How do you separate your music for gigs?
I’m starting to put together my library, and I’m curious what kind of strategy you guys use so I don’t have to go back through all of my songs.
How do you guys separate your stuff?
Clean/Dirty
Top 40/EDM?
What have you guys/gals found to be the most effective method of doing this?
I sort mines out by keys, then I order it from highest BPM to lowest BPM
Do you keep your listening music separate from your DJ music? How much music are you trying to sort through?
So if you had to do it without BPM and key how would you do it? (alot of us learned music organization long before computers did it for you…I think sorting them by BPM and Key takes away your “feel” for your music.)
Well my collection of music is about 9000 songs, and Im a college student with 2 jobs and I have a radio show, I dont think I have the time to go through every song and go on my piano and find the key of each song and then look at my watch to time the bpm of each song. I have strong fundamentals in music theory as well, but Rekordbox analyzes my songs pretty well so all I really have to do is separate them accordingly. Saves me time and I can focus more on my music than focus on organizing it.
I do to a certain extent. No one really listens to the Glitch Mob, but I like them. I was thinking about sorting them songs by genre and type. This way when I’m doing a gig where the music has to be clean, I can play from a list that I know wont be dirty.
His point was that a lot of people do just fine without having the tempo and key of their tunes written down.
I’ve separated my music into a few styles, e.g. UK Garage, Techno and House.
I usually separate my music by what I might play and what I know I won’t play.
I did well for a while without ever having written it down, my point is that for the sake of time saving, its better to organize it like that. I have a lot of music, but I know most of it pretty well and I know exactly what goes good with what, even if Rekordbox hadn’t analyzed for me.
4 folders, genre specified. I don’t bring my entire library with me when I play out… That’s unnecessary.
I think it depends in the environment you are playing at, when I first started at weddings and house parties I brought my whole collection with me cause of the amount of requests from people. Clubs, depends on what atmosphere is in there. Festivals, one specific playlist. I think I was too vague on my first reply.
But you do need some sort of organization. Sorting 9000 tracks by BPM and key would be super confusing for me because BPM and key have ZERO to with the energy of a track.
Eh I kinda have to disagree with that, a minor key song tends to be a bit more down than that of a song with a major key. If the BPM of two songs is 90, and one is in a minor key and the other in the major, the energy of the major key will tend to be more lively than a minor key. Is that the case always? No, but keys do play a HUGE role in how the energy of a song is; a jump from a minor key to a major would increase the energy of a set.
Please give me an example of two songs being mixed together that illustrates this.
To the OP, within the past month we have had 2 or 3 good threads on this topic. If you want some more good answers, do a quick search.
Look at house music, armin does it all the time in his sets, he usually starts his sets with minor keys and builds into major keys in the latter end of his sets. He mixes harmonically all the time; if you get a minor keyed song and mix it with a song thats major keyed you will hear the energy jump instantly. As I said, there are exceptions, not saying this happens ALL the time.
still waiting for an example of two songs to show me what I am missing…
Who gives a shit about keys, learn to properly EQ and you’re fine.
Actually, most electronic music is written in minor keys. Also, key-detection software tends to think major keys are their minor versions because it’s tuned for electronic music.
Not to mention that minor keys just have a darker feel which doesn’t mean they’re less energetic.
harmonic?
I’ve yet to master harmonic mixing but it stands to reason that, if done well, it could have a massive effect on a dancefloor. But I think getting the energy right is probably more important.
Am I right in saying that the tempo you play the record at affects the key unless you lock the key in software?