Nathan Duchene

JC,
I’ve been a DDJ for a number of years now and I’m recently getting into more of a hardware-based mixing with my software. That said, I’ve been going through much of the same as you are now.

What I can tell you is that YouTube is your friend. That’s how I found this place, spending hours upon hours of watching things and stumbling across some of Phil’s videos. You’ll find a lot of different authors on YouTube. 2 of my favorites for tutorials and theory have been DJTLM and Laidback Luke, but there are millions out there that you might be able to pick up one or two little things from. Watch all the things, it only costs you your time! I’ve been sleeping 2 hours less every evening and dedicating that time to it instead of sacrificing elsewhere. So far, it’s working.

One thing I’ll caution you about is trying to be like someone else. I can see how by watching one person for an extended period of time might help that happen, don’t let it. Just be conscious about it. They can teach you techniques, but you have to find your own style.

Lastly, to answer your question about Mixcloud… I think that’s still just a preference. Some people like it, others have established SoundCloud profiles and haven’t found a need to jump from there either. I haven’t produced a single thing worthy of either yet that I’m willing to put my name on, so I can’t really say if one is easier or better than the other. Chances are they’re both so populated so most of the traffic you’d get at either place will be driven by yourself anyway. At that point, you can tell people to go wherever you wish.

I recently joined up (like within the month) but so far, it’s been pretty solid. Couple of thoughts:

1. Get the professional subscription. Not only can you use your integrated DJ software to download offline tracks, but it’s also the only package licensed for public usage.
2. You can setup your prefered genres and using their Explore menu link, it will show you new tracks and albums in your preferred genres for previewing.
3. What I’m finding myself doing is setting up playlists on their website per gig and allowing them to import into my software. At that point, I usually download them for offline usage regardless of whether or not they have available internet access for the DJ. If they do, I will search their library on the fly for anything I might not have if I go freestyle or get a random request.
4. Offline tracks appear to be in a proprietary format, so that they cannot be identified by filename or shared. You will need to make sure you connect your software and login to your pulselocker account at least once per billing cycle to have the offline tracks marked as available to play if you keep them longer than a month. Most of the time, the playlists (if setup by gig) are throwaway because any tracks you’d want on hand to choose from at all times shouldn’t be in a subscription library anyway. The “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” rule. Subscription goes away, and then does your music as well.

I do not see curated playlists available, however there are some labels that put out albums by genre/decade that contain hits from various artists that you can pull in one album at a time into a playlist.

Hope this helps. Last words… I like what I see so far and am probably going to continue the $20USD/month as it seems worth it to me at this point. I’m also a mobile DJ so it’s a bit more beneficial to me because my crowd can be very diverse at times and carry a hotspot with me to get me out of a jam when needed.