Ableton Forum

What Age did you start DJing and why? Also being that I am 28 is it too late to start DJing. I never thought of djing until I got live. I got it for production work but the option to dj is there so why not. Also djing seems like a lot of fun.

once i started getting fat and losing my hair, and I realised my career in network support wasn't really taking off as I had hoped.

DJing is my indirect way of persuading girls out onto the dancefloor, without actually having to ask them.

22

after rock and roll seemed dead and lifeless, and dancing, drugs, and outdoor parties were cool

JahGuide wrote:What Age did you start DJing and why? Also being that I am 28 is it too late to start DJing. I never thought of djing until I got live. I got it for production work but the option to dj is there so why not. Also djing seems like a lot of fun.

If you want to DJ for yourself, because you like music.... then it's never too late to start.


If you want to do it and play out in clubs.... then forget it. There's too many people doing it, and the scene has been slowly dying for years.

I've started when i was 17 using cd players.
When i was 21 i've switched to 12".

This whole DJ adventure started from love in music and opened me ability to play my own tunes from cd's.
Now I'm 25 and I'm using laptop but I only play live acts. DJ'ing is no fun to me anymore

Bestest

I started at 14 playing on the crappiest gemini's available. I stepped up to 1200's -->then cdj's-->then traktor-->now testing out live. I am now 30 and live seems like an awesome tool.

Around 18 because it was fun. Now on the road of production and the path is long and hard but determined to arrive with something to show.

I haven't started yet.It is possible that sometimes in the near or far future I will be having ideas about starting up djing.Nothing yet.If I start I will brobably know the exact reason.Right now I have no plans on becoming a dj which leads me to believe that at the time I am not aware of any reasons to become one....unless there is a reason and i don't know it yet.

I started at 18 when the live rig died and i had some records.
I just played them on my stereo at home
and didn't even know what beatmixing was !
= 500 people rockin in a tent...

Pretty soon i was kicked off by 'real' d.j's who smoothly beatmixed trance.
everyone bar about 20 people sat down so i got put on again and boom...


DJing is funny, dont take it too seriously and it will be fun no matter what age.


LIVE is the next step

I've been DJing for 7 years, since I was 17.
I started because I was an impressionable raver, and wanted to be a bigger part of the rave scene. It took me 30 minutes to learn to beatmatch.

I was 14 when I started mixing...I used to go round a mates house and he had an awsome collection of vinyl. I used to ask him to play tune after tune and in the end he said..."if you want to hear my records, you play em!"

He had two crappy decks with no pitch control so i just used to fade in and out, but then he got the old citronics with the small dial control and man!!! I was hooked into beat mixing!

Im 33 now and have played the odd live gig, but for me, mixing is a passion for music, sure if I got the opportunity to play out id take it, but just to do it is pure joy.

I dont care if your 17 or 70, if its in you to mix and create, then just do it!

After listening to Orbital and Leftfield for years, I noticed nobody played in the bars I frequented. So I started playing them myself.

In the end, I noticed there where other places that did have this music, but by then I had to many records, so I couldn't stop, right?

15

I live in the middle of nowhere, so I wasn't introduced to electronic music until I was 15, so let's say 1995 is when I first started hearing it. Not too long after, I became obsessed. I had always been a beat junkie... I was raised on hip-hop. I bought myself a copy of Rebirth and started making acid tracks with it before I even knew what "acid" was. (I still have a cd of some of the songs, it's hilarious to listen to now!)

Anyway, I wanted to get some tables to start scratching. I hadn't even heard a "dance music" dj beatmix before. Keep in mind I grew up in the middle of nowhere.

I worked my ass off during high school at Taco Bell... lol. I eventually had enough money to get a pair of used Techs and a shitty Gemini mixer. I didn't have any vinyl at all... nor did I know anything about DJ'ing. I just though you moved your hand around and "wikka wikka..!"

Well, I lost interest soon after but kept making music. A couple years later, I got internet and BOOM! All of the sudden, I got to see and hear all sorts of things that blew my mind. I instantly had a passion for DJ'ing again, and thanks to the internet I learned everything I needed to know to get started.

For me, DJ'ing is all about sharing tunes you love with other people. I don't do it for money, I don't do it for status, I just do it because I get tired of hearing wack DJ's play shitty music. Being the DJ is great because the entire room HAS TO vibe with what *you* want to hear... and any good DJ can rock a crowd with tracks they haven't even heard before. I'm not saying you have to be Mr. Underground... I'm just saying that it's a DJ's moral duty to supply the masses with awesome music to groove to that they might normally not have had the chance to hear.

I cut and scratch just as much as I blend and beatmatch. I don't have a specific genre of music I play.... I switch it up quite often. Personally, I don't see how anyone can listen to one genre of music for an hour straight... I'll go from breaks to some hip-hop to some house to some funky french house to some disco to some funky old soul music...

Traktor and Ableton are in the spotlight right now, but good ol' fashioned turntablism isn't going anywhere. People want a show just as much as they want to hear good tunes!

I use Ableton and produce as well and I gotta say that I have no respect for laptop DJ's! (serato excluded, lol)

Oh, and I am tired of the "everyone wants to be a DJ" trend.

If I see one more ex-raver kid DJ up on stage trainwrecking some Ferry Corsten, I am going to murder someone.

SUPERBANANBOMB wrote: If I see one more ex-raver kid DJ up on stage trainwrecking some Ferry Corsten, I am going to murder someone.

Trainwrecking is not good, espicially when you're not feeling the music people are playing. When the person playing doesn't know when to give up on the mix and just cut it, that is like nails on a chalkboard for me.

Anyways I started DJing when I was 16. Only four years ago, I started for no other reason than I thought that I would enjoy doing it and would have fun. I have an older brother that was big into the rave scene and DJ's, he introduced me to electronic music, house, techno, breaks.

I litsened to a lot of old acid house tapes and started with some stanton STR8-80's did not have that much success with em, moved up to 1200's (made a huge difference) then Scratch Live, and now Ableton. (no more scratch Live) I am having as much fun as I've ever had DJing with Ableton. I want to eventually be able to play Live with Ableton, using all my own beats, basslines, etc.