… how many of you go out and just put a track on and hope for the best… live for the challenge ?
I love it, probably why i’m no proffesional DJ. I just love to put something on and see what i can do. I guess what i’m saying is quite often when i pick a track i have no idea if its gonna work or not.
How many others do this … i think its excitin … and the feeling you get when somethin works is frikkin brilliant.
can anyone relate ???
Maybe i’m stoopid and this was a stoopid thing to say but I’m buzzin after just havin a wikid session on the decks, i’ve only just really dicovered fader fx, never really used it before.
Anyway i just wondered as i often go out and see djs and think “well that didnt really work that well or surely that wasnt planned” so are alot of us doing this and getting away with it even the pros?
haha well when i practice i do this all the time i find it fun and interesting just having a song going then selecting a random song (but a song that is in that style or genre) and see how i can pull off a cool creative mix and yeah when you pull it off you feel awesome
depends the situation.. if i’m at home experimenting than it’s pretty much a requirement to get any work done, trial and error. How else would people do it?
This is a fundamental process of DJ’ing of course you’re always going to have mini sets all sorted out, you know a selection of tunes and how they mix together but you never know what the crowd response will be and you need to be playing to them, so you’re always gonna be mixing two completely random tunes together, there was one nite that I had just rolled out a solid Jump Up/Jungle set but needed to darken things up for the massive so i dropped Evol Intents “Call to Arms” over top of Aphrodite’s Jungle Brother remix and
awww yes.. living dangerously .. it can make or break you … and most successful people don’t do it cause … odds are .. you are going to clear some floors. And well the lucky ones … they are “genius” .. hahahaha
most important thing is to be unconcsious in the operation of your system. Know your functions and and methods… so when you get into the zone … the zone is WIDE OPEN
when it comes down to more than 2 hours gigs i always depend on my creativity in the songselection…well and sometimes i´m way to creative and i cleared the floor
I am lucky to know what the crowd expects of me here…so i give it to them.
But not all THEIR fav’s…all of MINE!
But I won’t put on a track willy nilly…unless i planned on taking that route.
Sometimes…towards the end of my set,…and its a really messy party…lots of wasteds…i will chuck on something REAL crazy just for the nutty effect…but thats about it.
I am pretty surgical (anal) about my sets and sound.
99 times out of 100 it lifts the roof off and works.
1 time in 100 it clears the floor.
I can live with that . You gotta trust your own judgement and your feel for the crowd on the night. If its your regular gig you should know your crowd well and what you can and cant get away with to varying degrees of success.
I’ve done entire sets on the fly, spinning based on how it sounds when I’m cue-ing in my headphones. I never really plan, other than knowing little 15 minute snippets by heart. Once in a while it fails and I fall back, pretty quickly, on my tried-and-true tracks I have.
Sometimes I’ll pick tracks I’ve never listened to, just going by a request, or knowing the artist, and to mix it up on the floor.
Yeah i can dig that. I DJd with some guys on saturday at a BBQ. We did 3pm till 1am.
All i took was 4 cds with about 100 mp3s on each and i just picked tunes as i went along.
Did quite a few 20-30min sets thru the day swapping with the guys. No prep at all and it was a blast.
Everyone played and mixed really well and it wasnt disjointed or messy just a great eclectic vibe.
On the other hand ive done plenty of sets that have been programmed from the first to the last track with no deviation.
my track selection is like this most of the time but i run a fairly refined range of tunes so its usually not a problem, if something clashes majorly i don’t drop it.
The beauty is you get variety and things people havn’t heard before.
I should note: I only do house parties and stuff for friends so the majority of the audience knows what to expect anyway
My usual thing is (will change soon as I find a controller that works 100% for me and pratise enought with it to feel confident), arrive at gig generally 1h before playing.. study crowd and relax. 15m b4 starting all go thru my crates (yes good ol vinyl -sacrilege- ) and leave Sleeve UP the records I am in the mood to play and should work that crowd.
I Always carry around 200 12" (except playing abroad) - I am very carefull about the first 3-4 tracks.
I always like to stop the music a give time for the crowd to cheer (or not lol) the Dj before me. This also alows for the adrenaline to settle and the ears to clear up a bit … so i get to start at my own BPM (I like starting from the slower bpm and keep rising) and with the light’s just b4 RED so I have a consistent and good quality audio.
From then on it’s all crowd / Taste control … ther is no plan … I know tracks just enought to have a sort of memory tag that fits them as “ON TOP” of other tracks, FULL ON tracks (should play by themselves only), Vocals (generally ghetto/ Booty), DRUMS … Tweeky/ very busy or sparcer tracks … this is my only plan … just use a little bit of common sense (no vocal on vocal as an example) and the rest is all spur of the moment.
Don’t know if that makes much sense to others but that’s the way I go about it …
With traktor I have a DJing Playlist, and then other favorite playlist with the categorization I just mentioned.
BTW - I play techno around 130 - 145 BPM - All sorts of techno with a lot of Chicago Booty flavour.
I generally pack about 100 - 150 tracks in a playlist and go by feeling of the crowd. If you pack a nice playlist (crate) you can throw in tracks and know they are going to work. I also started mixing in key over the last few years which has opened up new doors in mixing.
throwing something out on the floor without knowing 100% that it’s going to go well is one of my favorite things about playing out. i’d estimate i’m mixing in something i’m unsure about every ten to fifteen minutes or so. as long as its the right energy level, well beatmatched, and in a reasonable key, it usually doesn’t end up embarrassing me.
i can’t stand it when i find myself in a routine week after week, so i’ve learned to have a bit more faith in the moment and the energy of the room.
there is nothing that makes me smile wider than when a track unexpectedly blows the roof off the room. when the reaction isn’t super positive, it’s fairly easy to recover by following it up with some more dependable tracks. of course at this point i’ll try something fun again.
That’s something I only really do at home, and it makes me a better DJ I think. Having to find your way out of a tough spot is a great way to improve your skill imo. There are certain songs that are just nearly impossible to mix out of, but I guess that’s part of the thrill of it.
I never do anything I’m not 100% sure of when I’m DJing in front of people. (I guess that’s lame. So what? I’m lame)
While I have plenty of small mixes in my head that I can use, and do use, more often then not I am playing to that crowd specifically, and I am not afraid to throw in a track that I have never mixed with the previous one before. Mind you I am someone that plays all styles of music, from hip hop, rock, funk, soul, classics, dance, etc… If I think it will work, it’s going in, so I gotta figure out a way to mix it. About 80% of my sets are spur of the moment.
I get this from experience years ago as a DJ at one of the most interesting places for a while, where I had to cater to a crowd that was ages 21-80 at times. Here I learned to really just have fun with it and simply be able to read the crowd and what they want. As long as it’s a good track and you figure out a way to throw it in well, the crowd will love you, and you can get people that may not normally be into that tune, to dance their butts off.
Also, when you learn how-to read a crowd and be able to throw in tracks catered to what you want them to do, you can start rotating the different groups around from the dance floor to the bar and back. This is something club managers will LOVE you for and always ask you back. I learned how-to do this at the same place. Tossing in a couple hip hop tracks for that crowd which would send them to the floor for 10-15 minutes, then hit em with some funk, which would get some of the other crowd in the floor, and send some of the hip hop heads to the bar, then throw some rock in there, which would filter through more people… The great thing is as long as you’re using good music, most of those people will hear one song they don’t like, run and grab a drink, then you switch and half the time they down the drink and run back to the bar. While this is more for the dedicated club DJ, not just hour long sets, it’s a great skill to acquire. I remember the first time I did this at another club and the manager finally caught on, he came up to me and said, “I’ve never seen another person come in here and be able to manipulate a crowd like this… I mean you’ve got them running between the dance floor and the bar, without even thinking!” And I was there every week after that…
eehhehe you can have a ME moment and play the stuff you really like while keeping the the club owner happy, cause yer sending them all to the bar for the next 5 minutes lol
i find it fun and interesting just having a song going then selecting a random song (but a song that is in that style or genre) and see how i can pull off a cool creative mix and yeah when you pull it off you feel awesome 
