What got YOU in to laptop DJ'ing?

When I saw DJ Craze show off Final Scratch 1.0 many years ago, I was hooked…I saw it as the future and wanted to get in on that.

I had been interested in deejaying from the first day I listened to dance music. But back then I could never afford to pay for lessons at deejaying schools. Let alone buying the turntables nor cdjs.
Around three years ago, I saw a deejaying school on way back after a business meeting. So I parked my car and walk into it to make some inquiries. In there I found out that you can actually deejaying from a computer. I was thinking of taking some classes there. But my busy schedules made it impossible.

So I googled for information on digital deejaying and ended up downloading VDJ Trial Version. Well, the story continues with watching lots of dj tutorials on youtube, reading dj forums on lessons and tips, buying Hercules Mk2 and later VCI 300… And here I am now making my own mixes. Digital deejaying makes all these possible for me. I would’ve given up if I had to spend a fortune on buying turntables or cdjs and mixer in order to pursue this hobby.

i m sorry to see so little people use Mixmeister ! it s the best program otu there for now ! it s so easy ! so creative,grat key analyzer ,90 % match ! if it had working controller ,all the other programs would disappear !

Did you move to a controller though?

I remember when some journalists talked about the invention of Final Scratch. This was back when it was some college experiment. I thought it was a cool idea, but never fathomed trying it, as I felt fine on analog vinyl. I also had a CDJ-500 as a means to take advantage of the then “explosion” of MP3 into the musical landscape.

It wasn’t until I played a rave in Rockford, IL that I became hooked. DJ Craze was headlining, and he rolled up with Final Scratch 1.0 on a custom-built Alienware laptop. He played jungle, DnB, hip-hop, and he scratched…I was enthralled and memorized. At that point I saved up money for a Toshiba Laptop and Final Scratch 1.2.

Since then, I never looked back. As Beatport grew I found myself shopping online as opposed to in record stores. I’d only end up in a record store to look for classics, but even at that time I was buying more from online shops like GEMM and Satellite Records. I just grew tired of rushing to Gramaphone Records on a Thursday night to navigate a packed store in the hopes to get some cool new tunes before they sold out. I liked the freedom to sit at home and shop off my computer.

What made me finally give up on actual “decks” like turntables or CDJs was when I tried promoting a night at a bar, and I’d see a handful of guest DJs roll through using Vestax VCI-100s and one with a Torq Xponent. That venue didn’t have any decks, so I was bringing out my CDJ-1000s to play, and I grew tired of it. I ended up buying an Xponent and grew to like it enough that I stayed with midi controllers to this day.

That promotion was funny because it pretty much is what made me grow into using sync and midi. The very first night when we surprisingly found out the venue had no decks, I played off my laptop, using sync since I had nothing to control the software with. The fact I had to haul heavy CDJs in flight cases every week drove me to go midi and be more compact.

This is why I roll my eyes at the “purists”. Show up to a venue that has no gear (but should), or they have a crappy monitor (or no monitor), or the gear is malfunctioning (or not working). It’s just a convenience to be able to play and focus on picking tunes and watching the crowd over hoping something doesn’t fail or struggling to match beats due to monitor issues.

I love that now as a hobbyist I can pull my Behringer CMD components out of my storage box, turn on Traktor, and make a mix when I want…without sacrificing my desk at home to leave gear sitting on. I like that I can pull out my tablet on the train, open up Cross DJ, and plan out a new mix while commuting. It’s such an amazing age we live in now to be a DJ.