Watch This Video Before You Buy the Next New Piece of DJ Kit

0:00 Waiting, piece, screen screen

Alright, so in this video we're talking future, we're talking how you can promote yourself as a DJ, we're talking how you can be different, how you can be separate from the mass sheep out there. There will be reverse psychology, there'll also be pure logic in this video and also afterwards I want you to then, once you've watched this video, just stop and think about you yourself. Now, at the moment you're saving up for that great controller or you're saving up for that new piece of kit and you're thinking, you know what, I can't wait to get it because that's going to make me a better DJ, that's going to make me shine above the rest. But if the truth be known, you are very much like the other 90% of DJs out there, or even more, you're just trying to get one over with the other one, you're waiting for that next piece of kit.

Maybe you're a multi-millionaire or you've got a whole bunch of cash and you're just waiting for the next Pioneer, Denon or whoever to bring out their next player so you can show them in front of your mates and say, look what I've got, I'm now a superstar DJ. Well, to be quite honest, it's crap, alright? Now, I'm not saying the new kit is crap, what I'm saying is that by you just waiting for that new piece of kit will not make you a better DJ. What will make you a better DJ is what's inside, how you... How you... How you control the music, how you're able to take tracks and put them together or produce or just have fun, excitement. It's not about the kit, the kit does help, it's actually about you.

So where does the reverse psychology come into this video? Okay, so everyone is looking, like I said, for that new piece of kit. Everyone's waiting for that new app, for that laptop. You know, you watch the screen. The screen is the all-living eye that will do and tell you what you should do. And... And you move the beat grid and you bring another track in, you key match it from the screen and you beat match it from the screen and you look at the screen and...

2:06 Try make note on how much time they look at the laptop

It actually does my head in. In fact, after this video please watch some random video of a DJ doing a set and if they've got a laptop in front of them, please just try this. Try make note on how much time they look at the laptop. Compared to how much time they're looking at the crowd. And what you'll find is most of them will spend more time looking at the laptop than the crowd. Now, the laptop's not going to go away, what's it going to do? It's going to disappear, it's going to go, oh I'm just going to go to the toilet and run away. Don't go! I've got to keep my eye on you. No, it's going to stay there unless, of course, someone physically pushes it off your stand. You're missing the point. You're not looking at the crowd.

So, this video really is about going back in time and just getting back to the essence of DJ'ing. Now, controllers, alright, if you're on a limited budget, two or three hundred bucks, dollars, pounds, euros and you can get, you know, a box standard beginner controller. But if you're willing to pay the extra, you can then get separates, you know, a separate media player or two of them with a mixer or like Denon Prime. You can get just one player and have a mixer and you can layer it. I personally do not like that, right? I'm not saying I don't like Denon, but I don't like to have a player do one thing and then change it and do something else on the same player. I like a player A to do A, a player B to do B.

Simple. There you go. Less confusion for me anyway. All right. So.

This is the CDJ-1000 Mark III. Now, back in the day I had these and they were great. And then of course, the new tech comes out and all of a sudden it's a laptop and a screen. And I've always been, as you know, I've always not been against a screen, but I don't like them because they're taking away a lot of the soul of DJ'ing. Now, if you look at the CDJ-1000 Mark III

And the screen here, it's tiny. All that screen is giving me is some form of old school WAV format, which looks like an old hand-held Atari game from the early 80s. I love that. And it's telling me the time and it's telling me track one. So

That's really all I need to know. Do I really need to know anything else about that track? Because if you think about it, if you understand phrasing, you understand bars, you understand about the keys of tracks and how the music works, then what else do you really need to know? Do you really need to look at a screen all day and watch what it does? Because you see what's happening with technology now.

5:12 Music, until paid, parking ticket

We're slowly being taken away from this, well, vinyl to then CD and CD to MP3. And why have a thumb drive when you can have everything in the cloud? Because then you can go everywhere you want to and your music is there. It's ready for you. You just grab it out of the sky and it's there. But you see, I'm not saying this will happen, but let's imagine in a film the DJ in 20 years time gets to the gig and starts to play. Yes. All of a sudden there's no music there because that DJ didn't pay their parking ticket and the system has said, you can't play any music until you've paid your parking ticket. Now that sounds farfetched. It really does sound farfetched, but we've only got to go back ten years from ten years ago look to today and we would be like, oh my God,

Look at this shit, man. This is crazy. Look at what this kit can do. So we're not that far away. You see what? What people don't realise is that the way technology is moving forward, believe it or not, the technology is giving us more, but it's actually taking away more from us than what it's giving us. Now that's deep, but think about it. So why something like this? Why something like the CDJ 1000 Mark III or some form of player that plays physical CDs? Simple. Because exactly what I said, because of what I said. It plays something physical that you have a hold of, that you're in charge of, that you can physically hold. So when I press that eject button, okay, hopefully it'll eject. I now have control of my music because this is mine.

All right? All right. Okay. Yeah. Maybe it's copyrighted and it's owned really by the company or the artist. Fine. But that CD there, this is... I got it. I can put it in my pocket. No, I can't. Yeah, I can. I can put that in my pocket and I can take that anywhere around the world and I can take it out of my pocket just and I can place it in another player and play the music, whereas a laptop. Yeah, okay. It can play, but maybe it crashes. All right, this can crash. This can break. Anything can break. But the way tech's moving forward, so many people now are saying, you know what? What's the point in having a collection? Well, you don't need it. You carry it around. You lose it. You just grab it at the sky. There it is.

8:16 Old school kit because it could

Like I said earlier, one day you'll try and grab it out of the sky and it's not going to be in the sky because you're not allowed to have the sky until you've paid your bills. Also look at these 12 inch again. This is physical. This is something that's tactile. You see, these are tactile items. These are just this is real in the wrong cover. But what a classic Robert Miles children. So what I'm saying here is many things. One, always look to the future and embrace the future, but don't forget the past. Secondly, if you don't have the money, then look at the old school kit because it could be going for peanuts. All right. I bought two CDJ 1000 Mark threes in very good condition in flight cases. It cost me £350.

All right, now I'll be honest with you. I think that's a bargain. Okay, you can get these cheaper. You can get them more expensive. But I did. I had a good deal here. All I need now is a small two channel mixer and I've got to set up where number one, I'm digressing slightly. Number one, I know I've got something physical. Number two, really, which is the main one, and that is that when I play in front of a crowd, I'm playing to the crowd, not to a laptop. Okay, really important. Now, what if I'm losing my train of thought here? I'm not really. This video is about inspiring you into maybe looking at the direction you want to go as a DJ and not looking tech, tech, modern day, tech, modern day, tech, tech, but also looking old school because it may be in five,

Six, ten years time. If this place still working, hopefully it will be a look after it and buy secondhand parts people, you know, Mr and Mrs Joe Average out there or Mr and Mrs 21st birthday party, they'll want an old school DJ. They'll want some DJ who plays something that they can reminisce about instead of a DJ turning up with a laptop and playing in midair, and you can do that. You can do that now. You can DJ in midair, in virtual reality. And I do that. I am embracing all technologies as much as I can, but what I'm doing is I'm not forgetting the past and I'm embracing that as well as we speak, so I hope this video has maybe inspired you. Please give it a thumbs up because that helps with the algorithm algorithms and also like it, share it.

And also just post a comment. Let me know what you think. Practice and enjoy. Thank you. Take care.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.