So there is lots of talk about the right and wrong way to dj from many people and thers a couple of points that i find totally contradict themselves
1 - Prepare your set
2 - Read the crowd
If youve done 1 whats the point of doing 2 as youve pre planned and if your doing 2 how the frick can you do 1 as it would take a hell of a lot of preparing and a few different mapped out routes based on what the crowd are writing out for you to read.
Anyway i guess my question is if you do 1 how long do you take preparing a set and what sort of things do you prepare, full tracklisting? how do you remember exactly where to bring tracks into other tracks as thats soem memory in my eyes…
Ive been a bedroom dj for some time and never really got programming down as i’ve never really known how to approach it.
I think its a little bit of A and a little bit of B.
You should be finding out before hand what the crowd digs by scoping out where your going to mix and what gets the people going there get into - failing that you should ask someone who knows if you havent already been informed.
Using that information you prepare for your set by organising the tracks you think your going to need.
Then when your actually doing your thing you should be reading the crowd to make sure your along the right lines and change it up if need be.
Dj notation might help your programming out more as you will be more easily be able to identify tracks that fit together.
For instance if the track your playing is finishing with a bassline then you know that you can bring in another track with for example start intros with a drum beat. You will be able to know what the your tracks start and finish with just by gazing at your dj notation you created for your songs. Its using tools like this and other tricks(like finding the keys of your tracks, setting cue points and loop points) will allow set preparation and mixing based off reading the crowd to meet somewhere in the middle.
I think balancing your set preparation with your ability to read the crowd is whats going to make you a really good dj.
to add to the subject of dj notation, i find it extremely helpful to make a detailed notes in my setlist regarding Cue Points, Loop Points, Key Changes, FX etc. to remind me of the best way to mix in and out of tracks in my playlist as some mixing techniques will suit certain tracks/transitions better than others. With software like Traktor it allows for some very complex technique and for the absent minded professors among us, there’s no shame in writing yourself a script beforehand to help remember what worked(and what didn’t) while preparing the setlist in the studio.
With that said, I’ve never stuck to one of my scripts 100% while playing live gig … Sometimes I’ll play songs longer or shorter, switch up the order of what I play and even play songs I hadn’t originally intended on playing etc. Sometimes this is because of inspiration striking while in the moment, but then sometimes it’s because of distraction striking and missing a cue; so the only choice is to compensate by changing things up a touch.
My personal approach to live performance is probably 85% prepared, 15% improvised.
At this point my sets are the opposite, 85% improvised and 15% planned. I have mixes I know are going to work really well and build a lot of energy, but in the scene I run in planning doesn’t get you very far.
The thing is, though, that you can plan an entire set that just doesn’t work on the dance floor. Think about it. You sit at home and painstakingly put together a 2 hour set that you think is going to rock the house. The crowd shows up and 30 minutes in you don’t have people dancing. You need to mix it up and fast. Now the improvisation comes in and reading the crowd.
In the end there is a large chunk that is completely blind luck but with enough practice that blind luck becomes skill.
I mainly spin goth/industrial music. I’m starting to drift more toward hard trance and hard dance stuff, mixed with a dose of psytrance, cause, well, the scene is boring me.
aah an industrial/goth dj, cool!! i’ve a friend who promotes events for that scene in vancouver but I’m not to familiar with it myself.
I play different styles depending on the gig.
for club/rave events that cater to the electronic dance music crowd I play a mix of house,techno,electro,breaks and dubstep.
for events that cater to the hiphop+funk crowd I do a mash-up show.. which is basically a blend of nostalgia and humour mixed with funky dance music. everything from classic rock, classic country,television/movie/videogame theme songs, jazz, funk/soul, disco etc. blended with hiphop and electronic dance music styles…
prepare small “bits” 3-4 songs that work well in context and use them when the crowd wants it! This allows you to develop a specific routine or series of brilliant mixes but not making your entire night pre-programmed.
I’d say : you should prepare your set, but not entirely. You should know of what genres you’ll have to play at this time, and at the other, when you’ll have to make the transition from softer to harder tracks etc.
But you don’t have to prepare all the tracks, it would take the fun out of DJing. I feel myself happy when searching for a track into my traktor’s list, and when I find something I really like, I’m like glowing!
For me, again it comes down to: Knowing your tracks.
With digital djing, we do have the advantage of bringing 100x more music than we used to bring when we had cds or vinyls. This way, you can change course pretty fast, and not be limited to what course you change to.
For me it is kind of easy, as I only get booked for Techno/Psy/Chill gigs. So I can imagine that if you get booked to parties where the genres is “undefined” is a bit harder, but it still would come down to : Know Your Tracks (for me)
And yeah, it is VERY important to read your crowd, but reading the crowd wont do you any good if you do not know your tracks hehe. Knowing your tracks and not being able to read the crowd is an equal bad, as well.
You can plan your set from A to Z, but you should have room for improvement!
Its hard to prepare a set, especially if its longer than 2 or 3 hrs. What I usually do is have play list of my tracks like my New Wave I broke it down into 3 groups 110 - 135BPM (10hrs), 136 - 155BPM(8Hrs), 156 - +200BPM(10hrs). Yeah its preselected music but I have alot of choices of tracks that I can play.
it is important for a DJ to play what the crowd wants to hear, not what the DJ wants to hear. Some DJs are lucky enough to get both at a venue, but it still boils down to the fact that if the crowd doesn’t want to hear what the DJ thinks is awsome, then the DJ will end up masturbating (playing with himself, for himself!).
On the flip-side, it’s important that a DJ be more than a biological iPod. if a DJ does not add any sort of personality to the booth, then what’s the point?
I’ve found that it’s best to prepare pre-determined sequences of a few tracks instead of an entire set. This allows a DJ to play to the crowd, and then when there is confirmation that the audience is enjoying the present genre, the DJ may have a more intricate, tightly organized routine that fits well at the time and demonstrates his/her exhibitionist skills that iPods just don’t have yet.
turntablists use this organization when hired to DJ for extended periods of time. Juggling and scratching is generally only cool for 10 minutes at a time or so. any more than that and the audience (and DJ) will likely be overwhelmed. being able to play without concern for the ultimate buildup and sequenced breakdowns is just as important as occasionally doing so.
i disagree… the DJ needs to play what he wants to hear, he has to trust his own instincts. If what he wants to hear is what an audience wants to hear then he is a good dj. It does not make him any better of a dj to be able to detect wether or not the crowd likes what he is playing or not, he should already know what will/won’t work instinctively.
If it ever gets to the point where a DJ has to second guess his own instincts, he’s already fighting a losing battle in my opinion.
Take guys like Mike Relm, Coldcut, Z-trip … when you attend their shows you can tell that an immense deal of preperation goes into their sets prior to performance. The audiences they attract are not paying “crowd readers”, they’re paying guys who trusted their own instincts and play what THEY(the dj) wants to play.
I think the minute a DJ feels the need to start compromising their own taste and artistic vision to please a particular crowd based on some nuances they’re picking up from the dance floor is the moment they’re DJing badly.
If a DJs instincts/personal taste sucks, then they suck. simple as that. They can modify their set all they want but the proof is in the pudding, if they can’t trust their own vision then what else do they have to offer?
There is no way anyone could argue for one or the other, it has to be both.
Duer you say the DJ has all ready lost if he has to change from his plan because he thinks the crowd is not feeling it, it does not just need to be about playing a track that bombs, its about playing tracks that make people go spastic or setting up to do that in one of the next tracks.
DJing is not some right choice / wrong choice situation, and you are always going to be wrong sometimes so you need to be able deal with not being bang on.
Whenever I’m playing a house party I go purely with the flow, that gives me a chance to practice that element of DJing in a live situation without any real risk as you would have to really fuck up DJing a house party for it to have implications for your career, then for club gigs I plan what I want to play and see if it works.
Generally at a club gig people have expectations so its easy to find a common ground between your creative expression as a DJ and what people want to here.
The reason i think i asked was due to seeing B33sons winning dj comp set on you tube and seeing all that 4 deck action going on. Surely there is no way that is improvised its got to be pre prepared. How can you just keep playing so many tracks over each other and by chance get iot sooooo right … its a frikkin amazin set
Of course that set could be improvised. When recording a set, I know what tracks I am going to use, but not in what order, or how to mix them, I just go with the flow. Then with enough experience and training, 4 decks becomes like just any other thing while mixing
Sometimes 80% of the tracks that I intended to play, do not even get played haha Recording improvised sets is a good practice as well.
(and I have not seen the vid we are talig about, im making assumptions on my own experience!)
just a few things after reading this:
1: dj notation is never a replacement for knowing your tracks backwards and forwards. just as the camelot system is never a replacement for knowing key harmonics. when are people going to start putting in effort to learn the real skills and knowledge that a DJ needs. camelot is a cheap replacement for knowing basic music theory.
2: just as in sports, you need to put the same amount of energy and effort into your preparation as you do your performance, 100%. last time i played, it was an hour and a half set and i spent almost 3 hours going through music preparing a crate to use. but i was 100% willing to throw the entire crate away to go where i needed to. this doesnt just apply to creating a setlist and such. it means putting effort into learning the key concepts of music: keys, harmonics, structure, beatmatching. we need to stop being lazy and start learning the trade and the skills necessary for it.
3: if i booked a dj that only played what he wanted, i would never book them again. i paid them to facilitate the party, not play for themselves. a DJ worth his money is going to find things that he enjoys and that works for the crowd. there is a difference between second guessing and evaluating where you are going and what you are doing. the latter is key for a DJ. i played a festival once where i wanted to start progressive and go into some really hard and heavy electro. i was about 2-3 songs into the electro and realized that it was not working. people were leaving. i very quickly switched gears into vandalism type stuff and the party started rolling again. i kept that sound for the rest of the night. it takes humility to look at what is being played and say, this isnt working, and switch gears.
remember that integrity and humility go as far if not further then professionalism in this business.
i dont use the camelot either because i consider it important to learn the hard way, but i wouldnt say it was cheap, not everyone is a natural musician, nor does everyone know musical theory
