I started out DJing hip hop (upto 2005, as I don’t “get” the newer recent sound) and R&B with vinyl and Technics decks. I never really liked using CDs and quit for a few years and just for fun bought a Pioneer CDJ2000 to mess around with. When I travelled to Spain to learn Spanish I took a small Hercules Mk2 to DJ digitally and played in all the big clubs. Looked kinda funny but I could rock a club as well as anyone but it was obvious residents and other DJs looked down on the little trusty Hercules. I still have it as I can plug in my CDJs and Technics turntables and use it as a mixer.
After about a year or so of this I upgraded to a Denon MC3000 (thanks to DDJ and others for the reviews!). I wanted to have jog wheels for scratching etc but jog wheels just don’t match the touch of vinyl. My time in Spain I’d fully transitioned to playing electronic music and these days I play deep house, tech house, techno and similar styles, although in Valencia (where I’ve been the past 4 years), this music is not very popular and it is not so easy to find gigs once I’d stopped taking ones that wanted the same old commercial playlist every night. I was bored!
These days I’m using Traktor Scratch Pro Audio 6 with an Allen & Heath K2 (I don’t trust house mixers, many have broken faders or fader caps gone etc) and a 4 port USB to plug in CDJs as Midi devices (which, incidentally, renders the Scratch Pro timecode unnecessary!). I used this set-up in Eden in Ibiza this summer, previously I’d also used a Traktor X1 alongside it but to travel light, I’ve programmed the K2 to be able to do everything the X1 and more.
I’ve run my own nights in Spain and will do a few more in September before relocating to London and starting things up there. I’ve spent most of the summer working on production. I last played at a pool party in a cub for 4th of July and I play tonight in one of the biggest commercial clubs, on a huge rooftop terrace, so I’m now preparing “my” version of commercial which is different to Spain and closer to the UK .. deep-ish house influenced songs with vocals, I just hope I don’t have to play EDM, as that really bores me!
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