Looking to get my first gig soon. Questions

Well just registered here and have a few questions.

I've been djing for around 8 months now off an on and recently in the past 3 months have started djing ALOT and have gotten pretty good imo. Its been my dream for a while now to start playing live and making some money from something i love doing. I've been using a numark mixtrack pro and Traktor Pro 2 and now feel like I've surpassed the numark, so im looking to get a Traktor S2 soon.

I've gotten really positive feedback from friends about my skill and a few smaller bars/clubs have opened up around here, so I've been talking to a few about playing there. They pretty much said whenever im ready to let them know. So my questions

Should I try and get better at "freestyle mixing" or should I make a set that I should play start to finish? I can pretty much throw any house songs together on the fly but dubstep is still a little hard for me to mix on the fly and have it sound good. Making a set I know I can make it pretty flawless but idk how the crowd will like my selections.

Also, im thinking of waiting until i get the traktor as it looks more professional and works a lot better with traktor then the numark, although i have people just telling me to use what i got.

Do i need anything special besides headphones, dj controller and laptop? this is all new to me compared to playing in my room so any help or tips would be awesome.

thanks!

I say learn to play spontaneously

You don't need to wait the s2 as all controllers look ghey :P
You should be fine with what you got, assuming the venue already has its sound system and a house mixer. All you'd need would be an RCA-RCA cable.
Not sure how much of an issue this is going to be with a controller, but be aware that monitoring is quite different and difficult (depending on the sound) in the club.

It's definitely a hard one getting from bedroom DJ to playing at clubs etc. (I'm still a bedroom DJ lol). If you aren't playing out too much there's no point upgrading your controller... I found that it's just the same old shit any way, I've still got my Mixtrack Pro. What you should be doing is doing a mix frequently (every week is good) and uploading it on Youtube, soundcloud and mixcloud. Fuck it why not all 3? Do the music you like... Look through Beatport, juno, traxsource, youtube, soundcloud etc. (A good one with banging tunes is Blackmarket Records) Make sure it's at least 45 minutes long and no longer than 90 minutes long. Keep it reasonably snappy. Then make a CD send it to some local clubs/bars even restaurants, put a little info slip in the cd case saying your name, description, facebook, youtube, mixcloud, soundcloud MOST IMPORTANTLY phone number + email. Oh and DJ name, that always comes in handy. If they actually listen to it and like what they hear they have no reason not to give ya a ring ;)

Basically on a side note but also important note, if you don't work hard at it.. You won't get it... That little rule is with nearly everything in life...

I hope I was some help to you :)

PS: What headphones and laptop do you have? If you have a shit laptop then you may need to upgrade... Same with headphones lol it really is important

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by primal

Should I try and get better at "freestyle mixing" or should I make a set that I should play start to finish? I can pretty much throw any house songs together on the fly but dubstep is still a little hard for me to mix on the fly and have it sound good. Making a set I know I can make it pretty flawless but idk how the crowd will like my selections.

---

First off, do not make a set beforehand and just play the same in the club, and if the crowd aren't feeling a particular track what are you going to do?

And its not "freestyle mixing" it's just mixing, if you know your music, you'll know what will work with what, and what won't. So sit down, listen and learn the music you have, the more you play it the more you'll know what will work.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daily Crisis

It's definitely a hard one getting from bedroom DJ to playing at clubs etc. (I'm still a bedroom DJ lol). If you aren't playing out too much there's no point upgrading your controller... I found that it's just the same old shit any way, I've still got my Mixtrack Pro. What you should be doing is doing a mix frequently (every week is good) and uploading it on Youtube, soundcloud and mixcloud. Fuck it why not all 3? Do the music you like... Look through Beatport, juno, traxsource, youtube, soundcloud etc. (A good one with banging tunes is Blackmarket Records) Make sure it's at least 45 minutes long and no longer than 90 minutes long. Keep it reasonably snappy. Then make a CD send it to some local clubs/bars even restaurants, put a little info slip in the cd case saying your name, description, facebook, youtube, mixcloud, soundcloud MOST IMPORTANTLY phone number + email. Oh and DJ name, that always comes in handy. If they actually listen to it and like what they hear they have no reason not to give ya a ring ;)

Basically on a side note but also important note, if you don't work hard at it.. You won't get it... That little rule is with nearly everything in life...

I hope I was some help to you :)

PS: What headphones and laptop do you have? If you have a shit laptop then you may need to upgrade... Same with headphones lol it really is important

---

Some misguided info here Crisis.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daily Crisis

It's definitely a hard one getting from bedroom DJ to playing at clubs etc. (I'm still a bedroom DJ lol). If you aren't playing out too much there's no point upgrading your controller... I found that it's just the same old shit any way, I've still got my Mixtrack Pro. What you should be doing is doing a mix frequently (every week is good) and uploading it on Youtube, soundcloud and mixcloud. Fuck it why not all 3? Do the music you like... Look through Beatport, juno, traxsource, youtube, soundcloud etc. (A good one with banging tunes is Blackmarket Records) Make sure it's at least 45 minutes long and no longer than 90 minutes long. Keep it reasonably snappy. Then make a CD send it to some local clubs/bars even restaurants, put a little info slip in the cd case saying your name, description, facebook, youtube, mixcloud, soundcloud MOST IMPORTANTLY phone number + email. Oh and DJ name, that always comes in handy. If they actually listen to it and like what they hear they have no reason not to give ya a ring ;)

Basically on a side note but also important note, if you don't work hard at it.. You won't get it... That little rule is with nearly everything in life...

I hope I was some help to you :)

PS: What headphones and laptop do you have? If you have a shit laptop then you may need to upgrade... Same with headphones lol it really is important

---

I wanted to ask what do you think,what laptop would do fine?Specs?thanks in advance

Having a pre-planned tracklist when you first jump from bedroom to bar/club is a good idea. Although I wouldnt plan for the full set. When I first made the jump i had my first 3 tracks planned out. It was a mini setlist that I was comfortable with and I knew I could mix them well. This helped me to calm the nerves that are impossible to ignore when you first start your set. I then followed that up with tracks that I chose on the fly BUT i picked from a list of tracks that I also knew well and was comfortable mixing. DO NOT and I mean absolutely DO NOT choose to mix tracks that you haven't played at least a few times in the bedroom. During your first few gigs you need to be 100% comfortable with your tunes because you WILL be nervous. Also it wont hurt to have groups of say 3 tracks that you know you can mix perfectly so that you can jump to these little mini sets if you start to lose the crowd or get overcome with nerves. (kind of like having a "break glass in the event of an emergency" fall back option). Finally accept now that you may (will) make a mistake or 2. Its only natural. whether its a train wreck of a mix, pressing stop on the wrong deck or dropping the volume fader on the wrong track, mistakes happen. But when they do just accept them and get on with it.