Turning 40 and crashing into a midlife crisis, Hesty got me a set of turntables for my birthday. Back in the day, as a teen and student, I’d been really into mixing on vinyl and I’d sold it all to buy a ticket to go to the US to be a lifeguard. That collection is probably worth a fortune now…

During the long summer of 2022, stuck in Beijing, I got back into it, and it has become a fun creative outlet. Relearning the skills in the digital age is great, and I think we are in a new golden era of EDM.

My Setup:

• Pioneer DDJ FLX-4 mixer. A great set of turntables at the budget end, with impressive features and a professional feel. I upgraded to these in summer 2023, from the Hercules Inpulse 200 basic mixer.
• Pioneer HDJ Cue Headphones. These are great, with bluetooth and cables.
• Algoriddim DJ ProAI software for Mac. This is great, with loads of options and easy integration with streaming services and a decent iOS app for playing. I also have Rekordbox DJ software, which comes with the FLX-4. It’s great, with professional options, though I still mostly use Algoriddim.
• BeatPort subscription for music. Worth the money, an extensive library, with a good iOS app for making playlists and searching.
• BlackHole virtual cable & Audacity for recording (post on how to make it work).
• MixCloud Pro subscription for hosting and sharing mixes. This is the only hosting service that takes care of DRM, and ensures track artists are paid for inclusion of their tracks in DJ mixes.

Some Mixes on YouTube

I’ve put some mixes up onto YouTube. Not all are suitable – if there is popular/commercial music in there, it won’t make it past the Copyright detection. Mixes on here have been approved.

My mixes, across styles, hosted on MixCloud.