Beginner Question, how do you pros plan your sets?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Beginner Question, how do you pros plan your sets?

Hi there,

I got into Djing last October, so I am pretty much a noob. But I have a blast, and through working at the bar of the best club in town got in contact with people who offer me gigs. They loved the sound but told me to work on getting my sets more “logical”. I would absolutely LOVE to do that gig (Funktion One sound system, bam!), but here is the thing: apart from some noob mistakes that will hopefully fix themselves eventually (pushing the wrong buttons from time to time), my major problem seems to get a consistent set going. It usually has a good beginning that starts slow and creates tension but after that it’s a mess of peaks and slow parts, ups and downs. I will plan my sets in advance, track by track, as long as I still struggle with the technical side. So, how do I improve my sets so they make more sense? It sounds stupid, but I really need hours upon hours to put a 2-hour set together…

Do I just lack experience and everything will fix itself or do you guys have any special tricks and pro tips for me? Or is everything fine as it is? Looking for feedback, too.

Here is a link to my soundcloud, containing two recent sets I made for friends:

Cheers,

Kv

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know your tracks

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Practice and organization are important, but far as I’m concerned-- Its a live art, the only way to really practice is by doing it.

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You don’t HAVE to do anything. It will come with time, but there are lots of things you can do to speed it along a little.

You absolutely HAVE to know all of your tracks inside out. You need to know where the breaks are, where the bass kicks in, where vocals start/end, and so on. This is the most important thing there is to know about DJ’ing.

You also have to have an understanding of the energy in tracks. You should develop a method of rating your tracks. Most .mp3 tagging software will allow you to rate your tracks (usually out of 5 stars). Again, this will come with time, but a rating method will help you in the mean time.

DON’T just play a list of stormers. Playing a bunch of tunes at the same energy level will bore everybody. A big mistake that DJ’s make is gradually building up to a stonker of a track, and then trying to maintain that level by continually playing stormers.

You have to think of a set as a journey, maybe even mapping it out on a line graph. Time along x-axis, energy along the y-axis. You have to build up, peak, slow it down a little, calm everything down, then gradually build up again, and so on. Dropping a stormer at any point you like is not a good idea. (But of course - a carefully dropped stormer when no-one is expecting it can have a HUGE impact. Again, knowing when to do this will come with experience).

Planning a set before hand can help - but it’s not always a great idea. You need to ensure you have enough tracks to be able to make decisions on the spot. The rating system will help with this. You may know that the time is right for a 4star stack, but having a list of 10 or 20 4star tracks to pick from will allow you be versatile.

An understanding of Harmonic Mixing is essential. You can build or drop the energy of a mix by dropping down the harmonic scale by 1, 2 or 7 steps in either direction. An essential technique for controlling the level of the mix.

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THIS!!!

He 100% on. and don’t be hard on yourself for planning out your sets before hand. I know alot of djs back in the day would never plan sets, but i have always tried to plan something out, espically if its a radio gig, i always plan those ones out very carefully.

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Patch was mostly right, but

This part is complete garbage. Don’t worry about shit like that, just listen to the damn tracks. If you can’t feel whether or not some track is going to raise, drop, or maintain energy by listening to it for about a bar, then you’re not ready to gig.

Also, don’t plan your sets. It’s a waste of time.

There have been several articles on the DJTT main page that explain various related concepts that you should probably go find and read.

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I used to plan sets, like to the minute… and suffice to say after just practicing for hours a day i decided that it was pretty much rubbish. Essentially i felt like i had no creativity, no room to play around with, and thats when i pretty much decided i wanted to start controllerism. Now i basically have ten or fifteen tracks that i absolutely love to cut up and play, and the rest i just feel the crowd…

I agree with understanding how peaks work though, but it’s not something you can totally plan out.

I would just say practice as much as you can. Do you watch tv? then don’t until practicing makes you want to barf. Go without sleep for over 18 hours and see where that leads you. What i’m trying to say is you shouldn’t let a plan get in the way of the creativity that is supposed to flow out of dj’ing.

Remember: It’s an art-form, our art-form. There is nothing better than making your own path and connections, because the more you nuture them, the easier they are for others to see.

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That’s actually GOOD harmonic theory. It’s all very well knowing/feeling that a given track will drop the energy level - but if you’ve got a grasp of harmonic theory, you can slowly/quickly lower the energy level in a controlled manner.

When you pull of a mix that sounds absolutely awesome, you may not know it, but harmonic theory is working it’s magic right there.

Great transitions DO happen by accident occasionally, but they happen a lot more often when you mix harmonically.

Same as everything, if ever single transition you pull off is harmonic, the listeners will soon get used to it, and it will lose it’s impact.

Harmonic theory is a bonus. Better to know it and not need it, than to need it and not know it…

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wow, brutal. harmonic mixing is a point of debate im noticing around here. to each there own.

there’s also an article on DJTT about “djing in abelton” and how planning sets should be part of your masterplan.

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yeah, but harmonic detection software aint 100% spot on (more like 60-70). unless you are doing it manually there is no way to be totally safe.

IMO, get 30 or so tracks per hour, pick maybe the initial 3 tracks and let the flow of the night do the rest. you might have some general idea of the moments you want to create, but don’t be too strict in this.

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djing in ableton is different than djing with traktor. yes a masterplan is a good idea, but i personally believe it is more along the lines of “i want people to bounce” or “i want to convey _____ message while making people dance” and then improve from there.

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Plan portions of your set, not the whole set. That way you can move in different directions. As far as harmonic mixing goes if your mixes sound seamless or go great together you’re doing it. Doesn’t matter if you use software to detect the keys of the tracks to aid in picking the next track or not you’re still mixing harmonically.

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Harmonic Mixing only comes into play when you’re mixing non-rhythmic (ie - bass, lead, synth, etc…) elements. You can mix tracks that do not go together harmonically by mixing JUST the percussion elements (drums). It’s a trick you can use when 2 tracks do not match harmonically, but are linked by other means.

Let’s not make this thread all about harmonic mixing techniques. :wink:

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About the harmonic mixing comment: [quote=“, post:10, topic:18781”]
yeah, but harmonic detection software aint 100% spot on (more like 60-70). unless you are doing it manually there is no way to be totally safe.
[/quote]

That’s the central point. I had my first vocal audition 15 years ago, and I’ve been playing guitar for a while. Obviously, I believe music theory plays a role in music, and keys are important. Automatic key detection software is piss-poor at giving you a bad approximation of the information normal people can perceive but not describe.

Using them does nothing but handicap yourself by encouraging you to rely on less information than you’d normally have and that is less accurate.

If you’re capable of doing it manually without asking for help, you know that you don’t need it unless you’re playing along with it…just listen to the damn track.

When you’re learning, it’s one huge thing that you need to ignore, especially if you’re having problems putting together coherent sets. Learn that first, and learn it based on listening to your tracks. Phrase matching and managing energy levels (as in: this track has a nice groove, I want to bob my head vs. Damn! This track is HOTTT!) is infinitely more important than “well, I went up a whole step and the floor cleared…wtf?”

Either you read it wrong or the author was an idiot.

Having spun in Live for a year or so, a pre-planned set is the most boring thing in the world. The only difference between doing that and pressing play on an iPod is that Live is more likely to crash. I don’t have a problem with technology; I use sync every time I mix; and I spun with Live for a year. If it weren’t for a couple small features in Traktor, I’d still be 100% on Live.

Doing that is cheating.

Fixed. This is the way you should approach sets, no matter what you’re using. Planning a set is the same whether you’re using Vinyl or CDJs or Traktor or Live or an Elektron Octatrack. You figure out what music you have; you figure out the feeling you’re going for; you pare down your tracks; you find a starting point; and you hope you remember your tracks well enough to know what comes next and to not forget about that perfect track.

If you own less than 30 tracks and they’re not all in the same subgenre…go ahead an plan while you search for and collect more music. After you learn how to do that, then you can start worrying about how to plan a set for a recorded mix, which is the same as you would normally spin…except that you get a pen & paper and do-overs.

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Very important!
Yes maybe plan out the first few tunes you want to play, maybe with some intro samples etc that work well, and go with the flow from there. Learning to control the energy is a skill that will progress naturally over time. The rating system is a good idea as well. especially if you aren’t so familiar with your tracks. Harmonic mixing is a great tool but totally optional, tbh i use it but only for recordings or when i’m too lazy to choose the next track mainly :wink: What style do you play buddy?

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Also we have a gig ourselves in 4 wekks so i am gonna watch this thread for some pointers as well :slight_smile:

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Thanks people, these were pretty much the answers I was looking for!

Fixed pre-planninng is not what I want to do, but I figured there will be so many other problems to worry about at the first few gigs that I would go for safety first and then remove the crutches as confidence grows. Being in front of a crowd on such a sound system after months on the home stereo in my bedroom might be scary enough to forget everything I had planned. I like the idea of making rough playlists with possibly matching stuff and then just dig through them while playing. Like an intro list, a list with the “slammers”, a list with stuff to go in between, etc. 20-30 tracks each.

About harmonic mixing: there’s a challenge in mixing tracks that are fundamentally different. Often, I practice by mixing totally random playlists. The approach of just letting the technical stuff aside and focus on training my ears instead of remembering mathematical lists sounds good. After all, I am also a music theory noob, all I have is 5 years of total music addiction. The minimalistic style of techno I like helps a little with that.

I am glad to hear that some of you also think a set has to be a journey rather than a fixed intensity curve. Let’s see how much I can bend the rules…

Now I only have to find a good way to tag my tracks, at the moment I just have a million playlists.

Jester.NZ: Mostly Minimal, Tech House. Industrial and dry with a few key melodies thrown in, that roughly sums up my style. The sound cloud link leads to 2 practice sets I did as morning workouts before going to write uni papers in silence all day long:slight_smile:

Cheers folks, that was very helpful!

Kv

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DJ Notation also can aid in what tracks to bring in where, but again, it requires you go through your libarary and know each of your tracks.

theres a good article about it here.

http://www.djnotation.org/

think of it as tabliture for dj’s

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I think if you know your tracks inside and out your ear and you develop a way to describe “emotions” that you can tie to a list of tracks you are essentially mixing harmonically just not in the mathematical sense that the software offers. Maybe I’m full of shit.

So I’d like to take the rating system as a means to develop set lists or preping for set lists and elaborate on it.

Would you use 1-5 stars to list 5 seperate levels of music? if not, what criteria would do you use to put them into each rating?

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that dj notation appears way more complicated that it needs be. by the time you finished notating your collection, you would (should) know your music well enough to know when all that is occurring.