How long have you been djing?

I have been spinning in clubs and on radio since 1986. My first mixer was the Radio Shack basic black mixer sold in the mid 80’s
my first turntables were Technics 1700’s
with Shure carts

Was a DJ hating jazz saxophonist for 10 years, then a bastard DJ moved into my house, I thought that kinda looks like fun. Now I DJ for a living.
Whoda thunk it.

Im on my 7th year now. The tips I have for you are:

1) Practice (if you haven’t read that already).

2) Try to get industry standard equipment. Believe it or not, adapting to equipment is not an easy task at first. I started on Numark Pro TT 2’s and my first public gig was on 1200’s. I’ll never forget that night, I was nervous as heck and probably not as good as I had been in my bedroom.

3) Be yourself. Play the music that best describes you. The music that you absolutely love to hear. Do NOT let the haters steer you away from it either. Don’t be the DJ that plays a certain style/genre because its trendy. People can see through the act if it isn’t true.

4) Don’t give up. Some people are gifted and pick it up in months, some of us, not as quick. Staying with it will reap rewards down the road.

Good luck!

my start was 2000…strictly vinyl…by now we also play some cds, too….but the main selection is still vinyl….when we play we have just up to 5 cds…but we still practice a lot

10 long years, can flip numerous genres, but not like a wedding dj or some wack ish like that. I teach at the Scratch Dj Academy in NYC.

It’s so good to be surrouned by seasoned artists.

15 years here as well. Aside from just "practice", which we all do at home… practice with an audience or record EVERYTHING for a while and play it back while driving or cleaning the house, etc.

We’re probably all guilty of poor practice and backing up tracks when we make mistakes. Of course, we don’t do that live, so doing that at home isn’t always in our best interests. Alot of really cool grooves are bred from mistakes and accidents. Roll with it.

And from above – I, personally, think that vinyl is the only way to start… but this is a new generation. Get what you can afford and move on from there. The general mechanics are universal:

how fast… when do I start… when does it stop… rinse and repeat.

Best of luck to the newcomers. YOU ARE OUR FUTURE!

I´ve been djing now for 14 years…started with scratching and mixing. HipHop as technoid tracks as well. And it´s still the same .
It´s a great "job" , i love it and i will dj till i die. Probably this is a thing that will happen even earlier as i want to…when i play in a club i smoke a lot…*cough*
Have a nice weekend…
PS: Sorry for my bad english

7 yrs playing out….practice and different music

[quote quote="lalataksha":w5hbb5fg]but really i dont "practice" that much but i still love to play and i can beatmatch fine. i also dont like over practicing. i’d rather be somewhat rusty for a few minutes than be totally sick of all my tracks. no rush i am only 20.

plus can you really call it "practice" when its something you love to do? i just do it and i am getting better. thats all[/quote:w5hbb5fg]

theres never a thing called over practising… ive just come out of a 1 month dry patch my mixing was awfull but i kept at it and now im back better than i was before. if your sick of all your tracks practise something else with them… mix with loops, learn scratch techniques…. how do you think eddie halliwell got where he is??

Awesome….Practice is the go!!!!

umm nearly 2 1/2 years now, not including mucking around on software for a few years before that….

ive been djing nearly 7 years now

wow thats gone quick!

16 years…..

Almost a year
But i’m not that old yet ..

11 Years total and 9 years since i first DJ’ed in a club

Wow it sounds like ages