Raw Silence

Pick up your pen and circle 12th of April in your calendar for a late night of dark, punchy, deep house session hosted by RAW SILENCE. Don’t panic- it’s still us, ‘Become A DJ’ crew, introducing the new name for our events, podcast, presented by Phoebe Kibbey, and the soon to be launched record label.

The night will deliver a badass hybrid of dirty beats and remarkable vocals from duo- act - You Me and Dolarhyde - Mantas Jan (Become a DJ founder) and awarded vocalist Ryan Molloy. The showcase will be backed up by Keith Hunter, Markus Rush, Matas Balta and Tim Watts - true dedicated deep/ tech house worshipers.

The epic night will take place in the intimate Venue 229, Great Portland Street 229, W1W 5PN on the 12th of April 9 PM - 3 AM. To buy your tickets, please visit here!

World Wide Wet

So living in London (UK in general) is great. Undoubtedly.
- home to many a dance music pioneer and respected DJ
- the best dance music radio station (BBC Radio 1 that is) tick to the clock of this time zone
- the clubbing experience is unparalleled 
- even Ibiza was in large part a brain child of DJs and promoters of this country

If only festivals on these islands weren't washed away by rain year after year.....

We found a solution: Hungary, where people get wet differently!
This country has not started any musical revolutions. Nor does it have radio shows with international following. Let's face it some of you reading this will have never been to Hungary and may even have some difficulty pointing it out on a map. So why Hungary? Can it offer anything we haven't seen? YES! There are two things that are great: Summer music festivals as well as thermal baths, open air public pools and water theme parks.
Check out for example
- Sziget festival in Budapest (one of the largest in Europe)
- Balaton Sound (an electronic dance music festival along the shore of the largest lake in Central Europe)
- One of many water theme parks next to the Formula 1 race track just outside Budapest.

I have taken friends from UK there and let's just say they weren't disappointed (what happens in Hungary stays in Hungary :-))

Some people had the great idea about 15 years ago to marry these two things up and started holding club nights in thermal baths. Truly an experience to add to your life. Poor citizens of the rest of the world who do not have access to such parties. Here is a taste of what a party like this can be like:
http://www.cinetrip.hu/galleries/video/15_years_of_world_wide_wet_video_2012_12_29 (click on the video)

AND NOW THE BIG NEWS!
We are not a travel agency. We don't just want you to visit Budapest to inject your money into the local tourism industry. Instead, we at Become a DJ have formed a partnership with the organizers of these parties. According to this partnership they will accept DJs that we promote to them. If you are interested in playing at one of these pool parties in Budapest let us know! The rules are  simple but important so we kindly ask you that you ensure that you meet all requirements:
 - You must have done a course at Become a DJ
 - This cannot be your first gig!!! Get a few gigs under your belt before you step up
 - Have a mix we could send to event organizers to showcase your skill
 - A one page bio with a picture 
 - This is not an underground party! While no specific genre is frowned upon think about entertaining a large international crowd
 - In the beginning we will arrange for 1 person to go per month
 - Visit our Facebook page to show your interest

 - But if you are not the first one to go don't panic!!!! We will regularly announce this opportunity on our facebook page so watch that space!

Written by Swim the Shine

Ableton Live 9 instructor

Welcome on board, Sam!
Simone Tanda, or Sam as his friends call him, or Sam4Toys as the rest of the lot know him, is a certified Ableton Trainer and we are very lucky and thrilled to be welcoming him to our small team. Simone teaches in schools in London and Italy and is also a Keith Macmillen Product Specialist. In love with music from a very young age Simone started off with playing electric bass, moved on to Rome to study with the best professional musicians, later on focused on professional music production, recording, and composing. Passionate, creative, sometimes rough, Simone’s music is full of personality and that is, well, a rare gem! Students at Become A DJ will surely not leave the course empty handed!

Music Production with Ableton Live 9

Ladies and gentleman, let the show begin! Delighted, thrilled, and excited to announce our newest addition to the Become A DJ arsenal - the Music Production Course. It is designed for those who have a heart for creating music and want to learn to do it with the powerful Ableton Live 9. You know, master the tricks of the platform, pick the brains of our talented music production instructor... OK, on to the specifics. The course will jump start on February 16th with an ‘Introduction to Ableton Live 9’ workshop - the first of our regular introductory workshops that we plan to give monthly. During the 3hr session the students will get a fantastic opportunity to get to know the platform and even start making their own music right there on the spot. Awesome! The session will help the undecided to answer two very important questions: is it for me? and if it is which of the two options should I choose? The two options being: Music Production with Ableton Live 9 Course or a Custom Ableton Live 9 Course (Dj and Live Performance). The price? £30 for 3 hours, a proper bargain! For more information about the Workshop and to book your spot click here.

New Horizons

NO! We are not talking about Richie Hawtin's mix for the cover of the March 2012 issue of Mixmag (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZBSVdtUTlA). Something even more exciting has happened (in our opinion anyway) for Become a DJ. Our very own Traktor instructor, Swim the Shine (www.facebook.com/swimtheshine) was invited to the Audio-Visual Open Studios in Budapest, Hungary to deliver a lecture on the differences/similarities/misconceptions of digital vs analogue musical formats. As this boy has a PhD in something we don't understand, he didn't simply go through the motions and give a lecture that has been given a thousand times beforehand, based on every recording engineer's school curriculum. Instead he managed to spice up the lecture with facts from fields as far apart as theorems from Information Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory), law making and criminology, facts from the neuroscience of sensory processing, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results of professional piano players and his own experiences from the 2012 Olympic Games in London where he performed as a drummer. We cannot fathom how these topics could help you understand digital and analogue recordings of sound waves but the lecture was so well received that he's been invited back to repeat it at other events to different audiences. Maybe next time we will have to fly with him to hear that lecture. But in any case, we are very proud and excited and thought we'd let you know! Sign up for our Traktor course if you want to be taught by an exceptional teacher and have a unique experience in learning how to DJ.

NEARLY NYE PARTY

'Become A Dj' presents:

What: No end of the world for us - get your party gear on! Join the Nearly NYE Party and see the old year off at The Fluid Bar on 30th December! For once take your music taste buds for a real treat - deep/tech house sounds spiced-up with live vocals.



Who: Savour yourself for the main act of the night: a refined collaboration, debut live performance by West End Jersey Boys lead singer Ryan Molloy & ‘Become a DJ’ founder Mantas Jan. Fill yourself up with some punchy deep & dirty beats, goosebumps baselines and unforgettable vocals. Mantas Jan is bringing the whole team behind him including Mr Funksta, K.I.F.F., Monique Parris, Markus Mucenieks and Keith Hunter spinning some of the most resent deep’n’techy house.



So what: This is only the beginning! The Nearly NYE Party will jump start a series of parties & events throughout the year. So no, no end of the world for us - we need to do some major partying next year! So what? Lets keep in touch? ;-) The entry is free, however you have to be on the guest list to enter. So please RSVP to events@becomeadj.co.uk



Where: Join the free party on the 30th December, Sunday at The Fluid Bar - a small and intimate Bar and Nightclub - in the City of London (40-42 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6JN). The powerful Turbo Sound system will make sure those shivers run down your spine all night long!



To sum up: 7PM till 2AM / Free entry / Fluid Bar / RSVP to events@becomeadj.co.uk

Finding Music

Whether you are just starting out or have been playing live for many years, I’m sure you realize the importance of having music. After all, you can’t DJ without music ... people need sound to dance to ... even in silent discos :)

If you’re anything like me then at times you will struggle to keep up dated on new releases and find it difficult to sift through available tracks to find the gems you’re looking for. Let’s take a look at some of the issues that you may be facing:

•    You have a large collection already of the music genre you wish to play, yet they are over a decade old and you’re struggling to find something recent that gives you the same feeling as the tracks from back in the day.

•    You’re not sure where to sample or buy music from.

•    You’re playing gigs weekly so you need to have new material all the time, and it seems like a full-time job doing this preparation.

•    You’ve found some websites to buy music from but there are soooo many tracks ... you’re not sure how you will filter through them all and find the hidden gems.

•    You’ve found tracks you want to buy but it’s becoming very expensive.

•    You have a long folder of MP3s on your computer and have difficulty finding the tracks you want.

Ok, so let’s tackle the obvious question first ... where do you buy music from? These days pretty much everything has become digital and there are many websites out there with the latest releases you can buy in MP3 format. Following are some sites that I use:

http://www.audiojelly.com – This site lets you sample tracks (very important), view its waveform, has a Top 100 list, has a New Releases list and lets you browse by genre or perform a custom search.

http://www.trackitdown.net – This site has a pretty cool player with playlist, easy navigation for different genres, easy access to different mixes of a track and good descriptions of the tracks.

http://mp3skyline.com – Although you can browse for tracks on the site, you need to download/ install a Java application locally to interact with the music library ... perform searches, sample and download (you buy credit into your account to purchase tracks until your credit runs out). The application will store all downloads in a convenient location so you can re-download quickly and for free in the future. On the website you can also search by ‘last added’ date and ... my personal favourite ... access RSS feeds of your genres so you can keep updated via your RSS reader of latest tracks.

There are many more out there ... yet these work well for me. Google searching will give you a lot more. Test out different sites so you know the cost differences, how up-to-date their libraries are, what the purchasing process is (e.g. pay per track or pay to receive credits), whether you can access your download history and perform a repeat download without re-paying, whether you can skip through the sample so you don’t have to wait to get into the main part of the track, and so on.

Once you have found your preferred sites, you now want an automatic way of keeping updated on new releases. There are a few options here:

•    Facebook / Twitter – Most of the sites that sell tracks will have Twitter feeds and Facebook pages you can join to keep updated with latest releases.

•    Join the site’s mailing list to be emailed weekly with tracks in your preferred genre(s). Some mailing lists also give you tracks that are in DJ playlists so you know what’s hot right now.

•    Use the search features on the site to order by latest releases (or other filters that you prefer, such as if you’re looking for tracks by a particular artist).

One last thing I’ll mention regarding keeping costs low ... on some sites I’ve seen tracks that are new cost more than older tracks. If it isn’t urgent for you to be playing the latest releases, an option is to hold back and buy music let’s say with a release date of 3 months ago or older.

Next time we will discuss what to do with your purchases and good ways of organizing everything to save on time so you are in control of your music ... not the other way around.

Written by Etchy Boy!