How To DJ With Your Numark DJ2GO2
From complete beginner to playing on your Numark DJ2GO2 using beatmixing, cues, loops, samples & more…
You’re here because you’ve got (or are thinking of buying) the amazing Numark DJ2GO2 controller and want to know how to play awesome DJ sets on it.
I’m here because I make DJ and DJ/producer courses for Digital DJ Tips, the online DJ school of choice for over 18,000 students in 105 countries.
Welcome To How To DJ With Your Numark DJ2GO2…
Here at Digital DJ Tips, we train DJs and DJ/producers from beginner right up to fully pro. Scratch DJs, mobile/wedding DJs, club DJs and music producers have all turned their dreams into full-time careers by following our full curriculum.
But we also know that many DJs give up in their first six weeks!
They find taking those first steps in digital DJing just too hard… and so their new gear ends up gathering dust under the stairs. Even if they persevere, it can take them months to nail the basics.
That’s why we’ve created our “How To DJ With…” series.
Featuring the same world-class instructors who teach our pro curriculum, these concise and practical courses take you from complete beginner (yes, we mean complete beginner) to being a DJ!
You’ll master the gear, the music, the skills and the features so that you too can pull tricks that will amaze your friends and family, and help you to pack dancefloors right from the very start.
What makes this course so different?
- It doesn’t throw jargon and features at you with no explanation of what or why.
- It doesn’t lose sight of the fact that you want to know the important stuff so you can actually play the music you love to other people, fast!
- And crucially, it doesn’t forget what it’s like to be a beginner.
- Get started today and join the thousands of happy students of Digital DJ Tips – and who knows, it could be your first step to a changed career, fulfilling a lifelong dream…
So what does this course cover?
- You’ll learn how to set up your new controller and the supplied Serato software
- We’ll teach you how to source, organise and prepare your music, including how to incorporate iTunes into your hardware and software set-up
- You’ll get the lowdown on how to mix, including auto beatmixing and counting beats, for amazing transitions
- And finally, we’ll show you how to use hot cues, loops, and samples, and even how to manually beatmix, so you can play just like pro DJs.
But that’s not all! You’ll also get:
…12 hours of live classroom training via our Digital DJ Tips StudentLive monthly webinars, where you get to ask questions and get instant help with your DJing
…PLUS a free download of “Rock The Dancefloor!”, our best-selling Amazon book on DJing, which has five star reviews
So what are you waiting for? Sign up today and start your DJ journey with your Numark DJ2GO2 now.
Over 23 videos and five modules you’ll learn:
- How to download and install your software
- How to connect your controllers, headphones and speakers
- How the DJ controller mirrors what you see on your screen
- How the browser works for organising your music
- How iTunes integrates with your DJ software
- The benefits of using playlists to organise your tunes
- The best places online to get tracks from
- Using the headphones and crossfader to prepare and execute your first mix
- Using “sync” to get your mix right every time
- The secret of counting beats for tighter, more pro mixes
- How to mix from outro to intro to keep your transitions smooth
- Using hot cues to jump to parts of tracks
- Why looping is your best friend
- Using the pitch faders to match tempos
- Lining up waveforms to match beats
- Adding effects and drum sounds to the sampler
- What else will you get?
- A friendly, informal community to support you every step of the way
- Personal contact with me, the course tutor
- Lifetime access to course materials
- Hands-on learning to lock that knowledge in
Never waste another minute learning from out-of-date books, or yawn-some, poor quality YouTube videos again!
With How To DJ With Your Numark DJ2GO2, everything’s ready to go, in one convenient, mapped-out course.
Plus you’ll get fast, friendly, responsive support by email, Twitter and on the Udemy forums. Or enjoy chatting with our 850,000-strong community on our website and social channels.
Introduction & Setting Up
It's an exciting moment! Let's get your controller out of the box (well, packet in this case) and show you around. By the end of this lesson you'll be clear about all the controls on your DJ2GO2, and where everything plugs in to the controller.
Your Numark DJ2GO2 needs software in order to work, and you'll need to head online to get it. In this lesson, we'll show you where to go, and how to get everything downloaded and installed correctly without a hitch.
In this lesson, you'll learn how to hook up your controller to your laptop, how to attach a a pair of speakers (you'll need to use external speakers with your DJ2GO2), and where to plug your headphones in. By the end of the lesson, you're fully set up...
While it can look a little complicated when you first see it, Serato DJ Lite is actually pretty straightforward to use... when you know what's what. By the end of this lesson, you'll have got everything working, and have a good idea of your software's features.
In this lesson you'll see how DJ2GO controller mirrors the Serato DJ software interface on your computer or laptop. This will get you more familiar with the way the hardware and software relate to each other.
Getting Your Music On
In this lesson, you'll learn about the music file browser in Serato DJ Lite, which is where your music library will live. You'll find out how to drag and drop music files both into the browser and onto the decks, and we'll talk about using iTunes to get better organised, too.
Maybe you already use iTunes to organise your music, maybe not - but if you do (or if you want to), there are lots of tricks to ensuring it works well with Serato DJ Lite. Indeed, miss some of these settings, and it won't work at all! Lucky this lesson has everything you need to know.
One of the signs of a good DJ is that he or she can get just the right track to their fingertips, fast! In order to do that, you need to use playlists. Here, you'll learn about using playlists in both iTunes and in Serato DJ Lite.
Getting music onto your decks is a bit more involved than just connecting up your Spotify or Apple Music account. In fact, to DJ using Serato (as with most DJ software), you actually need to have music files that you've bought, right there on your laptop. So let's go shopping...
Mixing
It's party time! In this lesson, you'll load tracks onto both decks, learn what the headphones and headphone cue functions do, and perform your very first mix using the crossfader. In doing so, you'll get a grounding in using volume, the jogwheels, and the cue/play/pause buttons.
OK... we can do better than that. One of the big advances in DJing in recent years has been the power to effortlessly "sync" tracks up, for smooth, on-the-beat mixes. In this lesson, you'll learn how to do that, and we'll perform a mix that is immeasurably better than the last one because of it.
Bad news: Your DJ software can't do this bit for you. Good news: If you can count to four, it's easy. Even better news: Many DJs never learn how to do this - so once you can, you'll stand out from the rookies. So let's do our third mix, and see the improvement...
In this lesson you're going to learn one of the most basic mixing techniques used by DJs - master this and you're most of the way there!
Advanced
Your DJ2GO2 has special performance pads that allow you to do some pretty powerful things that DJs back in the vinyl days would have killed for. In this lesson, you'll meet the pads, and learn about how Hot Cues can be an awesome addition to your DJing.
Loops are right at the heart of dance music, both in production and DJing - and your DJ2GO2 has powerful loop functions to immeasurably improve your blends and transitions. Here you'll learn about how to use both the auto and manual looping controls on your controller's performance pads.
Ready to step up to the top table? One of the essential skills of DJing when you want to get serious is "manual beatmixing" - or smooth transitions without the sync button. Get this right, and you can DJ on any gear! Here you'll learn about the first stage of doing so - using the pitch faders to match tempos.
In the last lesson, you saw how the Serato DJ Lite software supplied with your DJ2GO2 makes manual beatmixing easy, thanks to its BPM readouts. But those colourful scrolling waveforms are also a huge help for beatmixing - and in this lesson you'll learn how to use them to "ride the beats" visually.
It's incredible, but your DJ2GO2 even lets you control Serato DJ Lite's powerful sampler. This means that you can add effects, drum sounds or idents to your mixes of your own choosing, triggering them wherever you like. What better way to personalise your DJing and give it that final sheen?
As Fatboy Slim once said, "We've come a long long way together." You're now ready to take your gear and play your first party. So few DJs get this far - which is a huge shame, because really, that's where you learn the most - spinning the music you love in front of people you care about. But you've made it - so well done.
Free stuff: Don't Miss This!
One of the most important things you can do now is join a DJ community, and carry on your training. We've got one of the biggest DJ communities in the world over at Digital DJ Tips - and to get you started, we've got a free book and 12 hours of DJ training for you. Come on over and get started...
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