First set here I go. 6 hours long… need some wise advice.
Ok DJTTers,
I’ve created this thread to seek some advice for such a long set from 7pm till 1am this coming Friday 21th, my first time ever DJing out at a house party to celebrate the end Year 12 for my school year.
I’m downloading tracks like there’s no tomorrow, simply because I don’t have enough music!
I dunno if I wanna use Traktor or not with my Pioneer 400s setup. I don’t know how to use it well enough. Should I?
Here’s my plan.
Warm up: 1.5hrs with Deep house.
Then play Electro house/House for 1.5~2hrs.
Bangers/hits for ~2hrs
Then progressive house to finish off.
Obviously Im a noob, so I need to plan out my first set. How does it sound? Any tips to improve, especially for such a long set would be appreciated! One of my mates going to da party is a bedroom DJ as well, so that’s my chance to have a short break, socialise with friends, then back to work.
I will not drink, cos I do not drink alcohol!
I volunteered to do this, Im feeling the pressure already.
I’ll post up a few pics from the party and tell you guys and gurls how it went.
I +1 the mixes for bathroom breaks and snacks and such. Thats a super long set to be playing for a first, but Id do like ctg said and get alot of diffrent genres since it will be a school thing, you wanna cover all of your bases.
House party? Music you can get shitfaced to. Like Indie Music etc. And as stated by ctg23, Lots of different genres, as you’ll be playing to the LCD, who’s musical taste’s likely dont expand outside the charts!
Test your entire sound system before the night of the gig. So many people doing house parties are making the mistake of showing up to a sound system that doesn’t work…
Make sure you have music for everyone–not just what YOU like. The crowd can turn against you in a second if you don’t have any music they like.
If people start getting shitty with you, don’t get shitty back. Keep your cool and if you need to, shrug it off and tell them you’re doing this for free/fun.
Pre-make a few 10 minute mixes. Like photojojo said, you will need bathroom and food breaks in the span of your gig.
What I usually do is playing some easy-going house music while the people are entering the club and getting their first drinks. The most important part is that this music sets a nice atmosphere. An example of track fitting the category is:
Next thing to do is filling the dance floor. The best strategy in my opinion is trying to get the chicks to move. Unfortunately, this usually does not happen playing fancy house music. At that point I usually switch to Top 40 type of music, building the tempo gradually. Eventually you can start to play the well known party house. Over the night I progress towards firmer beats, mixing in songs people won’t know with some well known songs. Eventually, I break it down a couple of times to play hiphop and speed it up again towards progressive house. This usually works for me.
Ofcourse it is way easier to play just a couple of hours, instead of a whole evening.
Another idea if you don’t want to use as much top40, just look for a lot of tracks that have samples of ‘regular’ songs in them. One example being, Peter Gelderblom - Waiting 4 2011 (Manuel De La Mare Remix)
It’s a great way to keep the style you want, but giving those who are unfamiliar with the genre something they can relate to.
+1 If the girls are happy, why even care about the boys?
If there are couples there, don’t be afraid of putting on a few slow songs…especially later in the evening. Help a dude (or dudette) hook up, if you can.
+1 As much as you like house (or really any single genre, or the whole of EDM), it is not universally popular. There is a reason that the “Top 40” is the Top 40. You don’t have to like the reason, or the music…but you had better be able to put that aside and play for the people who are in the room. There is nothing wrong with “sprinkling” in any particular music…just be aware that your sprinkle might be someone else’s fire hose.
Think back to the other dances during the last 2 to 4 years. What songs got people moving, or singing along (remember, these did not need to be songs YOU liked…just that “someone” liked)? Knowing nothing else, I would tell you to hit up a used music store, and hunt down some of the Top 40 compilations that have been put out over the last 2 to 4 years (“Now That’s What I Call Music” to name one, there are others). Buy a handful…4 to 6 discs spanning 2 to 4 years should be enough. Now, you will have something to “sprinkle” in that has a LOT of the Top 40 bangers from your school years. Seriously, these compilation discs have 20-ish songs all “above average” in terms of recognition. If you are really bold, grab some 70’s Trash Disco (this is where house started, after all), or 80’s Synth Pop, or 60’s Classic Rock to sprinkle into the mix as well.
Don’t get me wrong, by all means hit them with your best take on the state of house music. But you should be able to do that given 60-90 minutes in the middle of the night.
You have to mix it up a little with the genre. They aren’t going to dance to music they don’t know, at least not in th beginning. I have seen it a million times both ways. I can have a packed dance floor dancing to top 40 dance mixes and try to sneak in a hot club track and they look at each other and leave the floor empty. I have also seen it go the other way when they look at each othe,r shrug their shoulders because they don’t know what it is and keep dancing because they are having fun. It all depends on the crowd. The thing is, if you don’t play what the majority wants, you will be known as that DJ who didn’t play anything we wanted and you suck. As unfortunate as that may be, that is the reality. You have to play to the majority of the crowd.
If you get requests and you don’t have the track, instead of doing some kind of negative remark, tell the requester that ‘maybe you like this track that is very similar in style’ and play that one instead.
I recently played a 5 hr gig in Sydney at a combined 18/21st house party for a bit of fun two weeks ago (pretty much the same demographic as your gig). Being a bit older and a big Tech and Deep House fan it was a bit of challenge.
Some advice -
Pack your usb full of electro and hip hop. Most people at these parties aren’t into Deep House and Prog and there is always some guy’s that dig rap/hip hop
Find tunes that get chicks dancing, if you can pull this off the guys will follow and you are victorious!
If you want to play your own favourites try to choose tracks that are high energy that you can drop in between some cheese
The gig was the first time I’ve played for that kind of crowd. It was pretty fun even though I couldn’t play what I’m into the whole time - still it was fun trying to work out what people want.
If people ask you to play something just stay happy and say I’ll see what I can do for you mate.
what… don’t plan out a six hour set, that’s retarded, especially with house music… At most, maybe plan out in/out points for your bangers… but house is easy..
If you actually plan out three and a half hours of deep and electro, you’re going to feel stupid when you get better and realize how big of a waste that was.
Years ago I planned my first set, which was 3 and a half hours of just about every popular EDM genre… Took me a whole day. Now I feel stupid for spending a whole day in miserable stress.
Thanks for all the replies man.
Yes, definitely not just House for 6hrs…
For Gangnam Style, I’ll loop the intro, step to the side of da DJ booth, interact with the crowd (my friends) on how to dance Gangnam style:
I can imagine already it’s gonna be hilarious!
Looking at various top music charts.
Laser and fog machines are in transit.
Another question; if I wanna mix pop songs, is it more ideal to use remixes/club edits of it? Eg, ‘Call Me Maybe’ How do you people mix pop songs, apart from playing sections of a track A then to track B then back to where A left off? What’s the definition of this technique. I forgot.
