Do people nowdays decide to become a DJ then pick a genre?
For me it was the other way round.. Mad about house for years, knew all the producers I was into.. Built up a collection of tracks.. Started to DJ.. Learnt to mix through trial and error.. Leart what sounds good..
Now DJ’ing is like second nature..
My advice - Learn your music, love your music and find your own style through trial and error.
A set list wont help, you’ll get used to mixing those tracks in that order and in a specific way and probably start flapping if you tried to deviate. Good luck
The truth is the OP doesn’t have 10000 tracks to sort through. He is new to all of this. The last thing he needs to worry about it whether things are in key or not.
And don’t feel sorry for me. I’ve played long enough and don’t need to sort through 10,000 songs by key and genre. I know my music.
I haven’t read the entire thread, so forgive me if I’m just repeating what other folks have said, but I think your initial post is based on a false premise.
Track selection comes down to 3 things - knowledge, instinct and experience.
Knowledge - Other DJs can help with this. If you said to me “I’ve just got into old school hip-hop and I love it! I’ve listened to artists A and B and I really like them. Can you recommend some other artists/albums I could check out?” I’d help you for sure. People need to see that spark of passion and that is entirely absent from your post.
Instinct - You can kind of learn this, because the more knowledge you have, the better your instinct becomes. By “instinct”, I mean hearing a track and knowing whether it’s likely to blow up the dancefloor, regardless of how well known it is.
Experience - This speaks for itself. Reading a crowd and learning to control one takes some experience.
But the issue is, you’re asking to be spoon-fed, when you’re not even saying what it is you want to be spoon-fed with. Your post is WAY too vague.
Listen to any famous djs weekly sets such as armins asto, hardwell on air, afrojacks jacked, look at the tracklists, get the songs and try to recreate them
I suppose it depends on what genres you play whether key is important or not. For house, techno etc key is important due to the length of the transitions. Two tracks that are out of key will almost always sound horrible to together. If your mixing only minimal techno most of your tunes will have the same structure, almost identical basslines and the same few synth patches used over and over again. The only things that separates one track from another is its key and energy levels. I put my tracks thought MiK listen to them once/twice in itunes and give them a star rating based on how bumping said track is. 5 stars for destroy the dance floor, one star for its 6am and time for you people to fuck off home.
If you mix hip hop, funk, soul kinda stuff then key is not as important coz you dont have the epic transitions between tracks. Most of the time you just slam the x-fader over at the correct moment. Job done old track gone new one playing, half of the time you dont even need to beat match or play tracks that are the same bmp.
My mum bought me a second hand set of KAM belt drives for Christmas 15 years ago. At the time my music collection consisted of badly copied Fantazia tapes and MJs Bad album on vinyl. I lived in the back of beyond and had never been in a music shop let alone a dj vinyl shop. Fist time I walked into Catapult Records in Cardiff I nearly shat myself. I walked up to the counter and couldn’t speak. Luckly the girl behind the counter was very nice and helped me pick out some records. I was the first house music I ever heard and I was totally blown away.
I had never even heard the word genre, it was all rave to me. All I knew was that I wanted to make my own mix tapes and be like Carl Cox.
hmmm mixing in key is not bad but thats later on. when your developing your style. If your mixing intro’s over outro’s you shouldn’t be worried about mixing in key… those parts of the song usually only have drums if your trying to mix 2 breaks together or your mix is clashing then try to mix with 1 track that has alot going on into a track with just drums. use proper eq’ing to fix clashes with melodies and rythms… example only have 1 bass running at a time if your dealing with 1 song with a straight 4 on the floor vs a swing 4 on floor. good luck man if your songs are really full use cue jumping to help rearrange the song for easier mixing.
Drmore - please don’t think I’m bundling you in with the “new wave” of wannabe DJ’s, mate. Aspiring to do what Carl Cox does is noble. He is awe inspiring, and SHOULD be emulated.
But when people want to be like Pauly D, 'cos of teh bitchez and teh money - THEN I have a problem.
I’d bet my life, that Carl Cox didn’t get into it for teh bitchez.
As for Fantazia - teh bitchez at Fantazia would be NO fun to fuck after 8hrs of sweaty ass dancing and gurning!!!
Haha dont worry I didn’t. I was a different world when I started. I only knew one other dj. Now every fucker is a dj. The amount of twats that tell me I should be using virtual dj astounds me.
I remember seeing a vid of Carl Cox playing on 3 1200s and being amazed at his skills. At the time I was still struggling to keep two records in time (Fuck me those KAMs where shit)
Nothing better than a sweaty raver clundge. mmmmmmmm. ewwwww I was just a little sick in my mouth.
I will have to respectfully disagree and here is why. Take MIK out of the equation and go back 15-20 years. No one was keying their music. Either 2 tracks together sounded good or they sounded like crap, in key or out of key what is pleasing to the ear is pleasing to the ear. All the old rules and techniques still apply. Don’t mix vocals over vocals. Learn proper phrase/beatmatching, the downbeat to the downbeat, the beginning of a phrase to the beginning of a phrase. Don’t mix melody over melody because 9 times out of 10 its not going to sound good. Learn by practicing and knowing your music, what parts of the song can be mixed and what parts can’t because if we don’t know by now, going back to the 70s, that tracks were made with extended intros and outros and builds designed to be mixed then we need to do some more DJ research. All of those things have ZERO to do with key. It makes me laugh when I hear “music theory” brought into a DJ conversation. Knowing how to count beats and recognizing a phrase isn’t music theory. If you want to “produce”, and I use that term lightly around here, then yes, you need to learn music theory. If you are DJing, as in the average type of mixing and not adding your own instrumentation then you don’t need music theory or to know the key. You need to learn proper mixing techniques and use your ears. It doesn’t take an accomplished award winning composer to recognize a train wreck.
Dunno if it’s been said but I’m not gonna read all 5 pages. John Digweed is amazing at track selection, and if you buy his mix CDs on beatport they come with all the tracks used in 'em. If you wanted to do something like this I’d highly recommend it.
BUY SOME VINYL AND YOU WILL GET A BUNCH OF INSTRUMENTALS…turntablelab.com is a great source… if you don’t have a turntable then try to get on at digiwaxx.com… record pool but you have to apply for membership and it’s not easy if you are just a bedroom dj
