New to DJing? You’re in the right place
This quick-start guide will walk you through the core concepts every beginner should know: no jargon, no pressure. Whether you’re just curious or ready to drop your first mix, we’ve got you.
What you’ll learn
- What DJs actually do during a set
- The basic gear you’ll need (and what you don’t)
- How to mix two songs together
- Where to find music that’s safe to use
Glossary
Beat
A beat is the music’s pulse, that repeating kick you recognize as the rhythm of the music. Beats are created primarily by drums, but can be produced by any musical instrument that can have a sharp sound such as the bass, voice, piano etc.
Beat matching
An audio mixing technique used to play 2 music tracks in the same rhythm, with the beats of both tracks played together. Beat-matching is a way to “Synchronize” two audio tracks, letting you link different music tracks together. This is most generally used in techno, house or trance music, but hip hop, rap or R&B can also work as long as the rhythm is sufficiently pronounced. By keeping exactly the same BPM, the same speed and time, beat-matching guarantees a complete mix, whatever the material used be it vinyls, CDs, media players or DJ controllers. History: Beat matching was the first technique used by DJs to create fluid transitions between songs. It was invented by Francis Grasso in the late 1960s to keep people dancing at the end of a song.
BPM
Beats per minute, is the measure used to express the tempo of a piece of music or a heartbeat and is quantified by the number of beats that occur within the space of one minute. Some examples for genres include: Drum and bass: 160-190 BPM / House: 124-130 BPM / Hip hop: 80-100 BPM.