Intro: We interviewed a young veteran in the music scene: FAW9, stage name of Angelo Raguso, DJ and producer from Italy, who have been released his music on all major electronic labels such as Spinnin’ Records, Human Garden, Hotfingers, Lapsus Music and many more.

Travel the World, entertain people, earn a lot of money for a couple of hours of DJ sets doing what you love. Science fiction? No, dj life.

Becoming a DJ professionally would seem to be a pretty good choice. There are many positives in this work, but only a few manage to pursue this dream. For all those who have not yet had the opportunity to try, today we asked an expert in the sector, some tricks and tips on how to be successful in the field of electronic music: Angelo Raguso

Angelo Raguso aka FAW9
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He released his first official ep containing 3 tracks with tech-minimal sounds, on “VK Techno Minimal Label” Argentina Label based. At the next release “Area 51” published on Cubek, it receives supports from famous DJs, the great Solomun plays his track around the world for a long time, in the most popular festivals: Cocoon Heroes, Tomorrowland, Extrema Outdoor and many others. From here the doors are wide open, for almost ten years it is on the crest of the wave, it publishes hundreds of productions on the most popular record labels, such as Spinnin ‘Records, Lapsus Music, El Row, Florida135, Hotfingers and many others.

What you’ll need to know or learn to become a great DJ and Music Producer?

  • Make sure both tunes are suitable for beatmixing – For beatmixing, you want tunes with a steady beat, and a long enough section at the start and finish for you to have time to perform a beatmix, because a smooth beatmix typically has both tunes running together for at least a short while. Go for “club” or “extended” mixes, and choose the types of tunes you hear other DJs beatmixing: House, trance, techno etc all works well
  • Make sure you have both tunes at the same speed – For you to play one tune over another and it not to sound awful, those tunes definitely need to be at the same speed, otherwise the beats could never “line up” for more than a second or two; one would always pull away from the other. While traditionally DJs learn manual ways of doing this, this is one of the functions of the “sync” button – it alters the tempo of the tunes so they are playing at exactly the same speed for you
  • Make sure both tunes have their kick drums lined up – the kick drum is the “thud, thud, thud” drum that dominates the music (so called because in a drum kit, it is the one the drummer plays with a kick of the foot). The tunes being at the same speed isn’t going to help you if the kick drums aren’t lined up; you’ll still hear a cacophony of out-of-time beats. This is another purpose of the “sync” button, as in most software this function can be set to not only get the tunes at the same speed, but also line up the nearest kick drums to each other. It is also what the “nudge” function of your jogwheels is for (to “nudge” one beat forwards or backwards a bit so those kicks line up). You can try using either to correct this error. Also visually check whether this is so using the peaks on the parallel waveforms (most DJ software) or the “phase meter” (Traktor)

Thank you Angelo, was a pleasure speak with you ! Remember to follow him on Instagram.

Topics #Angelo Raguso #FAW9 #Lapsus Music #Music Maker