Improvisation or Set list???

[Bunford]

I always have a set, but have a few interchangeable songs in terms of order, and ones to play/leave out after judging the crowd.

I very rarely play demands though, unless it's something I want/was going to play anyway. Call me stubborn, but I play what I have fun playing. I wouldn't go on stage and ask Noel Gallagher to play Parklife by Blur

Though at the start I did play a lot of requests until I got enough rep to do what I want now

[Johnny GTO]

THIS^

I search for new music everyweek, always will incorporate the new with the some great tunes from the week before or tracks that I am known for

I usually create a play list of tracks that I know I want to play, (dont always play all of them)

but the sky is the limit coz I might think of a track on the fly and throw it in,

read your crowd and most importany keep them moving read the body languange.

I played some reggae influenced house last week and they loved it, so I thru another a few tracks later coz I knew it got the dance floor moving

Improvise!

[yahman1254]

I think being able to judge the audience is a skill that comes with experience. it's stuff like that that defines how professional a dj is in my mind, as an audience member.

[wrong chris]

set list as a guideline, but not set in stone.

being able to improvise is a good skill, but the pay off from planning some really tight transitions/routines with fx/loops/cuepoints is worth having a bit of a roadmap to work with.

[MrPopinjay]

Nothing wrong with having things set in stone though. Some of the best DJs I know plan every single aspect of their set.

[heaps]

I've done both, and let me say. The art of DJing lies in improvisation and crowd reading. Sure, you'll fuck up your mixing a lot more, but nobody really seems to notice when the incoming track is the 'perfect' song.

[MrPopinjay]

Oh yeah, those guys are performers known for their technical skills rather then just being dudes who play tracks. You go to see them because you wanna see how they mix.

<3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BE2T4kZrUo

[DarioJ]

I disabled the album art in the decks and have the album art column shorter than normal to save some space.

I like this idea. I've posted at the NI forums about making "operator defined, colored cue points" which could make pre-planned AND on the fly sets easier (almost like connect by color and cue djing). Maybe that is making it more "newb", but if you're dropping cues on interesting parts or setting timed cues on tracks, why not have this feature?

[Nesquigs]

i usually play off of a MASTER party playlist then get funky from there with any of my other playlists / dropping preplanned soundcloud releases and whatnot.

seems to work pretty well.

[Ryan Leo]

My experiences have led me to this understanding:

If your playing to a crowd who is planning dancing its probably better to tailor the set to the live situation.

However, if your playing a a place that is more relaxed and have intermittent dancing going on it would be better to have several "mini sets" organized.

play 4 or 5 20 minute mixes and attempt to blend them all together seemlessly so that when someone actually pays attention to the music every 4 or 5 minutes they notice that they are wigglin' subconsciously.