Why Hobby DJs Are Driving The New Bootleg Craze

If you play DJ sets, use modern DJ gear, and want to step past just playing music, 2025 could well be your year – if you want it to. Because more than ever, reinventing other people’s music is not only a valid way of creating, it’s becoming an essential tool to master.

Taking timeless music and giving it a modern twist simply isn’t going away – closer to the truth, it’s having a real moment. The best bit is that as a hobby DJ, you have huge advantages over everyone else dabbling in this stuff – and that includes pro DJs! Let’s explore…

Who’s making bootlegs, mashups, and re-edits?

There are four distinct kinds of people making this music. Let’s look at them so we can understand why you’re in such a good position as a hobby DJ to capitalise on all of this.

1. Pros – We’re talking about DJ/producers. From David Guetta to James Hype, these are people at the top of their game playing the biggest venues and festivals, dropping their own excellent re-edits (or re-edits of their friends’ tracks, bootlegs they’ve made themselves, and so on) into polished, highly accomplished DJ sets – just as they’ve always done
2. Bedroom producers – Again, nothing new. Ever since laptops could run production software, talented people have made music in their bedrooms, some of which has always been good enough to release and ended up being played by DJs – and this includes making remixes, re-edits, bootlegs, and so on
3. Kids – Just scroll through TikTok, Instagram etc, or simply watch the antics of any kids in your life, and you’ll soon see they’re super-talented at using amazing apps that let them remix a whole world of music and share their videos of transitions with the world. I’m utterly unqualified to talk to you about this group of people, but one thing they have done is show the likes of you and me how easily this stuff can be made
4. Hobby DJs – That’s you! The ability of hobby DJs with no interest in production software (or indeed TikTok) to make bootlegs, re-edits, and mashups on their DJ platforms is something that’s only come of age in the last year or two, and it’s highly exciting. And as we’re about to see, you’ve got some huge advantages over all the groups we just talked about

How hobby DJs are doing this

So here’s the thing, and it’s worth saying it again:

Your DJ software, for the first time in history, now has all the tools in it that you need to make this kind of music for yourself.

Even pro DJ gear can’t do this! But because you use a laptop (and assuming you use DJ software), not only do you have access to sync, key matching, effects/loops/hotcues, and quantize to keep everything in time, but – crucially – you also have access to stems.

Read this next: Acapellas Are Everywhere – Can You Mix Like This?

Stems give you acapellas, instrumentals, and drum tracks that you can access very, very quickly across two, three, or four decks. Alongside the other tools just mentioned, this means that you can make great-sounding instant mashups, re-edits, and so on, of any music you like, without ever leaving your DJ software.

It’s more than tech on your side

There are three further reasons why, as a hobby DJ, you are uniquely placed to take advantage of the demand for this kind of music nowadays and the tools at your disposal to make it.

1. There’s no need to polish the results – SoundCloud is full of DJ-made remixes that are rough around the edges, but sound great and that work in our kind of DJ sets. There are whole underground subcultures now based around playing this kind of music, and no one cares whether it’s had algorithmic polishing or major label approval. It’s just fun, quick, and creative stuff. Pro DJs would worry about the quality – you needn’t
2. You can test your ideas right away – As a DJ who plays at small venues, private parties etc, you can come up with something weird, wonderful, and wacky and test it immediately on your audiences. Bedroom producers and TikTok kids don’t have real, offline audiences like we do. Likewise, you can take ideas from your DJ sets “home” and easily develop them further
3. You have taste – Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You got into this because you love music. You have an encyclopaedic knowledge of music, which is not the case with the 12-year-olds using the pre-sanctioned songs in their mashup apps, and often not the case with DJ/producers too, who can’t be so sure what audiences want. This taste means that not only can you make better bootlegs, but you can build them into real DJ sets that bring more success to you

How To Do It

Here’s the trick: Get on with it! You already have ideas because you already transition between songs, and I bet you’ve already played with some of these features. So try stuff out on your gear. Learn the features, especially around stems, sync, key matching, quantize, and so on.

When you come up with a good idea or transition, think about expanding it into a beginning, middle and end, and hit the record button. Try the results out on your audiences. Realise that you can act on those ideas you have in your head immediately, and that you can test them on your audiences just as quickly.

Listen to other people who’ve done the same things on SoundCloud and so on. Get ideas, feedback, and become part of this rough-and-ready culture that’s blossoming at the moment. And don’t strive for perfection – authenticity, fun and immediacy are the names of the game.

Read this next: Made A Great Mashup, Bootleg or Edit? Here’s What To Do Next..

Want to go further?

If you want to fast-track your learning around these areas, we have two courses that you should look at:

• Our How To Mix With Acapellas (& Stems) course dives into how to do all this stuff right in your DJ software
• Our course Laidback Luke’s Bootlegs, Mashups and Re-edits shows you how to make rough-and-ready edits in Ableton Live – the next step once you’re hooked!

Check them both out. And make this the year you capitalise on the thirst out there for great bootlegs, mashups and re-edits. We don’t think any of this is going away anytime soon…