Styles of Mixing? Dependant on Venue?

Hi all,

lip5016 made a good thread on keepig engery in a mix. But reading through the thread i noticed a few talking on the difference between mixing in a club and mixing at a festival/rave. Mainly on the inclusion of breakdowns and keeping the energy up throughout the dramatical builds.

This is new to me i didnt realise there was a difference in the way djs play in clubs and festivals. Now i can appreciate that a scratch dj playing in a club wouldnt generally perform scratch routines throughtout the whole night but i think that is slightly different.

i dont know if this is me, but ive played at various 'raves' and also my weekly nightclub gigs, and i dont mix any different at either.

i just thought it would be a good discussion to see what all you DJTT user think on this issue, is there a general differnce in mixing styles between club, festival & raves.

or isnt Mixing just simple Mixing?

I think it really depends on the DJ/genre. When Armin van Buuren and other trance artists went on stage, they had more breaks where as house/dub artists like R3hab and Porter Robinson played a lot of high energy tracks back to back.

but is not down to the mixing styles of a particular genre compared to mixing style of club v fest/rave?

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Originally Posted by city_boy07

Hi all,

lip5016 made a good thread on keepig engery in a mix. But reading through the thread i noticed a few talking on the difference between mixing in a club and mixing at a festival/rave. Mainly on the inclusion of breakdowns and keeping the energy up throughout the dramatical builds.

This is new to me i didnt realise there was a difference in the way djs play in clubs and festivals. Now i can appreciate that a scratch dj playing in a club wouldnt generally perform scratch routines throughtout the whole night but i think that is slightly different.

i dont know if this is me, but ive played at various 'raves' and also my weekly nightclub gigs, and i dont mix any different at either.

i just thought it would be a good discussion to see what all you DJTT user think on this issue, is there a general differnce in mixing styles between club, festival & raves.

or isnt Mixing just simple Mixing?

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Absolutely spot on!

Personally there is no difference between how I DJ at club/bar/festival - there may be different DJing techniques between genres, but not venues. And DJ sets will vary from DJ to DJ and the DJ himself.

i thought this because fortuantly for me living in manchester i have seen some djs at the warehouse project wich in my opinion is a rave/ mini festival.... and seen the same dj's play at clubs ie. sankeys and gorilla...

the sets arnt terribly different (which sumtimes is annoying as your hearing the same setlist) but the mixing is exactly the same?

Same.

The difference (if any) lies generally in track selection.

learn to feel the crowd?

I mix differently dependent on the crowd.
So yeah if I'm playing an outdoor festival I will totally mix differently than a 3am set in a dark club.

Why wouldn't you mix differently?

how would you be mixing differently?

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Originally Posted by city_boy07

how would you be mixing differently?

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well at a festival I generally go with quicker mixes since most kids have ADD and can't handle any song for more than 3 minutes. Generally no in depth mixes and honestly very limited effects. Usually just A-B mixing cause that's all the crowd can handle. Chances are they are only watching you for 20 minutes anyways before they go to another stage or go wait in line for water or something anyways. I don't do any jesus poses or spirit fingering like Ultra main stage DJs so I gotta start working on that too lol

a club is even dependent on the crowd. If it's a crowd I know like my monthlies I'm usually 3 decks into the mix mixinng non-stop from begining to end. still very limited use of effects cause there not needed ifthe songs are properly mixed.

If it's a random crowd I'll feel them out by seeing how they reacted to the opening djs style and adjust accordignly.

If you can't read the crowd and adjust your style then you're bascially just a jukebox.

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Originally Posted by donstone

I don't do any jesus poses or spirit fingering like Ultra main stage DJs so I gotta start working on that too lol

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Just out of interest, what's "spirit fingering"? :P