Learn How To DJ – The Basics

The decks can be very confusing with all their knobs, faders and pads but we are just going to focus on the essentials to get you started. There are two decks, one each side of the central mixer unit on most controllers. Each has it’s own dedicated cue and play buttons, pitch fader and jog wheel.

We use these three items the most to control and manipulate the song to ensure it’s in the perfect time to be mixed. The cue button places and then returns to a point in the song that you chose. Most DJ’s place the cue point at the first beat of a song, when you press the cue button it will play from the cue point and keep playing until you let go of the button. The play button plays and pauses the track, you will usually use the play button after setting the cue point on the first strong beat in the track.

The pitch fader is used to control the speed at which the track is played. When you move the pitch fader you should see the BPM of the track raise or lower. To mix tracks together we usually use these pitch faders to make both tracks play at the same speed. Another way to momentarily speed or slow a track is to use the jog wheels. You can move the jog wheels forward and back along their sides to nudge the playing song. This may sound strange at first if you don’t have a feature called master tempo on. It’s recommend you use master tempo or key lock as sometimes as it’s known. This stops the pitch of the song being altered as you change it’s speed. Once we have both tracks playing and we are able to control, when they play and how fast they are playing it’s time to try a mix.

Check out our video below for a more in depth look at the points we have just covered. Once you are set up and playing why not take your progression to the next level and learn with Crossfader. We have linked some of our best beginner DJ courses at the bottom of this article with specific courses dedicated to your preferred software!