How do you practice/what is your practice routine?
Hey everyone,
I was just curious about what DJTTers do specifically when you guys practice. Do you practice specific skills? or just jump right into mixing? Do you record every time you practice?
How often do you practice and for how long?
I read that article by shiftee recently on practicing specific skills every time, but I’m not a scratch DJ so I’m not really sure how that would apply to me. Maybe practicing specific transitions over and over?
How do you practice?
Also, what is the deal with practice? Are there two spellings? I can’t remember which one’s which for the life of me!
Personally I load one of my newest tracks that have caught my attention. Then I poke around through my library via key and bpm and try and match the energy and then just continue on through that.
This way I stumble across awesome mash-ups or find out what songs totally suck and need to be deleted.
As for how long, I try to at least do an hour, the week before a gig though I try to do 3-4 hours.
This is my nightly routine after getting outta work / having dinner:
Open Traktor (or Live)
load a track onto deck a. press play… load a track on deck b. press play.
beatmatch. x-fade. ===> Mix!!!
always record. so on teh off chance you do something spectacular. you can remember how/when you did it and so you can pull it off again.
find new mixes. play with new music. learn your music inside and out (deffinately is way easier when you know when a track is gonna breakdown/buildup/go instrumental). Play infront of friends. Shut down itunes and while hanging out mix instead of shuffling itunes.
AND ALWAYS HAVE FUN.
AND ----- someone once told me “if a dj isnt dancing. he isnt doing his job right”
… so if your practicing and you got some moves going on unintentionally… youre on the right track.
(PS if your using Live, ive noticed that starting a project, working on it for an hr, then saving it and opening a new one and starting a whole new one from scratch really helps in developing your flow/ new tricks/ the program’s in’s and out’s ---- especially if you wanna produce/dj with live)
I have periods of time when I’m in the mood and others I am not.
When I’m in the mood, time permitting it will be every day or so.
Playing mostly straight up house and also techno I have a wide gamut of music to match my current mood which I often treat as a starting off point so if I’m chipper maybe I’ll be bringing out the happy corny tunes.
Can’t say it enough like the others have, record yourself! I was told that long time ago and I don’t ever do it myself and I regret it once in a while when I got really creative.
Mixing at home is first and foremost for getting to know the tracks inside and out. I like to imagine that everytime I am playing it is a live set so I go through the motions of peaks and valleys like I do when really playing live.
Practice is to improve your technical ability and get a better feel for your music but most important of all to have a good time.
For scratching djs, the notion of practice is much more easy to define as you have routines to work on, fader and platter movements etc.
With regular “electronic” djing if you are pushing the enveloppe doing multi deck mixing using loops and really trying to make it more advanced than there’s really work to do and new things to learn and ways to play.
I just open Traktor, select the playlist depending on what mood I’m in (prog house, dubstep, psytrance, etc) and just select two random songs and go from there…
I purchase tracks grid them, then when i have the time put together a new mix, completely random as well.. rarely practice just don’t have the time between work, my dog and the missus!
my next mix is going to be Techno/Tech House for my show and it’s going to be straight up 2 hours of mixing no prep really just select tracks and of i go, makes it all the more exciting avoiding mistakes, which invariably do occur but then i prefer to do my mixing like that.
start with opening traktor, start up the beauty that the s4 is, load itunes music, find a random track via sorting by bpm… smoke a bowl or a blunt, press record on the ol’ ipod recorder (belkin tune studio is awesome for recording) and then go at it… always have a pen and pad beside me, that way those beauty’s that go well together, well, become a playlist… build on that nightly, and usually end up with a 2 hour solid mix by the end of the week…
I used to practice techniques…now, I just think up an image in my head and try to tell that story with music. Sometimes, I try specifically to see how new music could fit in. And when I’m using anything new, I treat it as a technique. I’m about to re-do my X1 mappings, and that’s going to take some time to get used to…so I’ll probably practice that more. I’d imagine I’ll practice a bit more when the new version of Traktor drops…adding samples/loops with Ableton is easy…not quite sure about exactly how I want to use them in Traktor, especially with them not being time-stretched. That’s going to take some experimentation, which seems like practice.
Mostly, what I do is prepare tracks…that gives me a picture in my head of how I want to use the tracks…and that’s good enough at this point.
I usually mix the tracks I have mastered with the new purchased tracks and find the sweet spot.
If you are like me that forget shit easily just use the track info space on the right that say notes and write everything there like “cool cowbell @ -2:11” or “Stupid bitch shuts up @ -3:45”… Use cue points a lot…
I also tend to play a lot with FX to see whats more appropriate for that track and write it off there too. “reverb” or “phaser” or whatever… At first I end up looking at the screen but when you know the track you’ll remember everything and do it properly.
Also to mix things up play with different genres and have fun trying to scratch. If it proved to be handy drive around and hear your recordings like above poster said.
I dont call it practice, I like it more like fun with music.
Usually I sit down an try to put a clever mix together in Traktor. A few hours pass and I remember I haven’t done shit I meant to do and forgot to press record.
I just open up traktor, start off with a house tune, then keep going back and forth trying to find the best way to continually play my hip hop tunes while incorporating house into it as well.
Usually used to practice 3 - 4 hours a night, well practice or as others have mentioned “goofing off / having fun” with my equipment. I just think calling it practice makes me wanna do it less , but it is a ton of fun.
I can’t remember which one’s which for the life of me!
but then i prefer to do my mixing like that.