What do you find frustrating about discovering new music?

[Trackhunter]

Your aim should never be to listen to everything. You will tire and bore yourself. Digging for tracks needs to be a finely honed method.

What I've noticed is that people have different ways of doing it, people's aims are different and that's great. What criteria do you use to decide what NOT to listen to?

I Download tonns of Sound and don't really have time to listen to it.

What I do is putting the tracks on a playlist on my mp3-player and listen to it while sitting in public transportations, etc...

When a song then attires my Attention then it is the one I want.

Yes that's a technique I use and what I put into Trackhunter, there's a fast listen mode that auto skips the tracks based on your chosen settings. Then you just hit "Add to Shortlist" when something grabs your attention. For me a perfectly valid way of listening while on the move and doing "other" things. I understand that not everyone does or wants to do it that way though.

There are tonns of sites, everyone has to find his favorites Sorry...it is so depending on what Music Style you are mixing and which preferences you have.

Yes I found this too, lots of sites all offering the same stuff BUT all having the off exclusive or a track before the others. I found it impossible to visit them all just to listen to the exclusives. Interesting that it sounds like you listen in a similar manner to me. Do you have any techniques to choose what to NOT listen to?

As I said, the song has to attire my Attention when I listen to it, so there's no "Dumb Luck" involved as a song getting my Attention while listening passively will for sure end up in my set and for sure be a hit while mixing for the audience.

I agree there's no dumb luck involved, although I guess you could argue you'd miss a track if you're too involved in the "other" stuff you're doing. I wonder what the alternative is?

[Stephen Nawlins]

Do you have any techniques to choose what to NOT listen to?


I agree there's no dumb luck involved, although I guess you could argue you'd miss a track if you're too involved in the "other" stuff you're doing. I wonder what the alternative is?

Well for the first question: I have no Magic rule, as Music is something normally made emotionally to express those emotions or touch other peoples emotions every way to select it as DJ only can be emotionally and subjective as well no?

Second Question: Well always gonna miss a tune so it is, my Sets last between 4-5h which is a certain time but also not much in fact, so I will always get short in time to Play every Song that would deserve his place in a Set. I learned to live with it, that if I missed to Play a song, I will Play it at the next gig.
Same procedure for Novelties that come out, either I get them and Play them before everyone else, or then I Play them when everyone allready knows them.

The times when DJs could be Trendsetters are definitively over, Producers are Trendsetters and if I don't Play 1 Song from a genre most People not even will get it.(exceptions always confirm the rules)

I must confess, that I once were out myself (yeah...I had no own Gig that night) in an irish Pub (Mainstream Crossover Music) and a guest requested "Stromae - Alors on Danse", the song was #1 in most european countries and yes, I confess that when the DJ said "I never heard about that song, sorry", I thought "What a poor DJ not even having the #1 Song in such a Place" but afterward I asked myself: WHat is more important, that DJ having that #1 Song or his Performance all over that Night? So I decided not to judge about 1 missing Song anymore.

PS: And Always bringing Novelties into the Sets means also that older Songs have to be kicked out and sometimes I don't wanna kick out some classics because they are still better than the News stuff...so for me being DJ doesn't mean only playing Novelties if Oldies are better

[Trackhunter]

Well for the first question: I have no Magic rule, as Music is something normally made emotionally to express those emotions or touch other peoples emotions every way to select it as DJ only can be emotionally and subjective as well no?

Yes, I agree and I think that's why I'm finding it difficult to find another way to further reduce the number of tracks Trackhunter brings back when it grabs all the new stuff. So, far it filters out stuff you've already heard before, gets rid of the duplicates found across all the different sites, filters out artists or labels you don't want to hear stuff from. But past that I'm struggling to find a criteria to further filter out because as you say music is emotional and very subjective. Hmmm, it's eluding me at the moment but there must be something else that can be used to just show more relevant music?

Well always gonna miss a tune so it is, my Sets last between 4-5h which is a certain time but also not much in fact, so I will always get short in time to Play every Song that would deserve his place in a Set. I learned to live with it, that if I missed to Play a song, I will Play it at the next gig.

Yep maybe it's something that just has to be lived with but I wonder if there's a tweak to the workflow that can help reduce the risk, maybe trying to prioritise the playlist in some way because possibly we're more focused while listening during the first 30 minutes or so?

The times when DJs could be Trendsetters are definitively over, Producers are Trendsetters and if I don't Play 1 Song from a genre most People not even will get it.(exceptions always confirm the rules)

Are there no DJs out there who are trendsetters and not producers?

[Stephen Nawlins]

Are there no DJs out there who are trendsetters and not producers?

Well you know in the 80's in Rap Music when DJs started using Turtables to scratch...they were Setting a trend, one that even never died since then as most of DJs still do scratch every now and then.

When in the 80's some DJs in Chicago were mixing 70's Funk with some electronic Beats, they were inventing House Music an Setting a trend that's still alive.

Nowadays being "just" a DJ means playing just other peoples Music, the Music made by Producers...so in my way to see it...they set the Trends.

Not everyone will see it that way but it's my humble opinion.

[Trackhunter]

Well you know in the 80's in Rap Music when DJs started using Turtables to scratch...they were Setting a trend, one that even never died since then as most of DJs still do scratch every now and then.

When in the 80's some DJs in Chicago were mixing 70's Funk with some electronic Beats, they were inventing House Music an Setting a trend that's still alive.

Nowadays being "just" a DJ means playing just other peoples Music, the Music made by Producers...so in my way to see it...they set the Trends.

Not everyone will see it that way but it's my humble opinion.

Makes sense to me, I still wonder if you can set trends just by the flavours of music you choose and "how" you mix it together. With the advent of Stems and also the ability to be even more creative using loops, effects and pre-edits. Having a more diverse range of tracks early on before they become "popular" maybe you can still set some trends?

[keithace]

This is what we call experience and Music Taste and sorry there's no Manual for that each one has ist own.

Thank you Johnny Sanctimonious

[keithace]

Nowadays being "just" a DJ means playing just other peoples Music, the Music made by Producers...so in my way to see it...they set the Trends.

Djs definitely are trend setters and will always be. DJs are the ones that group together like minded tunes for consumption. You as a producer can have all the bomb tracks in the world. But it doesn't matter if there is no one to get them to the masses/clubs/festivals/radio.

This is not true for top 4/Open format DJs because you tend to be a slave to what is popular. You may break a song or two but it would be very hard to set trends inside of that format.

House DJs (all forms) have to adapt to whats news and whats old. People from this forum Like Kwal, Jason bay, and EliotHan are people that are working DJs in major cities. You can't tell me that they arent helping set trends. The "sound" of house changes on a regular basis and you as a DJ have to recognize and champion trends before they are happening.

Look at Dirty Birds or Perfect Driver, they set the trends by producing that funky tech house and having their DJs go out and play it.

This is a chicken and egg argument. But DJs will always be the tastemakers.

The big names like Steve Lawler, Digweed, Claude Von Stroke, etc...see the trends coming and nuture the sounds they like by DJing with those tracks.

[keithace]

Well I have elaborated an own Technique.

I Download tonns of Sound and don't really have time to listen to it.

What I do is putting the tracks on a playlist on my mp3-player and listen to it while sitting in public transportations, etc...

When a song then attires my Attention then it is the one I want.

This doesn't make sense to me. Please explain.

You download a bunch of music you haven't previewed, load them all onto a playlist and then make your way through them?

Do you get your music from records pools? torrents?

[overcast]

People from this forum Like Kwal, Jason bay, and EliotHan are people that are working DJs in major cities. You can't tell me that they arent helping set trends. The "sound" of house changes on a regular basis and you as a DJ have to recognize and champion trends before they are happening.

Preach dude. Sure Producers are the people that make music, but it takes an expert curator to piece it together and say "hey this matters". That's why resident club DJs, radio DJs, record store owners, labels, etc. are the ones helping set trends. It's a narrative within the context of a community, not of one person.

[ImNoDJ]

Thank you Johnny Sanctimonious

Sanctimonious about art, doesnt pay artists for his music.

Usual modern DJ shitshow.