DJ Step1: Scratch, Sample and Push
DJ Step1 (aka Stefanie Andersen) has quite a reputation on the turntablist scene for her skills as a scratch DJ, finger drummer and beatmaker. Having started out on the classic two-decks-and-a-mixer set-up, she eventually added Serato, Ableton Live, Push, and a Pioneer battle mixer to her arsenal and has been making the most of this flexible combination ever since.
Step1 also has an extensive background in education and music scholarship – she received her Master’s degree in cultural studies and has presented papers on hip-hop at academic conferences across the country. For the past few years she has been teaching Ableton workshops and online courses at Sequence One, the Oakland music production school she co-founded.
Check out the one-take video below as DJ Step1 puts together an impressive performance of real-time sampling, beatmaking and melody composition all laced with her signature cuts and scratches.
While she makes it look effortless, there’s a lot going on in DJ Step1’s set-up. In the video below she opens up Live and Push and explains the signal routing, settings, devices and extra controllers she used for her performance.
Bonus Track:
Get a free set of finger-drumming lessons based on DJ Step1’s Push performance from Melodics, the desktop app that teaches how to play MIDI keyboards and pad controllers.