12 steps to becoming an (amateur) DJ

Normally as a DJ you would learn to mix before accepting a booking and hosting your own weekly show on the best underground radio station in the country. If you’re like Rinse FM’s Sian Anderson and need to learn how to mix quickly as you’ve accepted a booking and feel you can’t continue holding down your show on Rinse without those most basic of DJ skills; here are her 12 steps to becoming an (amateur) DJ!

Mewzikbox : 18.07.10 by Mewzikbox on Mixcloud

It’s been a long time since I’ve hit up Jams blog. *sings* “It feels like foreverrrrr” (is that even a real song)… never mind. As I was saying, it’s been ages and I miss the little image icon thingy that Jam Jam has on the corner of the page when you refresh it so I’m backkkk bishessssssss.

Do we remember the post I did a while ago about having a show on Rinse Fm every sunday? (11am-1pm, lock in… safe). I think I mentioned that I can’t mix records to save my life. I couldn’t. In fact I don’t even think I’d even touched a deck before (Disclaimer: This might be an exaggeration – if you have a pic of me touching a deck then… don’t quote me). So having a show was wicked and I was glad Rinse had given me and Julie the chance to play some exciting new music and chat about… stuff… on their station. Now it’s about six months down the line, (methinks) and Rinse have their legal licence (WHOOP WHOOP) so in celebration of this. And just because I thought it’d be useful and fun to know how, I decided to learn how to mix. If you’re a beginner then listen up, just follow these steps and you’ll be a badderman deejay in NO TIME!

Step 1: Find Skilliam (Rinse FM badder man DJ) and lock him in a room with you and Julie for two hours with CDJ’s and multiple CD’s.

Step 2: Find DJ JJ (Rinse FM’s badder BADDERMAN DJ) and get him to use his connects to magically hook you up with some CDJ’s.

Step 3: Take them home and ring (any which badderman DJ above) and learn how to hook the wires up to the mixers.

Step 4: Stare dumbfounded at the mixers and flashing lights, squint your eyes really hard and try to remember what Skilliam and JJ taught you.

Step 5: I can’t help you with, this is the part where you need to put your musical knowledge, and your concentration along with your common sense together and work out A) Your tune selection. B) The tempos of your tunes C) How all the channels and cross faders work. Play around a little bit, get to know your music properly, every beat, where the beat drops, where the lyrics begin… EVERYTHING and then spend some time getting comfortable with the equipment.

Step 6: Announce on Twitter (tweet tweet) that you’re going to attempt to deejay and then bobs your uncle (INSERT FLYERS HERE) you’re booked at some NEXT HYPE raves.

Step 7: Realise you’re actually moving way to fast for your own good and feel a bit sickly and panic that you’re about to embarrass your whole entire life when you flop the mix in front of everyone at the bookings.

Step 8: PRACTISE! FOR HOURS/DAYS/WEEKS/MONTHS/YEARS (In my case days)

Now I was prepared (and by prepared I mean I hyped so much that I couldn’t back down) I cheated though. I wrote down all the songs I was going to play and practised the hour long set over and over again for four hours straight. I went to the booking and BLAM! The CDJ’s were NOT the ones I had been practising with. CRINGE. I panicked. The amazing DJ Motive calmed my life down and I put my CDs in the mixer and waited… and waited… and waited… and… nothing happened. The CD’s DIDN’T WORK. So as you can guess, that was a flop. (No par to me the profession DJ Complex after me had the same problem).

Step 9: Rant on Twitter about what happened and be a moany cow till the very lovely promoter of The Bang Bang event contacts you and tells you to come to his event later on that day and do the warm up set. Accept it and arrive at your destination.

This is the part where you realise this is NOT your bedroom, the speakers are VERY loud and the decks are up 5 foot 8 high and you’re 5 foot 6. See that the rave is infact a Hip Hop rave and although you have Hip Hop CD’s with you you’ve never mixed Hip Hop in your life, realise the venue is fast filling up and (yup you guessed it)… PANIC.

Step 10: DO THE DAMN THING!

Now I wanted to chicken out. Soooo badly. But I thought “what’s the worst that can happen”. The worst that could happen… happened. The mixers were not starting on beat. I wheeled up the tings dem, cue’d it, and started a funky tune. The left deck decided it was going to start playing automatically and you’ve got the cross fader in the middle so everyone can hear what’s just happened.

Step 11: DON’T PANIC

Everyones seen you now, it’s now or never, in the words of Dizzee Rascal… Fix Up Look Sharp. So I did the damn thing, someone came and tweaked the decks a little bit so the tune started at the right time and I was off! DJ Joel (who was “wow” on the decks) was by my side just in case I flopped and helped me with the mix for the first couple when I did…flop. BUT people were vybzing to my selection! Best feeling in the world (other then the feeling you get when you’re eating red velvet cake… yum) and I played half an hour of funky, grime and dubstep…UNTIL some woman came and asked me to turn it down because she’s “trying to have a conversation and she can’t hear herself think”. I had the pleasure of informing her the bar is now a rave. Had giggle at her frustrated expression and then switched up the set to … HIP HOP.

Step 12: Common sense!

Apply everything you practised at this point. It would be silly to not mix them if possible. I was in the groove and thought “what the heck… I may as well try” and I selected a couple tunes that were similar speed, IT WORKED! I mixed four Hip Hop tunes, perfectly! The DJ Yasmin came. We got chatting. I forgot I was supposed to be mixing and she had to quickly lean over the decks (which were facing me NOT her) and listen into the headphones to hear what tune was next on the CD, mess with the tempo a bit and then the cross fader and then the bass and then the volume and BLAM! the tune mixed. She mixed the tune when all the equipment was facing the other way. In a dim light… I don’t need to say it do I? Yeah I do… BADMAN!

So all in all, I clanged a few times, panicked a few times and mixed perfectly a few times. There was a healthy balance. So whilst you were all (hopefully) locked into the Radio 1 & 1Xtra clash (If you wasn’t listen back here:) I was DJing at my first ever booking. It felt brilliant.

I’ve got a long way to go in learning, and I’m going to try and learn properly because it’s really fun but I have the utmost respect to a lot of DJ’s now, it’s definitely not easy, the pressure, the tune selection, getting the mix right, it might sound simple, but it’s definitely an art, one you have to master. So big up all the DJs. I’m not trying to be a DJ as a career, it’s just loads of fun and I love music so sharing the music I love with other people is very worthwhile to me.

Last night my winning tunes were:
Young Mad B – Superfly
Cleo Sol & Davinche – Addicted
Meleka – Miss Me
Roses Gabor & Redlight – Stupid
Katy B – Katy On A Mission
P Money, True Tiger + Kelly Rowland – Commander
Jay Z – D.O.A
Beyonce – Upgrade U
Cam’rom – Hey Ma
Luniz – I Got Five On It
M.I.A – Paper Planes
Drake Ft Lil Wayne – I’m Going In

That’s all folks.

P.s prize for the person who can correctly guess how many “DJ terms” I used up there. Dun-know-the-lingo.com <http://Dun-know-the-lingo.com>

Catch me here next saturday anyway. It’s going to be wicked (believe I’m practising hard)

Toodles

Posted by Sian at 12:32 pm on July 26th, 2010

Categories: On The Radio, Ramblings, Sian Rants.
1 Comment »