Must play CDJs to get work?

[callmeyo]

Hey team!

its been a while i know. but i'm back and ready to get all up in your bizniss!

A rookie question i need some honest answers on.

I live in Sydney.

I need to start djing, i'm not bad have a good song collection and need the cash.

Only thing - i think im not getting work cause my set up is too difficult to cater for.

I currently use 2 x 1200s Turntables with serato.

What club offers that setup? not many, if any.

So my question is..

Do i need to fork out $1.5K - $2K to get my self some CDJs to train myself up on, to start getting some work?

Is my set up too difficult to cater for? Especially when starting out?

[SolDios]

I think someone on the forum is selling 350's, or there's always 800's if you want a bigger platter

il let the other guys drive this train though, they will be able to give you better advice.

[pundaddy]

For that price range, and if you're looking to learn on CDJ's, definitely give 350's or a good 2nd hand pair of 400's some serious consideration, both sturdy, wonderful beginner setups that make the step up to models such as 900's/850's/2000's a breeze.

[Cupe]

I think she's more talking about is it WORTH getting CDJ's at all given the current industry leaning towards CDJ's in clubs

Most large clubs have cdj's and vinyl turntables so it just depends, though alot of the time, cdj's will get you in more doors (correct me if I'm wrong) because most clubs will have CDJ's more than any other gear

[imadje]

^spot on Cupe.

It's sad but true: new clubs don't buy technics and old clubs have often packed them away to make space for more CDJ.

If you don't have gigs yet it's a big outlay for a CDJ rig but.

Can you practise on anyone elses CDJs and see how how hard it will be to transfer your skills? You may feel confident enough to go for gigs while saving up for your own pair.

You'll still have to check you can bring in your serato kit though, management and sound tech will want to know you are capable of putting stuff back the way you found it for the next DJ.

[Jaz]

do you have any friends that have CDJ's?

by the sounds of it you just want to learn on them them piss them off, if thats the case it might be hard on your wallet so finding someone else's to learn off might be a better option...

[djbagz]

i hate cdjs....suxxx

[SourceRaver]

If you want to be readily employable, CDJs are the way to go. It wont take you long if your already familiar with turntables. I think you could probably borrow/hire some and a fews hours practise would be enough. If your going to buy some, I'd recommend 850s due to the larger platter, USB input and access to Rekordbox. For less money, grab some 400s 0r 350s. Moving from a smaller platter to a larger platter is very easy.

Remember - TTs have infinite pitch resolution, a tiny change in the pitch slider will correspond to a tiny change in pitch. CDJs have a set pitch resolution (ie up and down in set increments) so a tiny change to the pitch slider may not result in a change to pitch. This bugged me at first but you learn to deal with it pretty quickly. All the CDJs mentioned above have the same pitch resolution as the top the range Pioneer media players.

[lloydc]

What club offers that setup? not many, if any.

ISWYDT

my advice would be to hire some decks for a weekend (or even mid week) and use serato with control cds.

the transition shouldn't be to hard, and you should be able to mix in the same way with a cdj as you do with the 1200s (in fact it should be easier once you get the feel for them)

if you find it's easy enough, just pack both control vinyl and cds into your bag and use what ever is available.

[Skank]

there are a few clubs ive played at that support that set up candies, saphire, e11even, helm bar, collectors, establishment, i think its more about your ability to set up without the engineer loosing hes shit at you i was pretty much told never to touch the back of the mixer by alll night clubs to set up serato unless the manager/promoter or engineer was there. That was untill i learnt a technique that allows you to cut your serato set up time down to about 1min and you dont need to touch the back of the mixer at all

heres the video for the technique- go to 1min30 in the vid

[eggssell]

Hey yo hows it hanging.

Where you been looking? For the last year and a half 95% of the places ive been have turntablensetups, and 100% of those places with turnies were using DVS. Just to name a few (and no hating it usually starts off for a drink or two and randomly ends up somewhere we werent meaning to go)

Shark bar, haymarket hotel, hunter bar, cargo bar (downstairs), some random pub on george street, gordons at chatswood, chelsea at chatswood, the back of v bar, the gaelic club, one or two places at newtown, the argyle at the rocks (well okay by the time i was there the techs were on the floor!!!) just off the top of my head and im sure there are more.

And they werent all rnb and hip hop, a lot of disco, funk or house. Or for like shark all commercial.

[crundyy]

I reckon aslong as you can make people get up on the df and shake their ass (if theyre like me its not too hard you'll be sweet

[JonnyB]

skiped all other responses.

all clubs should have some turnies in there somewhere (although when i played at candy's they just kind of sat to the side and where used as a cd case table, they were fucking thrashed.)

tbh if you can mix on vinyl you should be able to kill it on cdj's (providing you dont use the autosync, if you do but dont feel like you can fork out the extra cash for cdj's you may want to spend some time mixing with the autosync off, once you have that down you should be abl to play any set up.)

but yeh most clubs if they have them would be hidden up in their storage rooms, only person ive seen get turnies out was excision in 09. unless your at a hiphop club or something then i dare say most of the dj's would be repping the vinyl

[callmeyo]

Wow thanks everyone!

Huge response, greatly appreciated.

Cupe excellent input.

Unfortunately don't have any mates with CDJs i can steal - which is ideally what i need.

I think starting out you need to be as flexible as possible to get in the door, then once established i can switch back to the beloved turntables with serato.

Will consider some 850s.

Anyone live in Syd that may know a pair of CDJs that need some love? just to borrow for a week or so?

Thanks again boys appreciate it!

[callmeyo]

PS Skank - great vid, major time saver

[CapFive]

callmeyo where in syd are you, i might be able to get you some 800's to borrow... mayyybe

[JonnyB]

i could possibly lend you my 400's for a week or two, i just need to get my promo mix together first, im in crows nest

[JonnyB]

then gain im super lazy so dunno when ill get that done

[imadje]

just a tip if you are moving from vinyl to cdj control:

There is a button on the cdjs called "master tempo" which is quite a confusing name. It acts the same as keylock on serato so you may already be familiar with it but just in case:

When you have it set "on" it stops any chance of the tone/pitch of your tune being affected however much you nudge the platter. It still allows you to alter tempo.

This means that if you need to make a VERY big nudge you can get away with it. Even though on vinyl you wouldn't dare because you know everyone would hear the slur of the tone as you did it.

It's possibly the main reason transferring skills from vinyl to cdj is easy. Plus of course you cant make the needle skip on a CDJ

hope that makes sense.

[mattus123]

you shoudl be able to do it without buying CDJs wouldnt u?

if ur good on vinyl, u would be able to make the transition to CDJ fairly easily

i havent used vinyl before so i oculd be wrong

[ruggs]

you'd only need to borrow some from say djwarehouse for the weekend and I recon you'd be fine,

When I played at LePanic they had turntables aswell

[LabRat]

I don't reckon you'll need to worry too much. If you can get a grip on the basics then take your timecode CDs with ya just in case they don't have TT's. If you were in Perth you'll have issues but from what I've seen over there, most clubs had TTs sonyou should be sweet

[OxyKon]

from what ive seen most clubs all have turntables, give it another 5 maybe 10 years and it'll jus be cdjs sadly, but dude seriously i would not sell your 1200's, cause they dont make them anymore its becoming a collectors item, yes you'd be able to get a couple $K easy for a set, i paid $2000 for mine and they're 2nd hand but they're such an amazing part of a setup, i'd be so sad if i parted with mine, at the end of the day its a personal choice their

[eggssell]

you shoudl be able to do it without buying CDJs wouldnt u?

if ur good on vinyl, u would be able to make the transition to CDJ fairly easily

i havent used vinyl before so i oculd be wrong

yes and no.

when i hopped onto my nephews cdj's took me about 20-30 mins to start beatmatching and shyte.

still couldnt for the life of me figure out how to cue properly, or even set the cue on the fly. so just kept pressing play and then stop it at a reasonable 1 beat to cue up.

so i think you still need someone to teach you how some things work.

[callmeyo]

thanks team.

Aah still a mixed reponse. I'm going to give the turnies a whirl.

I'm dedicated to them. Thanks for those that offered me to borrow some!

I am still interested if you're keen to lend. Don't mind giving a deposit for safety/damage.

Y'all are the best!!

callmeYO

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http://soundcloud.com/callmeyo