tips for mixing minimal and maybe some recommendations

hey guys, just asking for someone to school me in the ways of minimal.

ok... here is my answer to you. Since you don't spin minimal, and you know nothing about the genre then you might as well just go onto beatport and get yourself some tracks in the top 100 of minimal. Just go through and pick a bunch of tracks and buy them.

With that being said, why would you agree to play such a gig? That is by no means meant in a mean way. That is generally where problems come in with this industry. Playing music you don't know about just to play a gig can be bad for you and the venue. Did you mean you are going to be spinning this all the time now or it this just a onetime thing? Maybe i am misunderstanding you... If it is a onetime thing I would strongly suggest passing on such a gig. As someone who has spun minimal for the past 4-5 years, I can tell you that it could go terribly wrong if you don't know how to program a minimal set properly.

Again, I don't want to come off as being mean, I am simply trying to educate you. Many people are all over the place with their music, but to try to just jump into a genre and play a full on minimal set seems a bit silly. I am all for mixing multiple genres together, techno, tech house, minimal, deep house... but you should really know the music you are spinning. When you don't know your music it turns into really poor programing. I hate hearing DJs just spinning some track they just downloaded and it doesn't fit into anything they are playing, but they play it anyways because its brand new or they heard someone else play it...

Know your music, whether you decide to play this whole minimal set or not. Buy 50 songs, study all of those songs, learn each one inside and out. Also download some minimal sets and study what a good minimal set sounds like. Study the builds and the breakdowns.

Hope that helps you a bit... =)

no, it doesnt help.

i do plan on spinning minimal, i like it. i was just asking for some suggestions. thats all. there is no difference between me asking for help on spinning minimal and a complete noob asking for help on djing period.

sorry for trying to venture out of my genre.

sure, you didnt mean for it to sound douche-y, but it did.

lol I saw this thread pre-edit.

munizj I think Lance has been really useful here. He's basically told you what you need to know go download the top 100 on beatport run them through mixed in key and just play around the wheel your entire set. How long do you have to learn an entire genre/till you have this gig?

Why not blogroll some minimal and get some minimal mixes that blogs reckon are okay and get the tracks from them and listen to them learn how there mixed and any trick the DJ has used when mixing them.

And yes there's a difference between a complete noob asking for help djing and you. Would you be nice to this:
"hey guyz i haz my first dj gig next week lolz! so how do i play 2 track at once? also what's beatmatching and what do i need to dj? kthxbye?"

I know that's a bit over the top but you get my point.

i like turtles.

they just asked for some minimal, rather some people that i met there seem to really like minimal and i thought it would be nice to play it there. dont mean to learn a genre a month lol, i agree that would be kinda silly. just wanted to see if you guys had some cool techniques. i've heard several sets from the house djs there on other nights (though they arent very approachable lol) and have picked up some things from watching/hearing/asking. but they are more A to B djs (no offense to anyone), i wanted to see what kind of controllerism stuff i could include.

ive beatport-ed around 25 tracks (low on cash atm) yesterday, but its a little hard to keep up with whats good/bad since i'm new to the genre. i've played around with them and i'm downloading a few sets.

i'm not doing this just to get the gig, just wanted to venture out of my genre and play a some stuff that new friends will like too. its a small bar and houston's edm scene is hardly there.

didnt mean to sound like a cunt (lets blame finals stress). i'm a nice guy =D. i know Lance meant well, and trust me, i absorbed it. so, perdon!

EDIT!!!!!!!wait... reading the post you made while i was writing this....

EDIT number 2:
Sorry if you read what was here before hand I only saw the I love turtles thing and that threw me. :)

ANYWAY!
I guess you're pretty much on your way now :)
I guess if you want to impress your new friends... talk to them! Get some names off artists they like then research them a bit see if you can find a mixtape by them (I still have a Disco Villians mixtape I listen to and try to copy/learn from).
Other than that I don't know much about minimal other than that it's very "simple" (not the right word but it works) so lots of nice loops and layering 3 track could work nice. But your going to learn to do that better simply by playing the tracks than any one tip you get from here.

that last post was apologizing to you guys.

Yep I noticed that apologies all round!

I think Lance was right in everything he said...

There are no tips for a certain genre. Or maybe there's only one as Lance pointed it: know your music.

IMHO I think it's very beginner like to "get into a genre". Buy music you like and see how you can fit it together and also with the crowd, that is the real deal. Trying to follow a very strict stylized line in djing can only limit you and usually is a symptom of the fashion victim. Genres die, trends change, but a dj has to create his own path or it will die with the genre.

IMO minimal was fresh and cool in Europe 8 years ago... I saw the minimal fever myself in Barcelona around 2001, aswell as the 80's electro revival fever. Today most of the minimal djs I hear are boring at their best...

It's not about the genres, it's about the emotion.

I'm not a fan of lances response.

Here are some tips. Minimal is a dj's genre imo. You have to work hard at creating a journey. With that said you are in complete control. This is an ideal genre for controllerism. With the way the songs are produced you can create new songs by layering four tracks at once. Apply fx at will during break downs. Loop is your best friend. Also don't be afraid to throw in other genres to spice up your set. Search for me on soundcloud I have a four deck minimal mix on there. Trial and error, lots of it. Hope that helps.

I mix techno, minimal and tech house,

I dont use any controlerism techniques but i try to use Tpro's 4 decks the most often i can. I use a lot of loops, delays and gaters, beatmashers, mulholland drive and white noises. Most of the time it looks like im mixing ''A to B'' but with loops on C and D.. but it really depends of how it sounds, sometimes it's better to loop A and let go D... i think you get the point.

A bit like Animus said, i believe a great minimal set is not entirely minimal, as i like to put in loops of other genres (deep for example) in the set. I also find easier to play with the intensity of the set while mixing minimal by layering tracks and adding these effects i mentioned before. Fun buildups can be made quite easely with minimal.

Well, this is how i do it!

I don't know if it's the kind of answer you were looking for, but if it is, get on your decks and start to experiment. Use effects, loops, get creative,know your music, look at how other djs are doing it and try to come up with your own style, what suits you best.

This is very basically how i do it, it's not right, it's not wrong but it's the way i like.

Hope that's been a help

Give my Undo mix a listen to, thats how a minimal mix should sound. Its quite a few months old now but holds its own. A not so minimal start but which quickly moves onto twisting your brain using effects and loops. For this mix I used subtlety with the effects. Check out the track listing and maybe compare with the originals.





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I dont care if I'm blowing my own trumpet, I like the way it sounds.

ah! thanks for the mix post! this is definitely helpful

I don't look at genres in different ways but I do mix them differently,my first Tech House mix did include a couple of minimal tunes in there, go take a listen it's on my soundcloud which is linked here, i used a few effects filter and looping, i use all those when I do Deep House as well but differently as I find Deep House needs to be mixed slightly different due to the feeling of the music, personal opinion of course :)