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Learn
Nine stages take you from your very first controller to running DJing as a business. Start at the top and keep going: every stage builds on the one before it.
Stage 0 Before You Start
4 courses · 26 lessons · 3 h 2 min
What DJing actually involves, and how to choose a first setup without wasting money. Start here if you have never touched a mixer.
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Course 1 of 4
What DJing Actually Is
Before any kit, a straight answer to what the job is. Ellaskins has been asked "when is a DJ a real DJ?" for twenty years, and his answer…
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Course 2 of 4
Choosing Your First Setup
What to buy, in what order, and - the part most beginner advice skips - what not to buy. Ellaskins is consistently against spending money…
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Course 3 of 4
Buying Second Hand Without Getting Burned
Second hand is how most people can afford to start, and it is where most people get caught. Three lessons on inspecting a turntable and a…
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Course 4 of 4
Vinyl, and Why It Still Matters
You do not have to start on vinyl, and Ellaskins does not say you should. But the format explains a great deal about why DJ equipment works…
Stage 1 Your First Setup
5 courses · 68 lessons · 5 h 8 min
Every control on a controller, CDJ and mixer explained one at a time: loading tracks, gain and trim, faders, and using headphones properly.
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Course 1 of 5
Complete Beginner DJ Lessons
Ellaskins' own ordered beginner series, start to finish. It begins with nothing more than a controller in front of you and ends with you…
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Course 2 of 5
Plugging In and Switching On
Getting a working setup in front of you: what plugs into what, what the browser is for, and how to get a track loaded on the common…
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Course 3 of 5
Every Control on the Mixer
The mixer is where beginners do the most damage, usually by running everything too hot. One control at a time: gain and trim, the EQ, the…
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Course 4 of 5
Headphones and Cueing Properly
Cueing is the skill that makes everything after it possible, and it is almost entirely about how you use one ear. What to buy, how to wear…
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Course 5 of 5
Setting Up a Vinyl Turntable
If there is a turntable in front of you, it needs setting up properly or it will skip, wear your records and sound thin. The tonearm, the…
Stage 2 Counting Music
4 courses · 34 lessons · 4 h
Before you can mix you have to hear the music's structure. Bars, beats and phrases, what BPM really means, beat grids and reading a waveform.
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Course 1 of 4
Counting Bars, Beats and Phrases
You cannot mix what you cannot hear the shape of. This is the counting: where the bar starts, what a phrase is, and how to find both by ear…
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Course 2 of 4
How a Track Is Built
Dance records are built to a pattern, and once you can hear the pattern you know what is coming before it arrives. The structure of house…
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Course 3 of 4
Mixing on the Phrase
Counting is useless until you use it to decide when to bring the next record in. This is the difference between a mix that merely lines up…
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Course 4 of 4
Counting the Awkward Genres
Four-four house is the easy case. Drum and bass moves too fast to count the obvious way, hip hop is rarely at a convenient tempo, and…
Stage 3 Beatmatching
4 courses · 27 lessons · 3 h 36 min
Getting two tracks running in time and keeping them there, by ear, with the pitch control and the jog wheel. The skill everything else rests on.
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Course 1 of 4
Your First Beatmatch
The skill everything else rests on, taught several different ways on purpose - beatmatching clicks for different people from different…
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Course 2 of 4
The Controls That Do the Work
Beatmatching is pitch, jog wheel and cue button, and most beginners misuse all three. What each one is for, when to touch the platter and…
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Course 3 of 4
Practising Until It Sticks
Beatmatching is not understood, it is drilled. These are the practice routines, including what to do when it has genuinely stopped…
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Course 4 of 4
Beatmatching on Vinyl
No display, no BPM reading, no sync - just a platter and your ears. Harder to learn on and, by most accounts including his, the thing that…
Stage 4 Mixing & Transitions
5 courses · 36 lessons · 6 h 2 min
Moving between tracks cleanly: EQ mixing, bass swaps, chops, filters, long blends, and how to avoid vocal clashes and clipping.
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Course 1 of 5
EQ Mixing and the Bass Swap
Two kick drums and two bass lines at once is the single commonest reason a mix sounds like mud. The bass swap is the fix, and it is the…
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Course 2 of 5
Your First Transitions
A beatmatch is not a mix. These are the actual moves - bring one in, take one out, and handle the stretch in the middle where both are…
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Course 3 of 5
Chopping and Cutting
Not every record wants a long blend. Older and shorter tracks often want cutting - in and out quickly, on the beat - and that is a…
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Course 4 of 5
Mixing Genre by Genre
A reference rather than a path: each genre has its own convention about where a mix goes and how long it lasts. Dip into whichever you…
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Course 5 of 5
Crossing Between Genres and Tempos
Going from one style to another mid-set, or from a slow record to a fast one, without the floor noticing the join. This is where a mobile…
Stage 5 Musical Craft
4 courses · 35 lessons · 5 h 19 min
The musical side: mixing in key, choosing tracks that work together, managing energy, building a set and reading a floor.
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Course 1 of 4
Mixing in Key
Two tracks can be perfectly in time and still sound wrong, because their keys disagree. His numbered harmonic mixing series runs first…
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Course 2 of 4
Building a Set
A set has a shape: where it starts, where it lifts and where it lands. Warm-up sets get their own lesson here because they are the job most…
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Course 3 of 4
Reading the Floor
The part that cannot be done from a prepared playlist. Keeping people dancing, teasing a record before you play it, and the specific…
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Course 4 of 4
Choosing the Next Track
Track selection is most of the job and the least teachable part of it, so this is mostly Ellaskins thinking aloud while he digs - what…
Stage 6 Performance Technique
5 courses · 36 lessons · 3 h 1 min
Cues, loops, effects, acapellas and scratching used as performance tools rather than party tricks.
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Course 1 of 5
Learning to Scratch
His beginner scratching lesson is the most watched video on the whole channel - over a million views - and it still starts in the right…
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Course 2 of 5
Cue Points and Hot Cues
Hot cues turn a record into something you can play rather than only mix. Setting them in sensible places, and what the modern all-in-one…
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Course 3 of 5
Loops
A loop buys you time - to find the next record, to extend an intro that is too short, or to hold a breakdown until the floor is ready…
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Course 4 of 5
Effects, Used Sparingly
Effects are the easiest way to make a mix worse. Ellaskins is consistently conservative about them, and the most useful lesson in here is…
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Course 5 of 5
Acapellas and Tricks
Putting a vocal over someone else's instrumental is the oldest trick in the job and still the one that gets the biggest reaction. Plus a…
Stage 7 Software & Gear
6 courses · 40 lessons · 5 h 11 min
Running Serato, rekordbox, Traktor and VirtualDJ with confidence, plus the real-world kit: PA, speakers, microphones, laptops, USB and troubleshooting.
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Course 1 of 6
Amps, Speakers and PA
The most watched gear lesson on the channel is about linking up amplifiers, which tells you how often this goes wrong. Matching amps to…
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Course 2 of 6
Cables, Connections and Getting Plugged In
Most dead channels and most hum are a cable. Repairing phono leads, getting a controller into a club mixer without stopping the music, and…
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Course 3 of 6
Looking After a Turntable
A skipping needle is almost never the record. Anti-skating, the strobe dots, what the platter and tonearm need to stay working - and a list…
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Course 4 of 6
Software, USB and Your Music Library
Getting your music onto the kit, and getting the software to agree with you. Importing and exporting, analysis and quantise, DVS so…
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Course 5 of 6
Lighting, Smoke and Flight Cases
The part of mobile work that is not sound. Rigging lighting so it does something for the room, keeping a smoke machine from clogging…
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Course 6 of 6
Recording and Streaming Your Mixes
Getting a mix off the kit and onto the internet with audio that does not sound like a phone in a pocket. Recording to Audacity, and the…
Stage 8 The DJ Business
6 courses · 48 lessons · 6 h 23 min
DJing as a job: getting booked, what to charge, weddings and mobile work, clients and contracts, marketing yourself, and the scams to avoid.
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Course 1 of 6
Getting Your First Bookings
How the work actually arrives, which is rarely by sending out a demo. Approaching clubs, getting the first mobile gigs, and - his most…
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Course 2 of 6
What to Charge, and Getting Paid
Pricing is where mobile DJs undersell themselves for years. What to charge, how to put the fee up without losing the client, which extras…
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Course 3 of 6
Behaving Like a Professional
What separates someone who gets asked back from someone who does not, and almost none of it is mixing. Taking the booking properly, what to…
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Course 4 of 6
Music, Copyright and the Law
The part most DJs guess at. Whether you are allowed to play other people's records at all, what happens when you put a mix online, and the…
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Course 5 of 6
Scams, Fakes and Free Kit
Counterfeit gear and unlicensed music are both easy to buy by accident. How to tell a real bargain from a price that cannot be genuine…
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Course 6 of 6
Gig Logs: Real Nights, Start to Finish
Not instruction - observation. Ellaskins filmed his own gigs for years, including the setup, the awkward bits and the pack-down, starting…
