekordbox playlist
- Analyze BPM, correct the beatgrid and set memory cues
- Add genres. I use 7-8 very broad genres that I typically play (Jungle, UKG, Bass, Dubstep etc)
- Correct artist names and song titles to be easily searchable

I avoid moving full albums into the sorted folder, except thematic Various Artists compilations, as it quickly turns my Rekordbox collection into chaos.

Collection management tutorials #

My process was inspired by the following videos:

Some more experience of other people:

Rekordbox & Music Organization Workshop Slides by Lychee, Aaron J, Sobolik
- Deep dive into music library management with practical examples from three DJs: cue color system, playlist systems, hard drives and backups etc
- Different takes on genre(-agnostic) systems
How I organize my playlists for gigs by spceboi

👉 Please, send me any materials that provide an insight into people's workflows, I'm super interested in that!

Collection management software #

Onetagger is free, open-source and otherwise awesome
Lexicon is paid but is worth the money
Crate hackers
Platinum Notes and Mixed in key
Music library tools a bunch of expensive scripts, didn't buy
Picard
Beatunes
Songkong
Musicbee
mp3tag
Swinsian <--- Looks really promising, I'd like to try

Terminal tricks #

To compare the contents of two folders (i.e. when comparing sources to sorted):

diff -rq folder1 folder2

Transition tricks #

Playing live #

Resident Advisor – The Art of DJing
- Avalon Emerson - Track filtering

Semi-DIY standalone controllers #

A few people attempted to create standalone devices to pair with controllers to avoid DJing with a laptop. Haven't tried any of these yet, but could be a nice option:

Tips for buying music #

Bandcamp Enhancement Suite adds waveform display, volume control, hotkeys, quick preview and a few more features
Bandcamp Tempo Adjust adds BPM detection and controls to the page
Expansive digging methods with Discogs is a nice tutorial on discovering new music by CCL

Open decks events in Berlin #

Open decks & Ping Pong at Humboldthain club, Wedding, Tuesdays, vinyl-only
Open decks at Roderich, Pankow, Thursdays
Eddy Breaks – D&B and UK bass at KvU and Drugstore
blanq slate at Zur Klappe, Yorkstraße

Streaming setup #

Which is the right tool for streaming? explains multiple ways to set up DJM-REC standalone or with iRig