How to make one good selection ?

[synthet1c]

Am I the only one who assumes that if you want to be a dj you already go out to clubs and events and love the music you hear... Isn't that what it is all about? be a music lover first and dj second and you will be better for it.. If you don't love the music whats the point...

[dripstep]

MrHistamine, that was kinda rough man. Yeah the OP screwed up by downloading a trillion songs illegally and then being confused as to which goes together, but in sure that is much more of a common mistake than it should be.

OP, scour beatport for some tracks you think are bangers, and get to know em. Practice, and you will get it. We can tell you how to do it, but it won't help unless you copy, and that's no fun.

[wrong chris]

i recommend deleting your garbage music packs and start shopping for tunes one at a time. pick tunes you actually like. you do like music right?

[Spawnafunk]

MrHistamine, that was kinda rough man. Yeah the OP screwed up by downloading a trillion songs illegally and then being confused as to which goes together, but in sure that is much more of a common mistake than it should be.

OP, scour beatport for some tracks you think are bangers, and get to know em. Practice, and you will get it. We can tell you how to do it, but it won't help unless you copy, and that's no fun.

hey man i just know that when i started i had a bunch of tracks that didnt work(complete noob like the rest of us when we started playing),but that inspired me to search harder to make em work and looking back if i canned those early tracks and and changed my orignal intention i wouldnt have the range ive got now I started with breakbeat and godamn! nothing went together at the beginning and he did mention he knew all of his previous tunes).I just think the era of the internet ya have to have your own identity and if you like your tracks dont can em on the advice of someone else stick with em if you like em and eventually the gaps will close

[ACE]

Here's the nitty of the gritty

You seriously need to know what context you're going to be playing in. If you're going out to be a Party Rock DJ, then you'd better know what the crowd wants to hear - no matter what style you're playing. Go to places where the style you want to play is being played and listen and watch what is banging - seriously go scout some venues. If you're going to be highlighted or in a place where they allow free expression, go to places like that and get some exposure to it. Listen and watch how the crowd responds to what the DJ is doing. Get an idea of what the DJ is doing to create such a reaction. If it's certain tracks, figure out what they are (Shazam, SoundHound are great tools to get track info from songs you're hearing at that moment but you may not know what they are). If the DJ is playing just music (electronica, house, etc.) what is it that's making the crowd respond? Is it the build-ups? The beat? The music? What type of music is the crowd liking?

You need to get up and get out and listen - seriously.

It's one thing to sit at your place and listen to good music. It's a completely different beast to actually be playing for a crowd. You're more than a juke box or media player - you are instrumental in making people's night great.

We can't arbitrarily say what's good because we do not know what context you'll be playing in. We don't know where you are. Musical taste varies wildly by locations. For example, I live in California and you can travel from town to town here and step into clubs and not hear the same style twice. The south loves Dub Step (from what I hear). The east coast? A completely different sound there.

Do your homework and listen to the style you want to play for the crowd you're most likely going to play for. Listen to other DJs already doing what you want to do. Then you should have a good idea of what to play... seriously

[Steve_London]

that is why you shouldn't steal music off the internet, besides the fact that you are robbing the artists (not talking about metallica, talking about electronic producers) you don't know your own music. and to play a coherant set you start with the tracks that you like and find a way to fit them all together, what you have is 14gb of tracks other people like, I recommend employing the delete button and cutting the fat from the collection, and forget about mixing tunes until you know what you like... because at the end of the day that is what club dj's do, they only play what they like

This I pilfered the internet for about 6years and amassed about 800Gb of music. I had no idea what to play as I didn't know ay of it inside out. Where as my hard drive blew (not that long ago either) and I've started buying all of my music from Beatport - and as such, I listen to it a lot more and know the beats inside out - which mkaes it a lot easier to be enthusiastic about it, too!

As a result I have a mix being aired out on SubFM next month on Mad EP's show

[d.julius]

Yes i have deleted my old songs, Now i would like to create one mix with disco-house songs , i like the disco years, the disco-house it's the way to make Known this style of music to Other People. I love music it's my passion, I participated in many concerts, I also help my friends for their group. I have only 16 but I love the House classic 80s-90's, the disco-house and the Minimal : Lil Louis French Kiss for example .

Thank you for the help

(Sorry for the bad english i'm french )

[keeb]

Okay, without reading through the usual stupid piracy-related trolling, here are some short and sweet suggestions. Keep in mind these are from a northeastern U.S. perspective.

1) Listen to the top 10 tracks on Beatport under Progressive House, Electro House, and Dubstep. I'm not saying to download these particular ones, but these are currently very popular tracks in the three (arguably) most popular genres at the moment. Get an idea of what they have in common and look for tracks that have similar good parts. Interesting/varied melodies and percussion in particular are something to look for.

2) When you download a group of new tracks, spend a few days listening to just those tracks. Get an idea of where the breakdowns are, where the vocals are, and how the mix sounds harmonically. You should know your new tracks very well before adding them to your collection and getting more new music. What do you need 100 new songs for if you only actually know 10 of them well enough to play?

3) Try searching for "harmonic mixing" and then do some actual harmonic mixes. Once you hear what these sound like, try to replicate them without using the labels on the tracks (just by sound). It may take a while, but this is important to learn and your sets will sound much better for it.

4) Group your tracks by energy level and genre. Currently I have mine as simple as, "Electro House Bangers" for one grouping and "Electro House Non-Bangers" with similar groupings for dubstep and prog. I use the term "banger" loosely here to mean anything high energy. So, I have a list of high and low energy tracks within the genres to let me quickly find tracks of the type that I'm looking for. You don't have to mix only within a specific genre, but if you're struggling with track selection, I recommend it.

5) If you're saying to yourself, "huh? Electro House? Prog House? What's that?" then go figure it out. I'm not going to spoonfeed everything to you here.

6) Go out to clubs if you can. I know you said you were young, but hearing music that's actually being played out would be helpful.