30-day DJ practice plan

This plan assumes about 30 to 60 minutes of practice, five days a week. Move faster or slower as you need. Keep volumes moderate, and see hearing protection before you start.

Week 1: set up and listen

• Set up your gear and connect speakers and headphones. See budget starter setups
• Learn what every knob and fader does on your mixer section. See mixers
• Import 30 tracks you love in one genre, ideally extended mixes
• Learn what BPM means and find the BPM of five tracks by tapping. See BPM and tempo
• Learn to count beats and bars. See beats, bars and phrases
• Use headphones to cue a track before playing it. See cueing
• Play tracks back to back with clean volume levels

Week 2: your first mixes

• Set gain so every channel peaks at the same level
• Beatmatch two tracks with sync, then turn sync off and match by ear
• Practice nudging a drifting track back into time
• Mix in during an intro and out during an outro
• Do a simple bass swap with the low EQ. See EQ mixing
• Mix 10 tracks in a row without stopping

Week 3: phrasing and structure

• Map the structure of five tracks: intro, breakdown, drop, outro. See song structure
• Set hot cues at the first downbeat and the drop of each track
• Start every mix at the beginning of a 16 or 32-bar phrase. See phrasing
• Try a loop to extend an intro. See looping
• Try three transition types: blend, cut and echo out. See transitions
• Learn the Camelot wheel and check the keys of your tracks. See musical keys

Week 4: sets and recording

• Plan a 30-minute set with a rising energy curve. See building a set
• Record your first 30-minute mix. See recording mixes
• Listen back the next day and note three things to improve
• Record a second mix fixing those three things
• Play for a friend and watch how they react
• Set your next goal: a longer set, a new genre or a first gig

Habits to keep

• Practice with sync off at least once per session
• Add and prepare new music every week
• Keep headphone and speaker volume moderate
• Look up three new words in the DJ glossary each week