30th October - Teaching the Mrs how to DJ



Today was a good day. Another Wedding Fayre, accompanied by a massive Sunday roast with my Mother and Mother-in-law, and then back home for a Victoria sponge (don't ask about the diet, it's been a terrible week hahaha), and some DJ lessons for my partner, who has been keen to step behind the wheels of steel for some time now. My own set-up is fairly modest, a pair of Pioneer DDJ-400 2-channel controllers, with a Gorilla Stand unit, and pair of mahoosive speakers, but I've not utilised it almost nearly enough over the past year or so. My life has been so busy that I've rarely had time to bother with one of any most beloved hobbies. 

In fact, it was more or less a year to the day since I last stepped behind the decks, so there was a bit of rust to tackle in regards to my own mixing skills, but we soon eased into things and my partner was impressive, to say the least. One of the best skills she's blessed with is an Owl-like level of observation skills, and she's a keen learner in terms of understanding the theory or process behind something, and why we do what we do, which has stood her in great stead here, via her inquisitive nature. 




We covered the basics, such as crossfading, mixing, the EQs and bass levels etc, before moving onto looping, and after she'd got the hang of beat matching, I finally introduced her to the evil sync button, which I warned, we should never use again in future, like a true purist. One thing she soon picked up was just how difficult it can be to mix between various genres, and how some tracks may prove confusing with their intro and gradually increasing overall BPM (e.g. Tiesto's 'Maximal Crazy'). Overall, a really solid start, and once she starts to download her own tracks and use music she's actually familiar with, aurally, then we might, just might...




... Be starting to fill those female quotas at Ministry. 


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