Timeframe: Bedroom DJ to First Gig

“When you feel ready” would be the ideal answer, but I felt ready after 6 months and I was bloody awful. The more gigs I did the more I realised there was other parts of DJing I needed to work on, no amount of bedroom practise will teach you how to read a crowd, how to program your set, or deal with annoying club owners.
It’s probably more accurate to forget the question “how long before you felt skilled enough to play live?” and instead ask “how long before you felt ready to learn more in a practical environment?”

And it was 3 years for me before I got my first residency and felt actually at ease behind the decks in front of people I didn’t know.
But the learning process didn’t stop then, and still hasn’t 18 years later.

+1 for Staz. Practice, practice, practice and play in front of people any chance you have. B’day parties, BBQs, House parties, Garden parties, really anything. Ask them for gas money and some rent for gear if you are bringing any.

You’ll know when you are ready to move up the ladder, like Staz said.

All you need is a laptop, some talent, and one track. 😛

Hahahaha I see what you did there D-Jam 😉

My first set of equipment included a Kenwood Integrated Amplifier, 2 BSR Quanta 500 Belt Drive Turntables and Numark DM-1100 mixer. Honorable mention: Two Gem Sound speakers – Approximately two years after my start in 1976, I was added to a DJ crew named “Inflation Space” in 1978. I played at various events including block parties and clubs.

myself was about a year, i never bought the equipment to play gigs but i enjoyed messing about with them in my room with a mate, 95% of most music is muck so we enjoyed finding the tunes we did like. first equipment i had was a pair of kam belt drive red dwarf, over the last month i bought a bought a traktor kontrol z2 and a pair of technics 1210s and still love it to this day

i entered a local competition and go to warm up for the resident and Marcel Woods in a local club about 10 years ago, i didnt do too bad until i hit the cue button on the CDJ and just stopped the music dead, haha good times

For me it was about a month. Let me qualify that.
1. I had been in the music business for 10+ years, so I understood the business and what it takes to get gigs.
2. I also had a good list of contacts for possible gigs, club owners, bartenders, etc.
3. A little luck never hurts. I got hired for a resident DJ position off of my reputation as a musician…So I had a gig booked before I bought a stitch of gear. and
4. I had a deadline…When I got hired, the departing DJ was leaving in 4 weeks, so I had 4 weeks to sort out some software, a controller, find some music, and practice practice practice…(I can tell you I didn’t get much sleep for 4 weeks)

This is not a typical case, but there are some nuggets you can gleen from this… I learned from being a musician, you learn the most when you perform live. There is nothing like having an expectant crowd looking to you to perform to speed up your learning curve. You have to be able to accept less than perfection in your live show, get the basics down…you will figure out the rest on the fly. Look at it this way, to DJ professionally means that you are going to play music, and you are going to get paid (hopefully), and waiting for perfection before your first gig generally means you will never have your first gig. Have fun with it, be willing to take some criticism, you won’t be perfect right away, but that’s ok. Remember you only do your first gig once, and it won’t kill you.

Darren