hi everyone…i’ve been playing for 4 months know and i must say i’ve noticed good progress, of course thanks to my excessive lurking (DJTT) and some mentors…
i can have a lot of fun while bedroom djing and discover great mixes..but that doesn’t really happens when people is around since at the particular moment i cant tell what to play next to go along with the mood or actually take it up a notch…my playlist just turns into a big pile of names and numbers…lol
I use MIK to identify the keynotes and separate song in genres but I could use a further advice on how to actually overcome this.
load up all of your music on your ipod and listen to it all the time. Get to know your tracks and you will be able to connect the dots better when your mixing them.
thnx a lot for the advice i will get right to it.. also how do you manage your time between searching for new tracks and actually practicing?.. maybe i shouldn’t worry THAT much about getting new tracks and just practice practice practice? (i download tracks daily, can’t say i add tracks to my collection with the same frequency though)
thnx again
PS: DJTT should definitely make a Forum app for mobile devices…that would make my day every single day. XD
Luckily I’m at uni so fucking around with beats isn’t really a time issue. I listen/get music all day everyday.. Listen to your stuff a lot, and a good tip is to practice a lot with just your new tracks.
When I used to practice everyday I’d only use my recently added playlist. Great way to memorize their feel. Then I’d take the ones I loved and put them into my main playlist that I play out with.
It is a long haul knowing your tracks, but if you’re into it enough it’s never a chore!
Also another tip would be to be more selective when downloading tracks. I used to cop a shit load of ‘ok’ stuff and never use it. Now if I’m not completely feeling a track I won’t even bother dling.
Also, it just comes with experience. Eventually, you just get a sense for it.
It’s no surprise that you don’t “know” which track comes next after 4 months of even very diligent practice…it’s not like a technique where someone can say “do this, get that result.”
Welcome to the part of DJing that is actually hard…play more and it’ll come.
this!
in combination with loading the tracks in traktor and looking at the structure
like this track has an intro thats 4 groups of 16 (beats) with a break down thats 8 groups of 16
oh and look, this one has an intro thats 8 groups of 16, will these maybe work together since they have the same feel?
as for time management, like the pages of the artist. in the dubstep scene theres a lot of free handouts.
same with soundcloud, just follow people you like and boom.
a good way to find these people for me (mind you im talking dubstep) was to sub to inspecterdubplate, UKFdubste, Dubloads, quantumdnb/dubstep on youtube and look at the description for SC and FB links.
from what ive seen, dj dynasty is working on this.
I always look at the crowd to see what kind of reaction I am getting at the moment and try to predict what they will like. If they’re standing around then change it up and if they’re dancing then you might want to keep that vibe. Take yourself to their level and once you have established that then you can slowly take them to where you wish to go.
I’m currently in the process of doing a massive spring cleaning on my collection. While I’m at it I’m using the star rating to rate the song and giving each song an energy rating from 1-10 in the comment 2 field. 1 would be very chill and 10 would be certified banger. that should make things easier to pick out. Making sure everything is rated from the start of your DJ ‘career’ will only serve to help you in the future.
Here’s one tip that I think a lot of newer DJ’s ignore. Don’t go torrenting a crap load of stuff. It’s to easy to get out of hand and DL hundreds of tracks in a day. There’s no way you can know your music doing it that way. If you’re playing for an hour for friends you only really need 10-20 tracks depending on how long you play each track. If you had 40-50 songs to select from you’ll find picking the next tune on the spot much easier.
I’m not saying to show up and stick to a strict playlist, but having narrowed down the selection is another learning process. DJ’s don’t just show up and play. They usually spend some time prepping before a gig, which is why you have a default playlist in traktor called preparation . Think of it the same way a vinyl DJ only brings along the tunes he really thinks he’s going to play.
DJ’ing may technically be easier, but there’s still just as much work involved.
I completely agree on the preparation part, the star rating system I’m not so sure about. In my opinion it’s incredibly hard to rate tracks out of context (at least that’s why I disabandoned that again) - a song might be a real killer during the early part of the night (let’s say 1am or so) while it would be rather chill during the peaktime hours (around 5/6am or so). Actually I haven’t found a real system for track organization other than grouping broadly and then prepping a “crate” for each set according to the mood I’m aiming for.
I couldn’t agree more. In the good old days your budget simply made sure you only bought 10 records at a time, but with tracks being only 99 cents a piece, it’s tempting to not select thoroughly but just buy the whole lot.
Except, then it’ll be just like having a rebuild playstation: you order 10 games at a time and end up playing none…
Yeah it definitely takes some common sense when rating and giving energy ratings. I find it helps a lot when you may have several different remixes of the same song, or when you bought a compilation album and remember some great tunes on it. I’ve found a few songs that I may have bought for a certain set that never got used. With the star rating they’ll be harder to get lost in the fray between shows. It’s not many, but even four or five lost gems make it worth it.
As I’m doing it if I find something that I wouldn’t give at least 3 stars it makes me question why it’s even on my laptop, so when I’m done I’ll really look at those and consider if they really deserve the hard drive space.
. Think of it the same way a vinyl DJ only brings along the tunes he really thinks he’s going to play.