I have my first gig in a club on saturday, and i’m putting together my tracklist(i’m prepping to avoid failing, one of the other DJ’s on the night is a major promoter of local DJ’s in belfast and i need to impress)
The only problem is i’ve just been told my set has to be between 30-40 minutes, which as a minimal and hard techno DJ can be a bit difficult. My tracklist is as follows
Audacity Of Huge (SMD Space Cave Version)-Simian Mobile Disco
Atmosphere (Koen Groeneveld Remix)-Jon Rundell
Just be good to me (Acapella)_Beats International
Liquid Brain-Fergie
Budgie-Funkagenda
Bom Bang!-Marco Bailey
Spastik (Dubfire Rework)-Plastikman
Slap-Umek
Higher State of Consciousness (Original Tweekin Acid Funk Mix)-Wink
Heaven Is a Place on Earth-Belinda Carlisle
Waves-Boys Noize and Erol Alkan
Now i need to cut this down to between 30-40 minutes, its currently running at 50… help?
What time are you on? If you’re on early or are the first DJ take out the highest energy tracks as they’ll be more impressed that you know not to play bangers early in the night.
I’m the first DJ on, but there are bands on before me which are supposedly quite high energy. I cut it down to under 40 minutes by taking out higher state of conciousness, shortening the mix on Bom Bang, and replaced my mashup of Belinda Carlisle and Erol Alkan with the Boys Noize remix of Personal Jesus! PhotoJojo i took your advice, and i’m using a lower energy remix of Liquid Brain to build up the pace a bit. Thank you
WRONG! One of the fundamental DJ skills is reading the crowd. Pick 3-4 songs, figure out a really sweet way to mix between those 4, and after that just go with the flow. Have 3-4 more that go really well together just in case nobody’s feeling it, that’ll be your out. Seriously, wing it, at the very least you’ll learn something, and 40 minutes isn’t a very long time.
true, but being the first DJ on for the night, there isn’t much of a crowd to read, regardless of bands playing before or not.
bands and EDM are two different beasts, and generally the crowd thats into one isn’t into the other.
being your first gig (and it only being short) play what you know in the order you’re comfortable with to help keep your nerves to a minimum. reading the crowd and things like that will come over time mate so dont stress about it this time around… and as photojojo said - dont play any ‘bangers’ when doing an opening set.
There is nothing wrong with prepping the shit out of it.
If you prep enough it gives you a mental safety net and you will feel less anxious about the set.
Even if you totally wing it on the night and you read the crowd right, just going into the gig with your confidence up because you ‘feel’ like you have prepared well is priceless.
Ive done 100s of gigs and totally thrown my setlist out of the window but i always do my prep. Its not uncommon for me to have 10 hours of music in various playlists for any eventuality just for a 2 hour gig.
Ive winged it for 5 or 6 hours without a single reference to a playlist but i always do some prep.
A dj that doesnt prep is an idiot and probably never really does the best that he can… most importantly, the prep is fun.
i mean come prepared with that ratio, that way you have more tracks then you’ll need, but if there are a few that just wont fit the mood then you wont be at a dead end brcasue you still have more
What happens if the bands play indie rock and you get 3 requests for August Burns Red? You still gonna go ahead and clear the floor with that deep house set you prepared? Preparing for an unknown situation is stupid, and it is your first gig, you don’t know what the situation is going to be.
Its a local talent night, and the DJ who’s closing it after me usually plays hard techno/psytrance. It’s more me opening for him than anything as far as i know…
I’m with the “respond to the floor” guys and gals on here …
By all means practice and have a few nice little routines of 3-4 tracks to fall back on, but you need to be able to adlib, else they might as well use itunes …
I go with one song per 2.5 minutes, (i play it for about 2 minutes with 30 seconds for mixing in and out) so I would say that playlist could go even bigger. You want to make sure you keep changing it up so the audience stays interested.
