Transcription
What is the best and easiest way to record your DJ set? Well, in this video, I'm going to be answering just that, giving you three very simple and quick ways in which you can record your set to then go on and share online. And this will apply to pretty much 99% of all DJ setups out there. So whether you're using a laptop with a controller, CDJ setup, downloading tracks, and even streaming tracks, there is going to be a solution for you within this video. So let's get stuck in.
Recording method number one then, and by far the quickest and easiest method in my opinion, is just to record locally in your DJ software. Serato DJ Pro, Recordbox, and Algorithm DJ all have recording functionality built within the software. And if you've watched any of my record box tutorials, for example, where I am playing audio, all of that audio, that good quality audio in my videos is recorded locally within record box. So, it does give you a very high quality result.
Now, this could not be simpler in record box, which I'll show you very quickly. Now, all you need to do, and by the way, I am in the free plan of record box. This uh feature is available um with all hardware unlock devices. So, you can see here I'm in the free plan, which I think is really good. What you need to do is come up to the top menu and click on the little round circle, which is the record panel. If I hover over it, it should come up, but it's not today. But yeah, that opens up the record panel. Very limited options here in terms of record panel. You can choose the channel, but it's only the master available. You can adjust the level. Now, when you've got a song playing, you will notice these volume meters sort of flashing green, yellow, and red. Just make sure you're not hitting the red so it won't distort. But if you are, just adjust the recording level up and down as you see fit. Hit record when you want to start and hit it again when you want to stop the recording. And it is as simple as that.
Now when it comes to Serato, it's just as easy algorithm as well. It's very very simple to record directly in the software. However, there is a limitation to this. First and foremost, you are only going to be able to record if you have the tracks locally stored on your laptop or your device. This will not work for streaming tracks. Don't worry if you are a streaming DJ. I have got a solution coming right up for you. But just bear that in mind. You have to have all of your tracks downloaded. There is nothing worse than having a mixture of tracks, both streaming and downloaded, and you want to introduce a streaming track into the mix for it not to work. So, just bear that in mind.
By the way, if you want to download some tracks, get a collection going, I highly recommend Heavy Hits. They are my record pool of choice in 2025. link is in the description if you want to try them out. And if you use my code KL Thomas at checkout, it is literally just $5 for your first month subscription. That is incredible value. It's literally the price of a cup of coffee. So, do check them out. This video isn't sponsored or anything, but I do have a discount code.
Now, another limitation of this is you're going to have to actually be DJing off of a laptop or a device because, of course, the files need to be playing off of the laptop rather than off of like a USB drive, for example. So, just bear that in mind.
Method of recording your mixes number two, and that is to use either an audio interface or some kind of audio recorder. This is going to be particularly useful if you're DJing off of CDJs with USBs, so no laptop involved, or if you are using a laptop and controller setup, but you are incorporating those streaming tracks into the mix.
Now, the audio interface I have here, it looks like this. It's very small, lightweight, fits in the palm of my hand, is an iRig Stream. Um, not sponsored or anything like that. This is just the one I've got essentially, and I'll show you how it works in a bit more detail in a moment, but you connect the mixer into one end. The other end plugs into your phone or your laptop where you will have some kind of audio recording software. Not record box or Serato, but you'll have something like QuickTime or um Audacity, I think it's called, Audio City, Audacity City. Sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong, but you get the idea. So, you you open up software like that. Basically, this box allows you to get the clean audio out of the mixer and into the recording software.
Now, if you don't want to faff about with um extra bits of software or plugging in your phone or anything like that, there are versions of this box that actually have storage available. So, I think there's a company called Howler Audio. If I can find a picture of it, I'll put it on screen now. Um, Howler Audio have a device not dissimilar to this, but it actually has an SD card slot built in. So, you plug it into the mixer, hit record, and then all of your mixes are recorded directly onto the SD card. So, you don't have to have um external software, and then you take the SD card out, and then you've got your mix on an external drive. There are some other good audio recorders by Tascam as well. I believe they're quite high-end, quite expensive, but they even have little microphones built in so that you can actually record some of the crowd reactions if you want to, you know, record some of that into the mix as well.
But let me just quickly show you how this box kind of works. Okay, so I have my iRig stream here, my DJ mixer underneath, and I have plugged in the RCA cables that uh go into the mixer. And if you are on a four channel mixer or high-end mixer like this, what you would typically want to do is connect into the master 2. A lot of Pioneer mixers, Alpha Theta mixers now have this on. So you just plug into there. Then you simply take the box, plug the other end, which has got this 12 pin um plug, and plug that into there like so. That's USB on the other end. And that end goes into your laptop or to your mobile phone. And then you open up the software like QuickTime for example, hit record and that is how you get that clean audio through the mixer and into your recording software.
Now if you are using something like an FLX4, you will not have the luxury of having a Master 2, but that is not a problem. So, we're going to take the uh RCA leads out of the Master 2. Now, for the FLX4, what you would want to do is simply take your RCA leads. Okay, so we're plugged into the uh the Iream here. You simply plug into the master. So, from the master into the iRig stream. And then what you want to do is if, and this is very important, the box that you're plugging into must have a headphone output there. Because then what you're going to want to do, and this is a little bit more long-winded, is you want to get a cable that looks like this. This has got a 8 in jack. So that small jack and then these RCA connectors there. So you want to plug that lead into the headphone port on your audio interface. Then connect to another RCA cable. And then this will go to the sound system. And then you can control on this particular box the volume of the sound system via this little dial here. It's a little bit more long- winded. It's not ideal, but that is the way round it. if you do have a controller like the FLX4 that does not have the luxury of two master outputs.
Now, another key advantage of using one of these audio interfaces like that iRig Stream, for example, is that you can also live stream very easily. This is the best way to get clean audio out of your mixer into your mobile phone where you can stream directly onto Tik Tok or Twitch or something like that if you are using your phone's cameras.
And then method number three of recording your mixes. I personally love this way of recording mixes, but I've kept it till last because it is a little bit more limited just because you're going to need a DJM mixer. So, an Alpha Theta Piner DJ mixer. And you're also going to need to have an iPhone because the app that I'm about to talk about is only available on iOS. The app is called the DJM Wreck app. So, it is actually built, made, whatever you want to call it, by Pioneer.
So, when it comes to using this app, the DJM Wreck app, I have the DJM 750 M2 mixer. All you need to do is open it up. Now, when you open it, it's actually very simple. By the way, this will cost a little bit of money. I think it's about $10,10, something along those lines. It's very very easy to use. Um, it is recording ambient noise, so it uses the phone's microphones when you haven't got it connected to the mixer. So, you open up the app right there, and then you use the send and return part of the mixer. You simply plug in the USB, make sure that that is set to USB into the phone, just like that. It's now connecting. You can see here, connected with, sorry, it's not focusing. Connected with DJM. And now the wave the uh the sound is gone because it's going to be taking audio straight out the mixer.
Now if I was to start playing audio on my CDJs as soon as you start recording it's simply a case of hitting record and that is recording your mix. I have recorded plenty of DJ sets files for my YouTube videos using this method. It is pretty good quality. Definitely good enough to post online and definitely good enough to listen back to mixes.
So, what's really quite cool on this app is once you've recorded a mix, say you're traveling and you want to listen back to your set from a day before or whatever, you can actually scrub through the mix. Um, obviously I've just recorded nothing, but um you can scrub through the mix, listen back to your set, um, which is really cool. And if you want to go live via this app, you can. Oh, let's not save the changes. You can go live to all of these social platforms directly from the app. And then once you are ready to export the file and then upload it online, for example, if it is a mix that you want to host on Soundcloud, Mixcloud, whatever it is, you simply go to file. You can see I've got a list of audio recordings there. And I simply airrop that to my laptop for then me to upload. But similarly, if you are um able to upload on SoundCloud or Mixcloud from your phone, if you want to do that, you can do that from this app. So, honestly, it's a brilliant tool for quite small money in my opinion, and it's very quick and easy to set up and use. And if you were using streaming tracks, for example, maybe you're connecting into one of these mixers and you've got a controller plugged in and you're using your laptop. Of course, it is going to record streaming tracks as well.
So, there we have it. Three methods in which you can record your DJ sets and all of them very quick and easy to set up and to implement. Now, hopefully that will cover pretty much 99% of all DJs because we can either go in software via an audio interface, which they're not that expensive, or via the DJM Wreck app. So, pretty much a solution for more or less everyone. If I have missed something, please do let me know down in the comments down below. Always keen to hear your feedback and your reviews. Nearly at 15K subscribers. Please do subscribe if you have not done so already and you find my videos useful.