DJ School Utrecht

A year or so ago, I had the privilege of attending DJ School Utrecht and learning to DJ and produce directly from Boris and his Ableton instructor Richard. I can without a doubt say that my success in landing festival and club bookings is directly due to the mentorship and instruction I received here. Not only did DJ School Utrecht teach me the skills necessary to succeed as a DJ, they also helped me understand some important aspects of the music industry! If you are an aspiring DJ looking for a way to launch yourself into the industry, I would heavily recommend this school to you! I urge you to think of attending this school as an investment in your future. Although hard work is still required to have any success as a DJ, this school will undoubtedly be a giant leap forward towards your goal of becoming one.

Boris was our resident DJ for a week at a corporate event with a demanding audience of 500 management consultants. Boris managed their energy levels through the week, lifting them up and winding them down when they needed it. It was great. We would have him back any time. A great tool to help us get through a long and challenging week. Thanks so much Boris.

I had a great experience at the DJ School Utrecht. They’ve got an excellent program for beginners, but I think a student can get even more out of it if he/she brings some digital music experience to the course. I had 4 instructors, some of which focus more on music production, some more on DJing. The day starts around 9, with a break for lunch (we walk together to get groceries to make sandwiches back at the school), and wraps up around 3 pm. There is a ton of cool equipment to practice with; Ableton controllers, small keyboards, vinyl turntables, modern Pioneer turntables and mixers. The instructors were extremely knowledgeable, gained from real world experience in the industry. It is important to note that a cultural characteristic of Dutch people is their bluntness. They deliver feedback in a very unfiltered way. That is efficient, certainly, but such a blunt delivery can be shocking if you’re not used to it. Some instructors certainly use this direct style. To get better at anything, honest feedback, both good and bad, is necessary, and you can expect to get it at DJ School Utrecht. The brutally honest feedback was hard for me at first, and I am half-American half-Dutch. However, in the end I really appreciated it and knew that when I received positive feedback it was sincere and not a hollow, American-style compliment. The direct feedback shook me into thinking about my approach to music in a different way. The instructors helped me produce higher-quality music, and better-composed pieces. So, I was happy with what I got out of the course and the experience.

TL;DR: Go to a more well established school for mixing or making music. There’s probably more teachers to teach more things, and a better learning environment with air conditioning. Pros: - Joram is a great teacher for both mixing and music production. Super chill guy, great practical hands-on lessons. - Boris is really good with mixing and gives great tips for improving your skill at the turn tables. - They teach the foundations of music production and mixing quite well. But only the foundations. Cons: - Classes are held in an old building. There’s no AC and with climate change and whatnot, the classroom easily reached 40C/104F, especially while the turntables were running. - Music production always revolved around making house or hip hop music. There wasn’t much room for learning how to make what you want to make if you had different tastes. - One teacher, Richard, lectures and loves to talk. He’s the physical embodiment of the “trying to reach the word count” meme, and his classes are so tedious. - Richard and Abel, two adult male teachers, severely lack professionalism. - Abel has encouraged smoking, use of the drug molly, and shared a video mocking a mentally disabled child with the class. - Both teachers let their emotions influence their actions and are afraid of taking any blame/responsibility that may affect their standing with their boss, Boris. They also lost their temper at one point, shouting and pointing fingers at me and my sister completely out of the blue, greatly upsetting us. We left our program a week early because we no longer felt safe in the classroom if there were going to be teachers like that. - Boris offered us a 50% refund (€2200 refund) in apology for our unfortunate experience, and we accepted (verbal agreement). He emailed us again to tell us he is choosing not to follow through. Can’t say this is a trustworthy company from this experience, and you’ll probably get a more comfortable learning environment elsewhere.

I had a great time in Dj summer school Utrecht. Teachers were so nice,classmates were so cool,DJ booth and MIDI sets were enough to learn! And they have a van with a Dj booth,I had never seen such cool car before. I really wanna go to Dj school Utrecht again.