Club Audition, Please Help

[DJ ATP]

@ Lambox - Yeah, I'm glad I didn't have anybody seriously in my face like that, or the whole deal would have been off on the spot. "I don't get into your car and start messing with your shit, you don't touch my equipment."

But yeah, we both had bad experiences, and we both learned to grow a bit tougher. Now I just need to keep rollin' and get better at what I love to do. Like that dude said in your thread, it all goes back to why you started in the first place. If it's a strong reason, like loving music, sharing it with people, having fun, helping others have a good time, loving the technology or the art of DJing...then everything will be fine in the end. If we're just in it for money or chicks or fame, chances are we'll be discouraged a lot easier.

Luckily I'm very good at forgetting things, so forgetting the lows comes somewhat naturally to me. After some sleep.

-DJ ATP

[MaxOne]

See, I'm just not sure about this "learn to EQ" thing either. What does that mean?

Not every song in the world will mix together naturally really.

It's not about being an EQ master, it's about finding tunes that mix well together. If, in a live situation, the bassline of two tunes is clashing, kill the bass on the track you're mixing out of. Slowly fade the volume down or hit delay and then either freeze or just hit stop. Tune echos out, transition over.

So find tunes that go well together naturally is the best thing to do, they need to have simular bpm and they need to be in key.

Traktor will tell you the bpm of a track, or you can get this software which was on DJTT a few months back. As well as accubeatmix, which is a nice itunes plug in, there is also BPMer which finds the bpm for all your track.

http://www.wildbits.com/bpmer/

To mix in key there's this software too

http://www.mixedinkey.com/Homepage.aspx

These are tools you can use that should make finding perfect mixes a breeze.

;-)

[BradCee]

like a jackass I kill the whole thing and load a song into the live deck...SILENCE...oh well

best attitude to take

but, isn't there an option to lock live decks so you can't accidently load into them?

[BentoSan]

but, isn't there an option to lock live decks so you can't accidently load into them?

Yup there is in the option for that, i have it enabled personally.

[BradCee]

Yup there is in the option for that, i have it enabled personally.

that's what i thought, i think it's always been set on mine. don't remember doing the setting, but it complains if i try to load into live deck.

[Leon.R]

Well almost everything has been said.

You can, no you should, upload a few of your mixes in order to receive constructive criticism from fellow DJs.
A few pointers here and there on your on work will probably help you as one tends to make the same "mistakes" over and over without noticing or without knowing how to do otherwise/better: different techniques, different approach...

I'm still learning, but I have played a few nights here in Munich.
First lesson I learned was to keep it simple!
Keeping it basic saved me from what started looking like a complete train wreck the first night played.

I feel for you, but stick to it.

PS: Like the attitude of this thread and in particular of your last post ATP.

[djalexlaine]

I need mentorship at this stage, because I'm not really progressing, I'm kind of just going in circles.

best sentence i have read on this site yet. mentorship, both in life and djing, is a dieing art. i was super lucky to have 2 djs mentor me when i finally started really learning how to dj professionally instead of as a hobby. both were djs for over 10 years. think about people you know well who are quality djs that have been djing for a while, not guys who are just a bit more experienced. you want someone who will be able to see the bad habits you have.

it has been said before, your setup is WAY too complicated and it wasnt properly tested and bench marked. slim it down. slim it down now. to give you an idea of what it takes, i say a picture of richie hawtin playing out maybe 2 months ago and he was still using traktor 3.4. because it was a tried and true, test and proven system. i experienced a similar issue several months ago when i bought a new laptop. i figured it would just be an easy matter of switching stuff out. but because the hardware was different nothing worked. the fact that i got it working for the gig that week was a gift from God.

[DvlsAdvct]

I was also really luck to have three DJs with completely different techniques teach me how to DJ. Then I took that and brought a lot of it to the streets. In fact, I've learned a lot here from Tekki, Jester, Foreverhex, and a few other DJs that have given me advice to push the style of my techniques. I think my sets a year ago to today have improved vastly.

I think it is in a DJs best interest to learn every technique at their fingertips. If you don't scratch, then don't learn to scratch. But I can guarantee, if you spin EDM, you should learn how to EQ and blend. Using your EQ allows you to force songs to fit together that otherwise wouldn't, and to control the energy of your transitions and mixes in a much more unique and symbiotic way.

And, well, it keeps everything uniform so nothing overpowers anything else, unless you want it to.

But yeah, lots of good advice in this thread.

[DJ ATP]

Well, something great came out of my failure. A bunch of DJs came together and shared some important tips and some positive mental attitude.

Thanks a bunch, guys.

I love this community.

-DJ ATP

[DvlsAdvct]

Don't think of it as your failure.

Think of it as your experience.

You are learning more now than before, so it isn't much of a failure