My Serato Switch Over

My switch over from using Pioneer CDJ's to Serato Scratch Live took ages. I went onto CD decks about 5yrs ago and got pretty proficient on them and developed quite an affection for CDJ1000's- which I never expected after having DJ'd with vinyl on Technics 1210's for so many yrs.
I held out and held out but eventually the nice people at Rane gifted me a Serato SL3 and I decided to start swapping over to using it with my neglected Mac. (I'm a PC lover)
My friend DJ Nimblefingerz who is a true Serato geek came over to sort out my Mac and set up/show me the basics, which was really helpful, but which I totally forgot on my first gig.
The DJ part of it was pretty straight forward but its all the other little quirks which take a while to get to grips with, such as the crating and BPMing and all the different modes you can use.
My first gig with it was 'interesting' to say the least! The Serato was skipping modes a lot which I later found out from Rashida can be fluff on the needle if you use it with Vinyl or the CD tracks running out if you use it with CDJ's. DJ SD who spins for JLS told me he rewired his Serato box so that its 10 times faster and more simple to plug in at clubs and also offered up lots of other handy tips. So I have gleaned lots of information from some great DJ mates. I have also clocked that 80% of DJ's only use Serato to 50% of its capacity. There are so many interesting things you can do with it especially with tracks you have produced and stems, it has amazing potential for live DJ sets, which I'm looking at now.
My second gig with serato was the 75th Anniversary of the De La Warr Pavillion which I had to find 75 records from 1935-2010- it took sooo much work and research. The scratch live programme was actually perfect for this as I could order the records in date order in a crate devoted especially to this one gig. With CD's or Vinyl this would have been an even more mamouth task. It was a lot of work, but on the day of the gig it was so much easier having all the records for my set organised and ready to go. The only thing was I found myself having to use the CDJ decks with Serato on absolute mode, which acts absolutely like Vinyl, which felt weird after yrs of using CDJ's as the feel, pitch and response rates were completely different. I think using either 1210's or CDJ's will be best on Relative Mode but I have not figured out all the in's and out's of that as yet! I have done a couple of fashion gigs since then, both with Statis with our Beatnik Soundsystem, so I have had someone there with me to figure things out when they have gone wrong! I have to spin at a big event on Wednesday but I have asked for 4 x CD decks so I can use a mixture of Serato on two of them and fall back on CD's if I have any problems!!!
All in all it is an excellent programme and I'm sure when I get a chance to practise and become proficient on it, I will love it and it will re-ignite my love for my craft.
I have yet to try using Serato live on stage for Kelis' tour, but Rashida and Kofi both assured me I'll be fine and grow to love it more with each gig.

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