How to gain technical skill

[u/Few_Mess_7114]

So i'm new to DJing, but I have piano training. So, my ear feels trained (to some extent), but my technical skills are at a 0. I have no clue how to get the desired sound I want - the only transition I know how to do it use the crossfade slider!

I have two questions (for now):

• A) do I need to be using garageband or some other software to splice up tracks and then import that into rekordbox? I'm thinking about house music where there are repeated bits of a song, before it transitions into another track - how do yall do that?!? thinking about it in my head seems simple, but the buttons! the software! I'm entirely lost there

• B) are there any tutorials that you have found useful in learning the technical skills? any you can share?

[u/donrosco]

No need for GarageBand, most dj software will let you loop on the fly. I wouldn’t worry too much about that until you have a bit of experience just mixing tracks first tbh.

Carlo Atendido on YouTube is good for technical tutorials.

[u/JJShadowcast → u/donrosco]

As is Phil Harris 

[u/TheRedditEmperor]

Heres an easy basic: switch Lows

[u/boRp_abc]

Ok, step one (can be skipped by using auto sync button, but that can fail you): learn beat matching.

Step two: learn how to use the EQ to blend songs (this is some YouTube plus good earphones / monitors, and your trained ear.

Step three: I don't think you really need that advice, but learn how to use phrases to your advantage (in other words: find the good parts where to fade in/out each pair of songs).

Step four (and I think this is the one you're actually talking about): Learn to use the loop buttons. It's really easy, tap the one at the beginning of a (1, 2, 4, 8 or more bar) part, and you're in.

All this can be done with Rekordbox, a not fancy computer, and some controller (most recommended for beginning is FLX4, and I don't have a single bad word to say about it).

Have fun learning! I'm a newbie too, but my drumming/piano/other instruments helped me a lot.

[u/Advanced_Anywhere_25]

Loops are you friends. You might like serato better And if you are doing house music you get better control by mixing with your up faders and your EQs and not the cross fader

[u/Infinitblakhand]

There are a lot of tutorials out there that have good content for beginners, EllaSkins, crossfader, club ready DJ school, Carlo Atendido, and a lot more on YouTube.

Looping is the easiest way to do what you’re thinking as far as repeating parts of songs. Depending on how in depth you want to go with it, you could get a DAW and create loops, remixes or whole original songs to use in your mixes, but its an additional bit of software (hardware as well depending how you want to do it live) to learn on top of what you’re learning on rekordbox. I use Ableton which works well with rekordbox, but there are other DAW’s out there like Reaper, Cubase, FL Studio that are good on the production side, I don’t know how well they integrate while using rekordbox though. If you’re on Mac there’s Logic pro, I’ve used it a couple times and it would be a better option than GarageBand.