Eris Drew and Octo Octa have released a 16-page guide of DJ tips on their website. Available both as a PDF and Google Doc, these tips are for anyone, from those who don’t know what BPM means to pros behind the decks.
The guide itself is split into two main sections: methods and club skills. Methods means, broadly speaking, advice on how to best prepare yourself for the experience of DJing. This includes how to build a tune collection, ways in which you can practise and prepare for a set, and different styles of mixing.
Club skills is defined as a far more prosaic set of skills, giving advice on what equipment to bring with you, how to negotiate fees for your time, and how to work when you or others are in varied states of intoxication.
Read this next: Octo Octa’s DJing and production are a testament to the transformative power of the dancefloor
In their own introduction, Eris Drew and Octo Octa make it clear that, although this is a helpful guide, you have to find your own way forward as a DJ. “This guide is not meant to be an elitist text declaring that our ideas and methods are the only way to do this properly!” They say, “There are so many different ways to approach DJing. Our intention is to stimulate creativity and consideration of new ways of working. We just want to share our knowledge and experiences to hopefully help others, not make them feel othered by declarations of ‘this is what a real DJ does’.”
This is the second guide that the pair have published on their website. The first was a guide from Octo Octa on how to build your own home studio, which you can read here.
Jemima Skala is Mixmag’s Weekend Editor. Follow her on Twitter
Read this next: Get the best of Mixmag direct to your Facebook DMs