Djing 101: Mixtapes
by
DJ Ellis Dee
edited by
Steve Shah
This paper is an excerpt from Steve Shah's alt.music.makers.dj FAQ that he edited.
More info about the FAQ can be
found at the bottom of this paper.
1. Always master your mixtape on DAT, anything less would be
uncivilized :) If you don't own a DAT, borrow one from a friend, rent
one or if you're short on cash. Don't be one of those cheezy DJs who
master their tapes on cassette and then dubs all the copies off of
that, bad.......very very bad.
2. Now, once you have your perfect master DAT (which is no easy task)
you have to start to ask yourself some questions about marketing,
money and just how big a DJ you really think you are. All of these
center around how many copies you want to run off, or the real
question, how many copies of your mixtape do you think you can sell?
Trust me, you don't want to be stuck with 500 mixtapes going nowhere.
You want to be able to sell (or give away) almost every tape you
produce so think carefully how many you want to run off. Your two
options are to dub them off yourself (for the low to medium volume DJ)
or retain the services of a professional tape duplicator.
There is also the instore "polotics" problem where you have to learn
how to get on the good side of the people working in the store so when
when people come in the shop and ask for a good mixtape, they will
push your tape. Just being a good DJ isn't enough unfortunatley and
usually all you have to do is give everybody who works in the store
free copies of all your mixtapes. I know this sucks but trust me,
your mixtapes will just sit there forever and you won't sell anything
if the people who work there don't reccomend your tape, especially if
you're a new DJ.
Notes:
For the complete and updated version of the FAQ please go to this site:
http://www.djmix.com/mixpoint/ammdj_faq.html
