Chapter 9

Bits and PCs: Digital DJing

In This Chapter

Discovering various digital DJ setups

Choosing and controlling the right software for you

DJing on the move

I think that digital DJing – using computer software to play music stored on a hard drive – has been the biggest revolution to DJing since when someone realised that using two turntables and a mixer could keep the music playing all night with no gaps.

With digital DJing, the equipment the DJ uses no longer restricts the music available to play. Vinyl DJs who previously needed to tirelessly hunt out music available on vinyl can now download tracks to their hard drives and use their turntables to control the DJ software. CD DJs can take charge of their libraries, binning the countless rewritable CDs they’ve strewn across the DJ booth,keeping all their music on one hard drive instead. And DJs who use controllers to play back, mix and manipulate the music have a vast array of creative possibilities in front of them, all with one piece of hardware.

Alongside greater access to and control of music, the creativity that digital DJing opens up is outstanding. Whether through a host of built-in effects, multiple playback decks or triggers for loops and samples to enhance the sound of a mix for the creative DJ, or an auto-sync function that can help keep new DJs inspired by removing the need to manually beatmatch tunes, digital DJing is helping to create and motivate a new generation of DJs.

Designing Your Digital DJ Setup

The three things for you to consider when putting together a digital DJ setup are:

• Do you have to buy a computer?
• What software will you use?
• Do you want to use any external hardware to control computer software?

Processing computer hardware

The computer is the heart of your digital DJ setup and as such it’s vital to make sure it’s as powerful, stable and capable as possible.

Mac versus PC

If you’re lucky enough to be shopping for a new computer to use for your digital DJ setup, the decision to use a Mac or a PC probably comes down to what you’re more familiar with and which one you prefer. I’ve used a Windows laptop and a MacBook Pro in my setup, but have stuck with the Mac.

The more popular, market-leading DJing software titles that I describe later in this chapter, such as Traktor, Serato DJ, Virtual DJ, PCDJ and Ableton Live, are released for both Windows and Mac operating systems. However, some DJ programs (such as BPM Studio) only work on computers with Windows operating systems, so if you’ve decided on the software you want to DJ with before thinking about the computer you’ll use it on, do some research to check whether you’ll be forced into using a Mac or PC by the software specifications.

Most DJ software will work with a Windows operating system; Mac users, however, need to make sure that the software will run on their Mac, and that it will run on the Mac OS version installed. Windows users still need to check that the software works with their installed operating system as some titles have been slow to adopt new releases of Windows operating systems. And if you’ve still got that old Windows 95 PC, it may be time to dust off your wallet and go shopping for a new PC!

Desktop versus laptop

The most common design of computer to use in a digital DJ setup is a laptop/MacBook style, due to its portability and compact nature. Full-size workstations, PCs and Mac Pros work just as well as laptops – sometimes better due to a larger screen (or multiple displays), increased memory and faster processor speeds – but they’re not very portable when hopping from club to club, and finding room for a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor, let alone a PC/Mac tower may prove tricky in a DJ booth if not in your bedroom setup.

Memory and processor considerations

If your computer is old, check that you have enough processing power and RAM, along with suitable hardware (such as supported soundcards and USB ports) to run the software you want to use.

For PC DJs, most software recommends a minimum of a 2 GHz processor and 2GB of RAM – although 4GB is recommended.

How fast your computer can ‘think’ and do what you want it to is measured in hertz (Hz) – and 1000 Hz is 1 GHz. RAM is a bit like a car-park: the more spaces, or RAM, your car-park has, the more cars can go about their business; but with fewer spaces, fewer cars can park, or fewer applications can run smoothly on your computer, and a bottleneck will build, slowing down traffic and your computer. If you want to find out more about PCs or Macs from people who think in more grown-up terms, check out PCs For Dummies by Dan Gookin and Macs For Dummies by Edward C Baig – both published by Wiley.

If you’re DJing using a Windows computer, most software requires Windows 7 or later.

Mac users need an Intel Mac with similar processor and RAM minimum requirements as apply to the PC DJ. The most recent OS X operating system is likely to work fine, but check the software requirements to be sure no compatibility problems exist.

If you can choose a computer that has specifications well above the recommended minimum of the software, you’ll find you have a smoother DJing experience. You may want to record your mix as you perform, or have an Internet browser window open at your chosen music download store in case you need to buy a tune to play to the crowd in front of you. Having a higher-spec computer is like giving yourself more floors to your car-park and getting the cars moving around faster.

Increased memory and processor power may give you a smoother experience when trying to run multiple applications at the same time, but be aware that too much of a load on the computer may cause your software to glitch and break up or completely stop the music you’re playing. If you’re going to push the computer’s limits, do some extensive testing at home first before all your metaphorical cars crash into each other during a set in a club.

Stability

Stability largely depends on how fast your computer is, how well you maintain it and what other programs and processes are running in the background. But whether you’re buying the DJ software on its own, or a new computer too, do some research on Internet forums (and on the specific DJ software websites) to make sure the software works in harmony with your hardware.

I experienced problems with my HP laptop, where if I had the Wi-Fi card turned on the music would cut out intermittently – which doesn’t go down very well in the middle of a club! I don’t tend to hook into Wi-Fi during a set to download music to play (or update my Facebook status, like a few DJs I know), so it’s not an issue for me. But loads of DJs (especially party and wedding DJs, who get wide-ranging requests) love having the option to download any music to play instantly, so Wi-Fi access can be an important complement to their music library.

Antivirus software and anything that automatically updates itself can sometimes push the computer’s ability to cope over the edge. It’s probably a good idea to continue to run antivirus software (unless you know it’s causing problems), but turn off any auto-scans or updaters when you’re DJing.

Macs aren’t immune to hardware problems either. Earlier MacBook Pros required you to connect USB soundcards and controllers to the socket closest to the power input in order to maintain enough power to keep the music from cutting out.

Do some research before and after you buy your setup to avoid being plunged into silence during a DJ set. Software websites are usually very good at giving setup and troubleshooting advice. The Native Instruments website has a comprehensive list of tweaks for operating systems; go to www.native-instruments.com/support and search for ‘tuning tips’, or just search the website’s forum and knowledge base. Even if you’re not using Native Instruments’ Traktor software, the troubleshooting ideas on the website may solve any problems you experience with the DJ software you bought.

Controlling the Digits

Digital DJing revolves around software running on a computer, with a screen layout reflecting what you’d see in a DJ booth: at least two decks to play the music sometimes with a mixer in between and a library of your tunes underneath it all (see Figure 9-1).

A variety of different setup options are available for the digital DJ:

• Use a laptop only (or a computer tower with keyboard, mouse and display); you control everything in the DJ software with the keyboard and mouse.
• Add a better soundcard and a DJ mixer to the laptop, leaving the mouse and keyboard to control only the playback of the music and software effects (if your mixer doesn’t have effects).
• Use a DVS (digital vinyl system) to control the playback of music using any turntables or CD decks. An external mixer is usually added to a DVS setup for full hands-on control.
• Use controllers combining a mixer and full playback and cueing control for the DJ while also giving outputs to an amplifier in an all-in-one piece of hardware.
• Connect CD decks via USB directly to a computer to control playback of the music. Adding an external mixer minimises keyboard and mouse use.

Laptop/computer only

By far the simplest setup is shown in Figure 9-2. Install the software, connect the output of your computer’s soundcard to an amplifier and then navigate the music library, cue and playback the music and control the mixer all with the mouse and keyboard.

There’s nothing wrong with DJing this way; you just have to be fast with the mouse and keys, and to remember all the keyboard shortcuts for the software controls. You’ll need to be fast navigating menus, clicking and dragging cue points back and forth, and finding the right key to press to activate an effect while also being able to move the mouse slowly enough to control the cross-fader and EQs (equalisers) on the software’s internal mixer so that the mix still sounds good.

In my opinion, however, a DJ just using a mouse and keyboard to perform the mix gives a bit of a lacklustre performance. For all I know, I’m looking at a manager checking email, not a DJ mixing up a storm!

The connections and requirements for this setup are relatively simple. All you need are:

• A laptop (or a computer with a display, mouse and keyboard) with a soundcard so that you can output to an amplifier
• DJ software
• Music files
• Amplifier and speakers
• A cable to connect the soundcard output to the amplifier (check the connections on your computer and amplifier)

Computing basic audio connections

If you have a soundcard with analogue RCA outputs, use a cable with two RCA connectors on each end and connect the RCA outputs of the computer’s soundcard to the RCA line inputs on the amplifier (or if you need to go through a mixer which is connected to an amplifier, connect it to a line input).

If the soundcard has a 3.5-millimetre jack output marked ‘line’, you’ll need a stereo 3.5-millimetre ‘jack lead to RCA’ cable.

Not too many laptops have line-level outputs. The audio output of a laptop is likely to be just a headphone socket. As this may need to be amplified more than a line-level output there is a risk of introducing a lot of distortion and noise.

The bigger downside, however, is that as a DJ you want to be able to send the main mix sound to an amplifier but also be able to listen in your headphones to the next tune you want to play (without it being sent to the amplifier too; check out Chapter 12 if you need more information about why this is important). A laptop-only setup is unlikely to let you do this, because it probably has only one output (the headphones), and even if it has a line output and a headphone output, it’s unlikely that you can play a different tune to each one through the software. In order to make this happen, you need to add some hardware or a special cable.

A very common ‘hack’ to fix this issue is to use a ‘DJ’/mono splitter cable and the appropriate setting in the software to send a mono master output down one stereo channel and a mono cue output down the other. Native Instruments sells such a cable for Traktor, and there’s a popular model by Griffin too, coming in at under £20. While not ideal in the long run (because all of your music will be mono instead of glorious stereo), such a solution is cheap and a good backup to have should you forget or have issues with added hardware (see the next section). This is how many DJs get started with laptop-only DJing. It is also a good solution if you want to DJ using an app on your iDevice or tablet computer (see later on in this chapter).

Always check the software and computer hardware you use for any special input or output connection instructions to enable it for DJ use. Manuals are there for a reason; don’t start disconnecting and screaming at cables only to find out you were meant to click ‘out’ in the software!

Enhancing the basics by adding hardware

If your laptop has only one audio output, and you want to maintain stereo music you can buy a new soundcard (most likely to be an external USB soundcard) that has two stereo outputs on it; one for headphones and one to go to the amplifier. The DJ software sends the two tunes via USB to the soundcard, which then splits the signal into two separate outputs. With this more advanced soundcard, you’ll be able to send the main mix to the amplifier and listen to the next tune in the headphones, as Figure 9-3 shows.

Adding this kind of soundcard to your laptop setup also enables you to mix using any external DJ mixer. This means you can mix between tunes using a traditional DJ mixer with a lot more control (and performance value), releasing you from the shackles of a keyboard and mouse.

By using a soundcard that can accept two input signals from the DJ software (via one USB connection) and that has two outputs (usually analogue RCA connections but sometimes 3.5mm jacks), you can send deck 1 of the software to channel 1 of the DJ mixer, and deck 2 to channel 2 of the mixer. You mix the music from both decks using the mixer like a conventional DJ would, and the output from the mixer is then sent to the amplifier to rock the dance floor!

It’s rare you’ll find DJ software that can’t send two output signals to a soundcard, but if you’re unsure about the functionality of your chosen software title, or if it has any specific recommendations for what soundcard to use, do some research on the program’s website or on Internet forums first.

DVS using records and CDs

The DVS (digital vinyl system) is how digital DJing originally made its mark and exploded into clubs and bedrooms all over the world.

What makes a DVS setup different is that instead of using a keyboard and mouse to control and adjust playback of the music in the software, you can use traditional turntables (or CD decks) to do the same thing, as Figure 9-4 shows. If you use a mixer in this setup, the only time you’ll ever need to go near the laptop’s keyboard or mouse is when you want to select the next track to play or to enable any effects. Even then, with the right mixer or added piece of hardware, you may not even have to do that! (See the section ‘Adding Hardware Controllers’ further on.)

The DVS option in Figure 9-4 is based around records or CDs that play time code data into a special soundcard. If you play the data through the mixer, not into the soundcard, you’ll hear a high-pitched whine – that’s the time code signal.

The DJ software reads the time code data and matches it to the music you want to play. So if you move the needle on the record one minute in and start it playing, the track you’ve loaded into the matching deck in the software starts playing from one minute in. If you stop the record turning, the music stops playing too, or if you play the record backwards, the music playing from the computer plays backwards.

Nearly all software that you can use in a DVS setup has fantastic vinyl emulation sound (whether you’re using CDs or vinyl), so not only does the music stop playing or play backwards, it sounds exactly the same as if the music was playing on a record instead of from a computer. This enables scratch DJs to scratch using DJ software, and the sound created is the same as if they were scratching a record with real music on it instead of time code squeal.

If you plan to scratch using a DVS setup, you may wish to set the playback mode to Relative rather than Absolute. Chapter 17 has more information about the difference between the two modes, but as Relative mode only uses the control information to tell the software how fast you’re playing the music, and in what direction, it means that if the needle skips out of the groove, the sound that you’re scratching won’t skip like it would in Absolute mode.

In a DVS digital DJ setup, a separate mixer isn’t always essential, because you can still use the software’s built-in mixer (if it has one) to mix the music. But most DJs use an external mixer along with their CD decks and/or turntables, so that it faithfully emulates a traditional DJ setup.

Connections and requirements

Nearly all DJ software that you can buy as a DVS setup uses a specific soundcard designed by the software manufacturer. For example, I use the Audio-8 hardware interface (what they call the external soundcard) when DJing with Native Instruments’ Traktor Pro, and then have to unplug it and connect the Serato SL made by Rane when using Serato to DJ with. (See ‘Picking Out the Software’, later in this chapter, for more about DJing software choices.)

Unfortunately, in most cases, you won’t be able to buy just the software, a cheap soundcard and a few cables and then use your turntables to play music files on your laptop, although MixVibes Cross DVS is one exception, having such a system. With wide price ranges between different DJ DVS setups, though, you should be able to find one within your price range, so hopefully the rigid hardware specifications don’t become too much of a financial problem.

Connections are important but can seem complicated, with the external soundcard acting as a connection junction between turntables, CD decks, the mixer and the computer. You connect the outputs of the turntables (or CD decks) to the soundcard (using RCA-to-RCA cables) and the soundcard to the computer via USB, which translates the time code data from the CD or record to control music playing on the computer. The music is then sent back to the soundcard, and you connect the outputs of the soundcard to the mixer, with the output of the mixer sent to an amplifier. It may sound confusing, but once you work out the chain of what’s happening and look at the labels on the soundcard, it’s not that bad!

Some soundcards have two inputs and two outputs, so you can control and send only two tunes from the computer to the mixer using these connections (just as if you’d connected two turntables or CD players directly to the mixer playing normal records or CDs).

Soundcards with four inputs and outputs let you use two turntables and two CD decks (or four of each) at the same time, controlling four tunes on four decks in the software and mixing between them with a four-channel mixer. This opens up huge creative options!

DJ software manufacturers realise that you may have a large library of normal CDs and records as well as your large digital library of music, so they usually have a function or special cables that let you bypass the software so that you can send the music from real records and CDs directly to the mixer to use in the mix. If you want to use existing records and CDs in your DJ sets, check that the software, hardware and cables let you do this before spending loads of money only to leave your old library useless.

Adding Hardware Controllers

Although the DVS pushed the boundaries of DJing, external controllers are probably the most fast-moving, popular and exciting side of digital DJing now.

All-in-one hardware controllers

Simplifying connections and equipment needs, hardware controllers release you from a reliance on the keyboard and mouse to control software in the same way a DVS setup can, but mean you only need a laptop, some software and a controller.

Combining playback control, a mixer, effects, loop controls and trigger pads for samples, as well as the audio interface, these hardware controllers are an incredibly convenient and sometimes cost-effective way to DJ.

Rather than needing a time code signal to control the music, the controller has in-built control over the music, so no risk exists of read errors from CDs or skipping vinyl. A simple USB or MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) connection is all that’s needed to connect the controller – meaning the bird’s nest of cables that a DVS DJ has going on behind the decks is a thing of the past!

Different makes and models offer different levels of functionality (and different price tags). Lower priced offerings from names like Numark, Hercules and even nowadays Pioneer provide an affordable yet full level of control over playback and the mix.

Even the pricier hardware controllers are cost-effective compared with buying a DVS setup. Consider that two turntables, a mixer and the DVS software (with audio interface) will easily push the £1500 barrier if you’re buying good equipment, and compare that to spending £1000 or less on a top-range controller from Pioneer, Reloop, Numark or Native Instruments (like the Kontrol S4 shown in figure 9-5). Most controllers come in packages bundled with DJing software, giving you full control of the mix at a lower price (and space requirement in a DJ booth) compared to a DVS setup.

Most hardware controllers allow you to add other input devices too, so not only can you play music stored on the computer, but if someone hands you a CD with music for you to play, you can throw it into a CD deck (if you have one with you) and mix it into music playing from the computer.

Putting CD decks and mixers in control

Instead of using time coded records or CDs to control music playing in software with a DVS setup, special CD decks from Pioneer, Denon, Numark and other manufacturers connect to DJ software directly via USB to control playback of the music. With no CD or record to play, stability and reliability is 100 per cent locked in when using these pieces of kit, with internal gubbins inside the CD decks themselves doing all the controlling.

You still need to decide whether you want to use the internal mixer in DJ software (if there is one) or an external one (I suggest using an external mixer), and you need to make sure your CD decks work with the software you want to use. More expensive mixers like the Allen & Heath Xone:4D add another layer of control to the playback and mix when using DJ software, allowing greater flexibility and increasing hands-on options for creativity.

Using CD decks with USB connections takes a lot of the confusion out of the connection of equipment. One USB cable per CD deck connects to the computer to control the music in the software, and the standard audio outputs of the CD decks are sent to a mixer in case you want to play a real CD instead. You may still need a soundcard to connect the music from the software to the mixer, but overall the connections are nowhere near as complicated as with the DVS connection method.

Your way is the best way … for you

The decision whether to add hardware to your DJ setup is entirely up to you. If you can still create a great-sounding mix with your chosen setup, and you love using it, then it’s the right one for you.

The kind of DJ you are may affect how big your setup is. Party DJs may be happy with just a laptop; DJs who work in a bar and want a bit more control but still keep things compact may just add a mixer to the laptop. Club DJs are likely to want to use the more expanded options, using hardware controllers or DVS setups for full control and performance reasons.

Unlike previous decades in DJ booths, you won’t find a standard setup in clubs. Where it used to be commonplace to have two Technics 1210 turntables, two Pioneer CDJ-1000 MkIII CD decks and a top-model mixer from the likes of Pioneer or Allen & Heath in the big clubs, when it comes to digital DJing, you just turn up with your computer and controller, hook into the sound system and start to mix. Clubs don’t provide the controller equipment – you do (the club should provide a simple way to hook into the amplifier though). So the world is open for you to choose what you want to use rather than you using what you’re told to use.

As is the case with all things DJ related, research as much as you can and try to get a hands-on demo of any equipment before you spend any money.

Picking Out the Software

Pick the right software title for yourself depending on how much money you have in your pocket and how you much control you want over the software.

Software designed for DJs

From free titles like Mixxx and Zulu to expensive, industry-standard options from Native Instruments and Serato, most digital DJing software titles tend to have interfaces designed around the same basic setup shown in Figure 9-1, earlier in this chapter.

What’s added to this basic design is what separates DJ software titles from one another. Very basic software just has the players (with pitch controls and cueing section), a library, sometimes a mixer, but with no effects, no waveform display to help you find the beats in the music and no option to connect external hardware to control the software.

However, recent software releases address these issues, with features packed in to help you create a fantastic sounding mix. Even Mixxx and the free version of Zulu have built-in effects, auto-beat-sync and a waveform display to help you with cue points and beatmatching.

Considering auto-beat-sync

Auto-beat-sync is a very seductive feature, automatically dealing with beatmatching for you, and sometimes even finding perfect placement points so that bars and phrases match. It’s all too easy to simply let the software take over, so all you have to do is move the cross-fader to mix between tunes (and most software can take control of this too!).

If you’re busy adding effects, dropping in samples and scratching up a storm, and want to give yourself more time to be creative by removing the mechanics of beatmatching, auto-beat-sync is a useful tool. If you’re not doing any of this and have loads of time to beatmatch properly, but your constant reliance on auto-beat-sync means all you do is move the cross-fader from side to side every four minutes, you’re cheating yourself out of learning a great skill. You’re still DJing, but your reliance on the software to do the hard work for you means that if it ever gets it wrong and you have to do it yourself, you may be in for a rough mix!

Waving for help

A waveform (shown in Figure 9-6) is a visual representation of music. When the music is loud and powerful, the waveform is bigger; when it’s quieter, it’s smaller. So bass beats (which are loud and powerful) show up as big sharp spikes in the waveform. By looking at the waveform and spotting where these big spikes are, you can work out when bass beats are going to play. For example, in Figure 9-6 a section of music has no bass beats for a short period, but when you see the big spikes, that’s when the bass beats start to play.

Waveform displays do more than let you know what’s about to happen in the next few seconds. By zooming out and viewing the entire waveform for a tune, you can tell where the music changes through its different parts of structure. (Check out Chapter 15 for more about the structure of your music.) This way, you can make sure the next tune you want to mix in starts at the correct place to allow for perfect placement (see Chapter 16).

Software titles such as Serato and Virtual DJ aid beatmatching by showing the waveforms of two tunes playing side by side or on top of each other. Spikes of different frequency in the music are a different colour in the waveform, which means you can see what’s a bass beat and what’s a combined bass/snare/clap beat. Looking at how closely similar colours of the waveform play next to each other when you’re adjusting the pitch of the cued tune (the next one you want to add to the mix) can help unlock the mystery of which tune is playing faster than the other. And when similar coloured spikes are locked side by side, you’ll hear that the beats are matched, with the bass beats playing at the same time. It takes a little getting used to, but with enough practice, it’s easy to do.

Perfect placement has been addressed too, by the introduction of beat grids. By splitting the tune up into beats and bars using beat grids, the software can make a really good guess and suggest suitable parts of tunes to mix together. It doesn’t always get this right, so perfect placement can take some experimentation and certainly requires attention from you, because you’re still the judge as to whether the parts of the tunes actually play well together.

The waveform and beat grids aren’t just for beatmatching DJs: scratch DJs benefit too. You can locate the sample that you want to scratch by looking at the waveform. By watching the waveform move back and forth while scratching, you can ensure you’re returning to the correct sections of the sample. (Chapter 17 has more on scratching.) And the beat grids are a great map for beatjuggling DJs to know where they are in their tunes.

Controlling Decisions

What can make you lean towards one software title or another is how you can control it. Software that you can only control by a mouse or keyboard can be quite hard to use quickly and creatively, but software that lets you use external controllers or even your turntables or CD decks to play the music opens up great options, both creatively and for a DJ performance in front of a crowd.

Most software works with USB hardware controllers from Hercules, Vestax, Denon, Pioneer, Numark, Reloop and many more, but check first before buying the software and hardware, just to be sure.

A growing number of options also allow DVS control (see ‘DVS using records and CDs’ earlier in this chapter). The two software titles most commonly used in DVS setups are Serato DJ and Traktor Pro. Because they are also the most popular titles for use with DJ controllers, both titles are sweeping through dance floors and bedrooms alike.

I have both Serato DJ and Traktor Pro, but I lean more towards Traktor because of the expanded functionality. Out of the box, Serato is designed as an easy-to-use, reliable music playback, scratching and mixing title, with expansion packs giving more flexibility to the DJ. Traktor Pro has built-in effects as standard and offers unending customisation to help you set it up to create the best mix you can. Investigate all software options before you choose your favourite. Just because one person likes a particular DJ software title doesn’t mean you will too!

Livening up software choice

DJ solutions that emulate a twin-CD setup are great for traditional DJs who want to mix from one tune to the other, add samples, scratch and add effects to the music, but Ableton Live (for Mac OS and PC) moves this to a new level by using more of a sequencer approach to put the mix together. This takes mixing on computer a step farther by allowing you to remix any of the tunes live during the set.

You can use Live through each stage of the musical process, so you create the music and then perform that creation to the crowd as a DJ. The software is so versatile that you can remix the tunes you’ve made on the fly, live to the crowd, and add MIDI-controllable instruments to the mix, to create a completely unique remix and a DJ set that nobody else has ever heard or may ever hear again.

A whole host of controllers and options are available for whatever stage of the music process you use Live for. With audio interfaces and controllers for making music, and mixer and output interfaces to control Live for DJ performances, you can’t accuse anyone of lacking in aesthetics when using a computer with Live and a few controllers attached to it. Check out www.ableton.com for more information.

Exploring Alternatives

Huge digital DJ setups incorporating two CD decks, two turntables and a mixer or a sleek MacBook and controller setup may be good if you’re looking to perform a big, complicated mix, but other options are available, ranging from the very simple DJ option on iTunes to mixing with iPads, iPhones and MP3 gadgets. Unfortunately, DJ Hero on the Xbox or PlayStation isn’t really DJing …

DJing with iPods, iPads and USB drives

If you’d like to dip a toe in the digital DJing waters but don’t really want to go as far as lugging a computer around with you, try these alternatives.

DJing with hard drives

You can use in a few different ways USB hard drives that hold thousands of music files.

If you still like carrying a laptop with you to DJ with, you can use an external hard drive to expand your storage space. If the internal hard drive is only 50GB in size, you can store around 10,000 tunes. By adding a 1TB (1000GB) external drive, you now have the ability to store approximately 200,000 more tunes!

It’s not only DJs using DJing software who can gain from this expansion of music storage. Some CD decks made by manufacturers like Pioneer, Denon, Numark, Gemini and Citronic allow you to connect a USB drive and play, control and (if applicable) add effects to the music on the hard drive in the same way as if you’d inserted a CD into the player.

The iBooth

An iPod is, in essence, just an external hard drive. However, the music library database it contains can make this better than a simple USB hard drive that has 200,000 tracks in one folder.

You have a few iPod solutions, the most basic being using two iPods connected to a mixer, but because this doesn’t allow you to change the pitch of the music (which you need to do when beatmatching) it isn’t the ideal choice.

DJ equipment manufacturers have come up with several solutions to DJing with iPods that range from a simple connection that uses the iPod in exactly the same way as an external USB hard drive to connecting the iPod to a CD deck, mixer or controller (like the Numark Mixdeck shown in Figure 9-7) to allow access to the library of music on the iPod.

A few iPod solutions are out there. If you want to beatmatch, though, be sure that the one you’re looking at lets you adjust the pitch (speed) at which the music plays from the iPod. Without this function, you’ll have a really hard time beatmatching!

Mixing on the move

DJs no longer need to be chained to a DJ booth in order to mix up a great set. Portable handheld DJ devices and applications (apps) on smartphones won’t replace the traditional DJ booth, but for short, sharp, entertaining DJ sets, they’ve opened up the glass door to let the DJ perform outside the booth.

iPhone/iPad and Android apps can help you pick a restaurant, magnify the menu, book a taxi home and then track a bike route to help you burn off all those calories the next day! Even better than that, though, if you hunt through the App Store for your product, you’ll find apps that let you emulate the DJ booth.

Free apps like EDJing (see Figure 9-8) and Crossfader are available for the iPhone and iPad to let you mix music together from your phone/tablet – and paid apps like Traktor DJ and Algoriddim’s djay give you the familiarity of their bigger computer software counterparts on a more portable iPhone or iPad.

Splitting the sound

The downside to using a smartphone or iPad to DJ to a crowd is that it only has one audio output, where you would normally plug in headphones. Without a little help, it’s impossible to hear the cued tune in headphones while the live tune is playing through the speakers. Help is at hand, however.

Some apps have a setting that lets you use a special cable to split the stereo output of your smartphone/tablet into two mono outputs: one mono output for the mix you’re sending to the amplifier, and the other mono output goes to the headphones. The downside is that your music isn’t in stereo any more, but if you were that fussed about sound control you’d probably not be DJing with an iPhone in the first place!

Smartphone apps aren’t just about the full mix experience either. Apps that work as beats-per-minute counters, virtual single turntables (so you can add a third device and do some scratching with it), music production apps and even controllers for software like Serato DJ and Traktor Pro have all helped to turn smartphones into the third hand that you sometimes need in the mix.

Smartphone apps are amazing for finding new music, too. If you’re out and about and hear music you like, and want to know the details of it, apps like Shazam and Soundhound can tell you the song title, artist, and even remix that you’re listening to. Adding these search results to a list of other great tunes you like means you’ll constantly have a wealth of new music to hunt for and sort through.

Keeping an eye on the juice

One last piece of advice if you’re using portable devices to DJ with is to make sure your device is fully charged. If you don’t, you’ll just be someone standing on a stage in front of a crowd holding a phone, with a panicked expression.

You can’t even phone a friend for help with a dead battery …