Mitch

@wrxfiend and @LabRat know what's up in Perth for this sort of thing

Store DJ is where it's at for you! Jump on the 109 tram, it goes right past crown and will take you all the way to store DJ in about 25 minutes

Glad we could help

This is pretty sweet man! Love the sounds you're using, and nothing wrong with a long track, as long as it stays interesting throughout the whole thing. I feel the kick may be better with some adjusting of the EQ/compression as there's a noticeable 'click' which I think it might sound better without that coming through (personal opinion). Track loses its energy on the two breakdowns. It's all about changing/tweaking a couple of elements at a time. Perhaps on the first breakdown some delay/reverv/echo fx to really draw the sounds out which will help with the transition into the breakdown + some white noise + add some of the percussion hits in that little breakdown to fill it out a bit more. Might help it from feeling like such a sudden change. Similar deal with the second breakdown. Maybe keeping the shuffling hat noise would bridge the transition in the breakdown a bit better. Also, between 8 and 8:30 is a bit of a dead spot. I'd almost consider having a longer breakdown and bring the synths in over the breakdown, create some tension in the build, then bring the kick back in around 8:30. I like the concept and the synths, mixing seems pretty good in terms of everything sitting nicely. More just making less changes at once to keep the flow of the track going IMO. Keep listening to similar tunes and see how other producers do it. Keep it up

What part of Melb are you staying? If you're inner suburbs, Store DJ is where it's at.. if you're in the outer suburbs, DJ city may be easier to get too.

Literally just have to scout existing nights via facebook, head down and meet people to bulid the relationship. If Sydney is anything like Melb, it's saturated with DJs, so they need a good reason to choose to work with you over the next bloke

One of my secret gems atm

Welcome

OK, so there are two things you're talking about here: 1) technical ability 2) getting exposure -> assuming this is so you can move toward getting gigs? I had a quick flick through the mix. Genre: Personally wouldn't exactly call it jacking house, there was a bit of variety, but most of the tunes are what I'd expect to hear at a commercial / electro house night. Nothing wrong with that if that's what you're into.. But if you're trying to get gigs and telling promoters you're playing jacking house, I don't really know anyone booking 'jacking house' DJs around Melbourne at the moment, let alone for opening sets. Mixing: OK in the sense that beatmatching and phrasing was on most of it. Levels were a bit up and down - the mixes sounded a lot like the incoming track just had the drums slammed over the live track, which makes the kicks sound wrong. EQ is your friend here - you don't want the low end of both tracks up if they both have heavy kicks going, you get volume peaks/drops and it makes it sound really noticeable that you're mixing a track in. Also try work on some different transition styles than straight intro/outro mixing with the same EQ movements each time. Flow: Half hr is pretty short.. But think about if you were in a club, you want to build up to a peak, drop back off a bit to give the dancers a rest, build up again, and the night goes around like this. Then depending on what time the place shuts, fades off a bit toward the end of the night generally. Listen to some DJ sets and pay particular attention to the order they play their tracks. Exposure: The hardest one. You can circulate via socials to friends and you may get a few plays, but the fact is not many people will listen. Unless they're a DJ, they probably don't listen to that style of music day in, day out. As labrat said - if you want exposure in terms of gigs, you need to be out meeting people all the time, frequenting the venues you wish to play at. It all comes down to $ at the end of the day, so they're going to book people they like / will bring them $ in / they're so good that they create the exact vibe the venue is going for. Also, it's hard to get the first few gigs at venues. Just remember, no matter how good you are mixing in your bedroom, it doesn't transfer into club experience. Using equipment in the loud, dark room, people hanging off you, having to read the crowd, conform to the promoter's vision/music policies, probably had a few drinks before hand, etc... you will probably muck something up. So they will put you at the quietest time of the night; at least to start with. Find the venues you want to play at (generally a venue where you already know someone involved somehow), turn up early and learn what music they play. Focus on becoming good at that genre, and work from there. But at the same time, you want to sound unique (without trying to contradict myself). No venue plays hits all night. P.S. Melbourne is saturated with DJs, and a lot of them are pretty good, at least in my circles. So to become 'known' for being a good DJ around here takes a lot of time and practice. I've been chipping away for years down here.

RE: S8 controller.. You can integrate your maschine into traktor as well, there's plenty of traktor mappings for things such as remix decks. Or you can sync traktor and maschine via midi clock. Anyhow, if you're looking for production advice. I'd seriously not bother with paying for lessons upfront, just to learn the basics. If you want to learn your way around it, just search for a 'maschine 101' style course to learn the fundamentals of the system first. Once you've got that down, maybe start looking for some trance specific vids. If you want to take it further after that and are struggling, maybe look at paying for some 1 on 1 time with a tutor. This way, you're not spending money on a tutor to learn the easy stuff that we can all teach you super easy. The most important thing is to just sit down in front of it and muck around! You'll learn more that way than just watching & copying vids. Source: I have one P.S.: my personal thoughts on the maschine are are i love the sounds, but i like the sequencing in ableton better. So I use a combination of the two.. Do you use any other DAW at the moment?

I have my own pro account lol. Put the moneys in for other things

$1k is pretty steep. I paid $1400 for a pair of M5G's with roadcases and ortofon needles a few years ago.

They stopped making them ages ago obviously, so there's no 'new' ones left. Price heavily depends on condition. Busted up - 400-500 normal - 500-600 good/very good - 600-700 some retailers will charge 800-1000 but they're normally very good condition, serviced, and with a 3 month guarantee.

Anything with wireless over 100mbps will be fine. If everything you're doing is via the Internet, you're not really utilising the extra bandwidth. Not a personal fan of netgear. If you want an easy to configure router + wireless, billion. I had a quick look and you can buy entry level Cisco within your price range, but you need to know what you're doing to configure. Their entry level stuff might be point and click, but the enterprise stuff I deal with is all terminal/command based. If you just want better wireless for existing router, you'll get great performance out of the box with ubiquiti for the price. Yet to find better bang for buck. Even the entry level model will be overkill for you. P.s. If you have stuff running on wireless that you could easily plug in with cable, do that. P.p.s. Make sure your wireless is set to pick a channel automatically. This ensures that it picks a channel that's not overly congested. If you live in a small place you'll likely have a few other networks around you, and you don't want to be sharing a channel with anytime else

Do you want a new router, or just better wireless? As it's an nbn service, you have to use the provided device as a modem at least, and put it in bridge mode to connect the router. If you just get a new wireless AP you can just plug that in and off you go. I use a billion router/wireless at home. Performance isn't the newest/greatest/best, but it's wireless n which gets faster than 100mbps, which is better than the speed of your connection anyway. Stability is rock rolid. Ubiquiti make great networking products, which is what I use a lot at work. They only sell wireless APs and routers as separate devices, which is why I mentioned all the above.

First Q: What are you currently using?

Too hard to tell from info provided. I'd recommend seeking professional legal advice should you want to consider taking up the offer. Plenty have been burnt in similar circumstances before

yeye

Good decision

I'd just do it live man. Have a mic running into your mixer, drop the fader on the playing track down to about 20%, say what you want, and push the volume back up. It will sound more genuine than trying to record and put over the top after. Practice just doing a couple of tracks, recording, and listening back so you get to know what works well for you personally.

Don't really know trance, but production seems good

Yeah exactly, you can do whatever you want. Maybe some light compression and a simple fx chain (to your liking, reverb or distortion maybe?) on the mid and tweaking the volumes on each component? I find doing some things this way easier/better than fiddling with an EQ8 forever, and you don't have to bounce anything out into separate tracks. You can also obviously solo out each component when tweaking to get a better idea of what you're doing.