Become a Home DJ Now

The next time you throw a party at home, you might want to create a DJ setlist of all your MP3s, rather than a boring playlist. Another cool thing would be to remix a Himesh track with Polefolder (imagine the ring modulation!). All this is easy today; there's even free software that can make you a good amateur DJ. This article is a small list of (very) elementary software available for mixing audio tracks, tips on creating setlists, and of course, bobbing your head. Both Windows and Mac users have been kept in mind.

Basic Gyaan
Before becoming a DJ, you need to be familiar with the concept of timing in a song.That is the most important element of being a disc jockey. The unit used for measuring beat timing is BPM, which stands for beats per minute. It is pretty self-explanatory. The songs can be divided into a particular number of beats per minute (for the sake of convenience) and thus essentially the DJ must match the BPMs of songs for them to play properly, or the rhythm will go awry.

So the basic job is to first listen to the beats of a song, and internalize the beat. This is something that gets better with time. Basic mixing involves two tracks, one on the left and another on the right. Hardcore DJs mix 4-5 tracks together, but let's stick to basics. Thus similar tracks BPMs can be mixed in, quite literally.

This is where we introduce one more concept: looping. To essentially mix two tracks we must loop a small part of each or either. Looping means playing the same part again and again and this is important to mix the two tracks slowly and steadily.

The second track, on the right, the one you want to mix, needs to be played a bit faster or slower, so the beats start syncing with the first track. Once the BPMs are same, the songs can essentially play together. This way, when the left track is getting over, you can mix the right track in, all BPMs matched up. Thus we have a smooth transition between the music, and the crowd keeps dancing. The actual BPM of the song will be displayed on the software. The below mentioned ones all do that, no need to worry.

Next is the key of the song, which can be explained simply as a group of pitches or notes used in music. When mixing two tracks, the beats might as well go together, all BPM matched and all, but the notes in the music must also match. In music terminology, they are called by English Alphabets like key of A, key of C, key of D# etc.

A knowledge of the keys helps, but it is not entirely necessary at a basic stage. Getting a little deeper into the concept - 2 songs in similar keys will have frequencies overlapping, that create consonance with the human ear. Dissimilar keys will create discord, and your ears will not like what they hear. The loophole here is that just beats alone do not need to be in perfect key relationships. The good thing is our ears can detect any muck-ups in beats or keys, and an aspiring DJ must concentrate on developing a discerning ear.  

The software listed in this feature are simple and some resemble the actual console of the real DJ deck. Thus you can actually practice serious DJing at home with these. Give one of them a shot. They help in changing  aspects like keys and BPMs, with the simple use of knobs (or faders) in the GUI, thus making things simpler.