{"id":11489,"date":"2026-09-21T02:24:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T02:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=11489"},"modified":"2026-09-21T02:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T02:30:19","slug":"how-i-learned-dj-basics-on-real-vinyl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/misc\/how-i-learned-dj-basics-on-real-vinyl\/","title":{"rendered":"How I learned DJ basics on real vinyl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Departing Long Beach for the more lively pace of central LA, I found myself on the Sony Pictures Studios campus in Culver City. There I met movie industry music supervisor, DJ, and self-described music nerd Burt Blackarach<\/a>. His studio space is packed with floor-to-ceiling shelves of records, along with several desks topped with turntables and audio workstations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lucked out reserving his Be a DJ For A Day<\/a> class when I was the only student, so Burt gave me his undivided attention with a custom-tailored lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a “geriatric millennial” who grew up around records, I was already comfortable with basic record handling techniques, how to read the visual cues imprinted on the vinyl, and of course how to actually play<\/em> a record. I was somewhat rusty but got into the groove (sorry) pretty quickly. Though I’d never worked with a professional-grade turntable before, the basics are similar. The component quality and fine-grained controls are what make the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We moved on to carefully dropping the needle into the silence between songs, then worked our way up to tricks like manually rewinding\/fast forwarding and scratching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I should point out that these DJ techniques damage the records over time, so you wouldn’t want to do these with vinyl that you don’t own or have permission to use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly what’s covered in this course will depend on your skill level and interest, but here are a few interesting pointers I picked up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n