Transitioning from rave mixing to club mixing? [Help]

[Zarkonix]

I've been mixing for about a year now, I've had my good share of experience playing at raves and I was recently picked up by a pretty major local entertainment label which is booking me a few club openers in the near future so I had a few questions!

How different is it playing in a club, and what things should I know in advance? I play with a pretty large amount of energy and I interact with the crowd as much as possible, but I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to keep interest of the crowd, which unlike at a rave, aren't guaranteed to dance to your music.

Is it possible to successfully play prerehearsed sets in a club? For any notable events I play at I usually plan out a set in advance to play, but given the necessity of crowd reading at clubs I'm assuming that it's something I should avoid. EDIT: After reading a bit on this, I'm thinking that having a few planned out sets (3-4) songs and being able to transition in to other sets is probably the best idea

I want to make sure I'm on my A-game going in to this, so any tips and other forms of advice would be super appreciated!

[V-Hoff]

Hey Zarko! Welcome to DJTT!
Can you give us more info about the main genre that you are used to play at raves?
And about the club, what's the main genre (or genres) that is playing at the opening (like the three or four first hours) ?

For now, the advice I can give to you is:
If you are a club opener, know for who are you opening too, listen to his music, or more listen to the more recent setlist.
You must have a nice set to warm things up to the headliner, or to make the transition from the firsts genres of the night to the headliner genre if they are different.

The main advice and more obvious here is: Don't play the headliner music if he's a producer or remixer, also don't play his bangers if he's a DJ, try to get more good underground stuff.

I think that there is some info on warming sets or club openers somewhere in the forums or at the blog.

I will search and edit here later but try to search by yourself too

[V-Hoff]

Here is a nice article for you:

http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/01/03/dj-etiquette/

"4) If you’re opening for another dj here are a few very important rules

Know your place and don’t over rock the floor. Your job is to warm up the room not beat it into submission. If you want to impress the headliner, don’t do it with 15 peak anthems. Impress them by showing restraint and setting up the headliner to look good. This WILL lead to more gigs.
If the floor is empty please don’t turn it up to 8. Keep the volumes low for the early part of the night and if you dare, keeping the tempos lower would also help ease people into the flow.
Make your last track a long one! Don’t ever leave a dj 2 minutes to mix, give him a nice long track with at least 4-7 minutes of transition time to get acclimated to the booth.
Don’t stay on the mixer and ride the filters for the last 4 minutes of the track, leaving the next dj with 1 minute to mix. This makes you look like an absolute amateur.
Don’t stay in the booth and turn it into your personal party with your friends unless invited to do so.
Don’t turn the sound system up to 10. Leave some room for the next dj to push it.
Don’t leave your monitors blaring while they are trying to get set up.
Do ask them if the tempo your playing at will work and don’t make any drastic changes.
Don’t leave drinks lying around
Do tidy up the booth after yourself
5) If you are coming on after another dj

Enter the booth 5-10 minutes before your start time
Respectfully introduce yourself and let them know your expected start time and how soon that is based on your watch.
If there is a conflict in start times, don’t argue! Go get the promoter and let them straighten it out.
When your ready to start playing let the other dj know you are ready to go- don’t stand over his shoulder with your headphones in hand.
Even though you are probably the most amazing dj ever to grace the decks- it wont hurt to watch what the other guy is doing for 20-30 minutes and feel out the crowd. Especially if this is out of town, the residents will have a lot better idea what the crowd wants than you do."


Edit:
These series are nice too, a bit off topic but sure a nice reading to understand your club's owner head:
"Build Your Club Night and DJ Career w Guest DJs – Part 2"
http://www.djtechtools.com/2010/09/1...st-djs-part-2/

[Zarkonix]

Hey, thanks for all the tips! I figured that was the case in that I should avoid playing my banger tracks, but I wasn't absolutely sure. At raves I generally play Electro House/House/Electro Breaks and finishing with heavier dubstep/drumstep (which I would probably try to avoid playing at a club, I know this club is in to house/electro/top40).

I can't actually go to the club that I'll be booked for yet because I'm not of legal age until may, so I wont be able to get a feel for the club until then.

As an opener would it still be acceptable to play some of my top tracks, but just spreading it out through the night?

[FroZack]

As an opener would it still be acceptable to play some of my top tracks, but just spreading it out through the night?

I'm still relatively new to DJing, but from the perspective of someone that parties alot, I think it's fine so long as your tracks don't conflict with the genres in your set. Test em on decent speakers before you hear them live for sure. I always run a PA/sub test on new stuff before I drop it on a pro PA