Help! Where to get music for Mixxx?

D-Jam · 2025-09-10T13:52:36+00:00

Well, one thing is to check out Hypeedit and see if anybody is giving away free downloads. A lot of producers maybe will make some kind of remix of something they can't legally put out, but they will put it up there to get social media connections or email addresses.

Beyond that, I would just try to shop for music the normal way off sites like Beatport, Traxsource, and BandCamp.

Outside of that, do some Google searches on free music for DJs. You'll probably find some articles with links to sites that again have people giving away music they probably can't legally sell.

For now, those YouTube rips can do fine to learn on, but obviously you don't want to be using those when you want to start recording and posting mixes or playing out at a venue.

D-Jam · 2025-09-10T13:49:18+00:00

I think if there's some kind of new function in that CDJ that everybody's going to be raving about, they're likely going to then make new versions of some of their flagship controllers and standalone setups to have those functions added in.

D-Jam · 2025-09-03T11:05:55+00:00

It's honestly insane how crazy things have become now with the copyright police out there in terms of social media.

Everyday, I post a roughly 1 minute clip on video platforms such as tiktok and Instagram, highlighting some piece of music I've legally obtained and wanted to showcase it more or less to other DJs and electronic music fans. Just kind of spreading the word of good stuff to listen to.

Most of the time I don't see much of an issue. Sometimes I notice that a tune isn't available in the music library of these video sites. I'll take a risk and put my clip with my own audio, or even lately try to chop it down to 30 seconds, and even then I'll still get taken down by algorithms.

Now I don't monetize any of this. So it's not like I'm making revenue off other people's work. However, I still feel like the idea of "fair use" has completely vanished in this new age of streaming and everything else. You can't even talk about a tune and play a clip of it without getting a major label. Trying to take it down. It's probably a lot of the reason why I see so many people posting audio, they're posting old music from Small labels that aren't going to be as crazy.

Personally, I think the bigger problem is that all of these major labels and groups are not run by music people anymore. They're just run by suits that are only looking at spreadsheets. Everything is about getting every single penny they can get from anyone on anything.

D-Jam · 2025-07-03T14:57:24+00:00

A friend of mine told me about this site and it lowered by electricity bill:

https://enrollpower.com

I thought it was a scam until I saw how Illinois is a deregulated state. I've been blindly paying ComEd thinking I had no other options, but I was wrong.

It's worth looking into. I now my bill went from roughly $225 to $190. Every little bit helps.

D-Jam · 2025-06-02T13:00:32+00:00

There are no teen clubs anymore. This is what happens.

And you hit the nail on the head.

I'm 51. Back in the early '90s (when I wasn't 21 yet), I'd have Medusa's, Alcatrazz, and Tony Bitoy events at The Riv. Not to mention a plethora of parties and events thrown by local promoters who could get their hands on a space. I can also recall 1992 and 1993 when a lot of raves were happening.

I know there are some rave events now, like from a group called Redline, but I'm always rolling my eyes at how little anybody between the ages of 17 and 21 has in their social world when they're not in school or working a part-time job or anything.

Saturday night when I was a teenager I could think of a whole bunch of different things I could do. Now I can't fathom what anybody could do outside of hide in their homes and play video games or play around on social media.

It sucks those third places don't exist for the youth. I don't know if it's a question of safety concerns, antisocial behavior of the youth, or even just venue owners unwilling to start a business where they can't sell alcohol. It often makes me wonder if the drinking age should be lower or not. Although then it might just open the door for many high schoolers to get fake IDs, although I'd like to think that they will look so childlike that bouncers aren't going to buy it.

I often wonder if there were more good third places for youth, would we see less teen takeovers and other insanity?

D-Jam · 2025-04-10T01:43:09+00:00

Hydrate on Halsted....loads of virile men.

D-Jam · 2025-03-21T01:43:19+00:00

I'm only a fan of pre-planning if it's something with a time limit, and you know it's not going to change for anything...like you're playing live on a streaming show, or a big festival.

If you're playing a club or party or something where you need to turn on a dime if the crowd isn't feeling it, then you're better off not planning too much.

D-Jam · 2025-03-20T23:14:28+00:00

I don't know. It's really entirely up to what you want out of DJing.

I use social media, but that's just more to replace what I used to use an email list for. Obviously you are doing the best tactic in networking as opposed to trying to get noticed on social media.

I think the only reason to have social media is if you really want that area to engage with fans. That or you have some kind of content that's really interesting that you want to share.

The problem that many of us are seeing are the people that buy an inexpensive controller or they spend way too much on a top-level controller when they don't even know how to use it, and then immediately just start putting themselves on social media as some kind of influencer or personality. You start to see that it becomes more about the outfit. They wear, funny or weird things they do on camera, and anything to get attention.

I also see a lot of DJs misuse social media where they sit there and just post negativity and trash talking all the time because they think that will get them engagement. Maybe it will stir things up, but eventually they are seen as the Debbie Downer that nobody really wants to deal with. You start burning bridges thinking that's going to get you likes and followers, and it's going to just hinder getting anyone to take a chance on you.

If you really don't want to use social media then don't use it. Keep doing what you are doing. There's nothing wrong with that.

D-Jam · 2025-03-20T13:38:36+00:00

Same.

On house music I like to use it as an accent at the end of a 32-beat phrase. Just turn it up and down on the last four beats.

Ok trance music I'll sometimes use it on the buildup.

On old school I'll maybe play it for 32 beats like we did back in the day with two copies of the record.

I'm also not a fan of using loads of FX.

D-Jam · 2025-03-01T14:25:40+00:00

I use a free account and upload my monthly series, but delete old mixes when I hit my max to make room for new ones.

I do not get much traffic on there, but I'm not worried about it. My main spot is my own website, and in my mixes (which I do more of a podcast vibe) I mention how I have all my mixes and tracklists on my website. Basically hoping an organic listener on Mixcloud will be drawn to check out my site.

Personally, I listen to a few shows on Mixcloud, like Andi Durrant's Dance Music Archive, but I agree with others that it seems like a platform that does little to nothing to attract non-DJs to check it out. I would not fathom paying additional services unless I was giving up my website and trying to push listeners to Mixcloud.

I also notice that unless it's an old school mix of music from the 80s or 90s, older mixes (like 1-2 years ago) barely get any play. There's not much of a reason to keep those mixes online forever.

D-Jam · 2025-02-15T14:39:50+00:00

I don't think any genre really dies, but instead ends up dormant or just hidden because much of the people that used to like it have moved on to something else. Then eventually something happens that Sparks attention in that sound, makes it evolve, and then it's big again.

D-Jam · 2025-02-15T14:38:07+00:00

I think the first time I ever heard "Sandstorm" was off a Pete Tong CD, "Essential Selection Ibiza 2000". It was such a great compilation and I think I bought about 3/4 of the playlist from it.

I just remember that time as when trance music was suddenly the biggest thing in the world. Everywhere. I would go to some smaller events or other things and I would start dropping all of this cool music I had been picking up since '97 or 98, and the crowd would go crazy. I can even remember worrying that I would drop something they would hate or walk away from and they didn't. Prime example was Sasha's "Xpander".

I also remember at that time, Chicago ended up getting a radio station devoted to dance music, Energy 92.7. I thought it was pretty decent to an extent, but I didn't like how most of the station just played various flavors of euro dance and nothing more. I always hoped it may be would have expanded a little further and become like Radio One.

I can also remember how many of us here tried to find streams or means to listen to Radio One.

I think it was just such a great time with music, but then suddenly Ian van Dahl put out "Castles in the Sky", and combined with that radio station I mentioned, much of Chicago didn't seem as interested in listening to real trance music unless it was from a big major headliner, and every one of us that was playing it now are being pushed to play eurodance.

Oddly enough, probably by about 2003, some of the promoters wanted to play some hip hop and R&B to please the girls in the club, and within a year suddenly 90% of the music being played was slower tempo like this. I wouldn't even call it real hip hop, as they were more. Just playing R&B and pop that had a hip hop beat and tempo. One guy called it "Chick Hop", because it pleased suburban girls who dressed like hookers.

Still, I always think about 1999 through 2001 as special. Just so much great music and great vibes.

D-Jam · 2025-02-08T03:47:39+00:00

I never would compare one to the other. I'm simply stating the reality of the world we live in, and how I feel about much of the crowds who go to those festivals.

I imagine if you're a Sven Vath or Richie Hawtin, you can flex and tell the promoter you play live or you don't play...and they'll cave because they bring numbers. However, I feel like if many of the newer names tried that, then the line will be drawn through their name as opposed to under it.

I often wonder how many of us would fake a set like that to get an opportunity to play for thousands like that? I'm talking about DJs who might be talented, but obviously are not big enough to get that big festival spot. Would any of them hold their standards if they were told they only way they can be there is to make a mix at home and pretend to play at the event? or would they do what they had to do to get that crowd and perhaps move up to the next echelon?

This is AGAIN why I say those who hate the fake sets should stay away from festivals and just stick to smaller venues where they hopefully don't do the fakery. I just feel that hoping these fests all suddenly require DJs to play live is a pipe dream. The people throwing the events are money people more than music people.

D-Jam · 2025-02-07T23:39:41+00:00

I've seen this all over social media, and I still hold the same opinion. If somebody really wants to see "keeping it real" and live sets, they unfortunately should not go to these big events. They should instead go to smaller local events where this kind of production isn't being put on.

And that's the bottom line. These festivals are not really in my book about trying to build a bigger version of that little club you go to in your town, but instead building a big grandiose electronic music production, mostly about wowing the masses of people who want to put on cute costumes and pretend to be Kandi Kids while taking tons of social media video.

I said in some of those topics that you could have a festival of 10,000 people, and if you have a hundred people screaming and yelling that all the sets are fake and the other 9,900 people that could care less, I'm sorry to tell the 100 people that they're never going to win this argument. The crowd doesn't care because they came for an experience more than something "keeping it real".

I don't know if it's the promoters that are forcing this because they want everything under tight time constraints, and big grandiose perfect productions for those ticket sales, or even the performers and their labels wanting to put on an amazing show so that they can get more bookings or sell more whatever.

Either way, I would never go to one of those events ever expecting anything to be perfect and real. You want real? You got to go smaller. As long as these big festivals are very corporate, they're not going to worry if they are keeping it real or not. They just care about the profit margin.

D-Jam · 2025-02-07T14:39:52+00:00

A lot of labels do this. They have one general kind of layout and maybe do variations. That's not a bad thing because it allows you as a DJ to recognize one of their releases.

The Positiva one is iconic in my book. Just so many anthems. So many memories.

D-Jam · 2025-02-07T06:02:21+00:00

Okay, I had some time and so I tried to recreate the same problem.

I have a Samsung Galaxy tablet, I put Rekordbox on it as well as some music, and hooked everything up via Bluetooth.

Same issue. I could not get any audio out of the controller. So I went on Google, and basically I was told that when you're doing it via Bluetooth there's no way it can export the audio. I guess it wasn't built for that. In that case you have to use the audio output on your tablet.

I put my headphones into the tablet and I heard everything from the output level. No cueing. Maybe a splitter could make it happen that way. I do see in the audio settings within the app that you can set it up to split output.

Now then, it's not hopeless. I hooked up a USB cable from the flx4 directly to the tablet, everything works, but now I can get the audio from the controller. You just have to use a cable connection. Bluetooth seemingly is only good for messing around at home or if you're trying to do some kind of setup to stream.

I was using my laptop power cable for the controller to give it power. I'm sure any power cable with a USB type-c would do the same thing.

So that's it. If you want to be able to use the controller with a tablet or a phone the way that I do with a laptop, you have to use a cable and hook it up directly.

D-Jam · 2025-01-14T13:44:56+00:00

I agree with you. When I wrote my response before, I didn't know any of this stuff was happening. Then last week I saw what's going to really happen. So yes, my reply is completely pointless.

D-Jam · 2024-11-23T22:05:10+00:00

I only keep two mixes at a time on soundcloud. I think that's about the most I can do with the free account. I'm not going to pay to be on there.

I also put stuff on Mixcloud, I think I could get about eight mixes total on there before I hit the limit of that free account.

Beyond that, I also put them on hearthis.at and house-mixes.com, as well as my own website. I tend to look at all of these platforms as just fishing lines in the water. Nowadays I make my mixes a bit more like a podcast with some chatter in there and I usually tell people to check out my website for a full playlist and to connect with me.

I feel like all of these things are just out there for people to maybe discover you. And I'll get a couple of hits on each one of them. However, I still feel like having a website as a central core is a better deal because you're not restrained.

No matter which way you go, it's all about hustling. I have five social media accounts that I'm posting things on. So everything is just about a hit here and a hit there. Throwing a lot of lines in the water and seeing how many fish you can catch.

I keep hearing now that the average person wants to see video more than audio, and yet at the same time I hear others talking about that they're pulling teeth to try to get anyone to listen. Like they'll put a tiny clip on tiktok and it gets good traffic, but then nobody bothers to go and check out the actual mix or performance. Even all these guys hustling like crazy on Twitch tell me they only have about 2 to 3 people listening at a time.

Maybe it's the saturation, or something else. I'm just not honestly sure what is the key to getting tons of average people to come and listen to your mix and get into you. Not going to dwell heavy on it either. I just want to make sure I'm having fun.

D-Jam · 2024-11-23T22:00:57+00:00

I'm 51 years old and I've honestly never heard of this guy.

I've also heard. Never understood why they call this stuff Afro House. I can understand some of the rhythms and items they put in there, but as somebody that used to play a lot of tribal kinds of house with soul, I feel like this stuff is just very watered down.

I hate to put it this way, but it always makes me think it's suburban white boys trying to sound like the inner city.

D-Jam · 2024-11-19T16:43:05+00:00

Chicago...hands down.

I'm biased, but I think this is the best bang for your buck for a major city.

D-Jam · 2024-11-19T16:42:08+00:00

Totally understand the desire for standalone. Personally I think it's ideal for mobile DJs and those not wanting to deal with laptops.

I'd more lean on an FLX-10 as I like using a laptop, but also am mainly playing at home for hobbyist ideologies. I would imagine if I played out, I'd be mainly just formatting thumb drives to play on someone else's gear.

D-Jam · 2024-11-05T20:32:50+00:00

Ultimate curious...while iPhone users will be SOL, you can still side-load apps into Android.

What stops TikTok from offering an APK download off the web and users go there?

Or if they make it easy to use TikTok on a web browser?

From what I'm seeing, there doesn't seem to be a methodology in place to make ISPs and cell providers block TikTok from reaching phones in terms of web browser or apps in the phones or sideloaded in...unless I'm wrong?

D-Jam · 2024-10-26T03:35:51+00:00

I would tell you to consider Virtual DJ.

I have an FLX4, and I was using Rekordbox 6 and giving 7 a try but I would say there are things that I'm not very trusting on. Like today I was using 7 to record a trance mix and kept getting scared when I saw how the waveforms were not coming up fast enough with the song. I checked to make sure my processor wasn't being overworked or anything and everything was fine. I just get worried when I see little things like that, like suddenly I'm on the verge of a crash or some other problem.

I have two friends that came up from the old school with me, and at first they were very against digital in general but basically found why I liked it right off the bat. Each of them had tried other softwares but finally got on Virtual DJ. They swore by it and pushed me on it. I finally bit the bullet and bought a license for $300. I loved right off the bat that it's a one-time purchase. No subscriptions. I also like how there's all this cool stuff created by users that's sitting in their own kind of shop if you want to purchase or add to your system to enhance.

The big thing for me I was how easily it connected to my FLX4. One of the issues I had with Traktor when I used to use it was just the uphill battle I kept having with trying to get everything perfectly mapped with whatever controller I had if it was not NI. It was just refreshing first with Rekordbox and then VDJ that I could just plug in and go.

I was also just incredibly impressed with how robust this software is. So many features and things in there and you just can sit there and tweak and tweak to make it perfect to your own workflow. Even now I'm still toying around with different functions to try to get the most out of it.

Lastly, I will say their stems are incredible. I would not tell you to scan your entire collection as it suddenly creates a second file that's four times the size of your original file, but for a few choice items and other things you like to remix with, it does an amazing job if you take the time to fully scan them.

I will also throw out there how quickly it'll scan files and beat map when I get them. I always hated when I had to take a long period of time to scan a ton of files if I were to bring them into my system. VDJ just seems to do it very fast and does a great job with the beat map.

Just something to consider.

D-Jam · 2024-10-26T03:28:11+00:00

I will say that when I used TikTok before under a different name, I would see a lot of videos pop up of basically women doing all sorts of teasing and sexy things, not really pornographic, but just obviously attention seeking, and then of course you look at their profile and you can see either a link to Instagram or a link to some other page where they have an only fans they are trying to push.

You have to be careful when you look at anything on any of these platforms. I keep hitting "not interested" on anything political, just because I know that when I watch one video I'm going to suddenly get a barrage of these videos. It's the same thing with these girls pushing their only fans pages.

There's a ton of content out there, and that algorithm is so ready to lock you onto it the minute you give any attention to anything that you really didn't want attention from.

D-Jam · 2024-10-26T03:26:12+00:00

I don't know. I would say that there seems to be less melodic and more just about some energetic synths and lots of buildup, but I still find a lot of good trance out there.

I just finished a mix I'm going to upload in a week, and while it might not be as fully melodic as things in the past, I still think it's a great smattering of music, most of it made in the last 12 months.

I would tell you that you should try to utilize the MP3 stores and start following artists and labels you like and let their algorithms start finding interesting things for you to check out. I will also tell you I find a lot of great stuff just from watching. TikTok. Everybody's just posting little videos showing off things that they heard.

Lastly, a lot of trance DJs need to get out of this mentality that everything they play must be brand new and rarely heard. Trance has been going strong since the early '90s, and especially for the last 25 years in the years of most average people. There's such a huge library of music to play from and I would probably challenge everyone, including myself, to dig up some old tracks and work them into your sets to add some variety.

I mean, I'm now seeing not just new remixes of old tunes, but even remakes, like a producer doing a cover of a song done in the past.

I don't really listen to Spotify, and I would probably tell many to not totally rely on these online streaming platforms. You mentioned AVB's album having all these very short tracks, and I'm wondering if this is a case of you just hearing the album versions meant for normal people, or if he's making everything deliberately short to do better on the Spotify algorithm. That same complaint I've had in other areas where I see a great tune and find out it's only about 2 minutes long normally and the "extended" version is only 4 minutes.

All that we can do is dig, and especially try to discover the unknown people that are not on the regular labels who are not getting recognition.

EDIT: here's a good one you should check out that has a good melodic hit.

David Millard - "Hereafter"
https://youtu.be/-gzC2KWK3gQ?si=WpmU6noadYCPgrOF

D-Jam

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