The DJ world is currently experiencing a digital world shakeup due to the advent of new types of digital media formats including MP3’s, these have given birth to a new era of different DJ mixing software packages and different software control devices, all of which have been specially designed to create a more natural and rewarding experience for the DJ when they are interacting with their digital media.

Believe it or not, DJs can now store thousands of music tracks on a hard disk drive, USB memory stick or even an iPod device, all of which can easily be put into a laptop (PC or Macintosh) where the tracks can easily be manipulated by the DJ using different mixing music software. The DJ can now achieve high-quality results that by far exceed the possibilities with analogue media such as vinyl records.

If you want to learn how to DJ on your laptop, then you will need a good piece of software. This can either be downloaded from the Internet or you can buy a commercial piece of software from a music store. It is however, much easier to download the software from the Internet. A lot of the commercial pieces of software will cost you up to a few hundred dollars, but they are well worth the price for the greater functionality that they have. A lot of the commercial pieces of software also have trial versions that you can download from the Internet, this allows you to try the software before you buy it. Two of my favourite programs are Traktor Pro and Virtual DJ. I use virtual DJ the most often.

When you have a piece of software that you like, then you will also need some good music, and of course the right kind of music. You need to consider the types of events that you will be attending as a DJ. It may be useful to go into iTunes and to look up “Top Songs”, then download the style of music that you may need from the top songs list. When you look at the different genres in iTunes, you will notice that certain songs are more popular, you can use the download meter in order to find the most popular songs. Here’s a list of some of the songs that you must have on hand: the recent top 40 (rock, hip-hop, and dance), some old favourites such as Frank Sinatra, some classic rock that (it may be useful to look up “guitar hero” or “Rock Band” songs in order to find the most popular songs that kids are listening to the classic rock era). They will also be useful to look at the most popular songs from different generations, such as the 90s, 80’s and 2000’s. You must also remember to keep the budget in mind that the music you wish to buy. Remember to keep your business as ethical as possible by not downloading music illegally. Apart from it being against the law, you will find that many of the songs that you find on the illegal websites will contain very bad viruses that could ruin your laptop and the music collection that you have already built up. Some of the songs may also be extremely bad quality which is no good if you’re a DJ.

“Mixxx is designed for DJ’ing for both professional and semi-professional users.”

Mixxx is an open source DJ tool designed for both professional and amateur DJs alike.

Mixxx allows DJs to mix music live with a clean, simple interface. Futhermore, Mixxx has a number of key features to help DJs in the mix: Beat estimation, parallel visual displays, and support for various DJ hardware
controllers.

In early 2001, Mixxx was started as one of the first digital DJ systems. Today, Mixxx continues to raise the bar for digital DJ software by being completely free, running on all major desktop OSes, and being constantly enhanced.

Here’s a glimpse of Mixxx’s rich feature set:

Beat estimation
Mixxx estimates the BPM of each song to help you beat match.

Pitch independent time stretch
Adjust the tempo of your tracks without changing their pitch.

Hardware support
Control Mixxx with your favorite MIDI devices and hardware like the Griffin PowerMate.

Waveform summary displays
Visually see the dynamics of a track, just like with vinyl.

Completely Free
Mixxx was designed by DJs, for DJs, and is distributed freely under the GPL. Mixxx is also completely free of spyware and adware. you can free download Mixxx 1.7.2 now.

Download Mixxx 1.7.2 for Mac / Windows / Linux Here