Your first 10 minutes on DJ Decks | Beginners Tutorial
About the DJ post
I know when I started DJing I wanted to find a video explaining the absolute basics. The majority of the videos on you tube were more advanced videos for different mixing techniques. There are one or two good videos for beginners but none of them were for people who have first laid their eyes on DJ deck and are thinking “where on earth do I start”. So I wanted to make a quick video for those people who have plugged in their deck for the first time and have no idea where to begin. This is your first 10 minutes on DJ Decks.
In the video above I cover things such as
1.The basics of how DJ works; bringing in one track while the other is playing.
2.The cue button and what exactly it does.
3. The different ways to move the track forwards or backwards. This can be done with the jog wheel or the track pad.
4. The effect knobs and how they work.
5. The filtering system and how you can cut the bass or high frequencies of the track.
6 The volume faders.
7 How to listen to one track while another track is playing.
The video does not cover any advanced techniques or even how to do anything practical on the decks. This is because there are already videos out there that explain this better than I probably can. This is just a video to outlines the basics of what everything does and why those knobs are there.
This is a guide for people who have just plugged in their decks and don't know where to start.
How do I listen to one track while another is playing?
This is the thing that took me a while to work out and the main reason I made this video. Perhaps some people worked it out in seconds but for me it was a case of just pressing everything and slowly but surely working out exactly how it works. There will be a lot of this at the start anyway but hopefully this video will speed up the process a bit.
The secret to hearing a track while another track is playing is in the CUE button in the fader section. What you need to do is plug your headphones in, turn the volume all the way down on the fader and press the CUE button. Then when you press play, no sound will come out of your big speakers but it will come out of your headphones. This is where having two sides of the decks comes in really handy as one track can be playing out to your audience while you are (secretly) listening to the next track. This will give you time to work out what part of the second song you want to play, or where you want to start the second song from. You can get the tempo or BPM in alignment with the song that is currently playing and even practice beat matching, all without your audience knowing. Then when you are ready, bring up the volume fader and play the track for everyone to hear you mix the two tracks together.
If you have any questions at all, dont hesitate to get in touch and I can help.