This is a question i’ve had for a while and with Ean’s posting recently about the “time line of the dance floor” it seems like a good time to ask. If you play things like Progressive House big breakdowns in songs are par for the course, however it occurs to me that a lot of these main breakdowns can kill the flow of the dance floor if the audience is sitting around waiting for up to a minute at a time waiting for the big drop to come. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and we all know that buildup is what gets people really fired up but if this happens every song for example, say every 6-7 minutes or so, it seems that this would kill the flow of things…no?
That being said, what, in your opinions, would be the acceptable “time line” for using these main break downs? Every song? Every other song? Only a couple per night? Personally I love them, but I don’t want to over use them.
I would say that there isn’t a formula for how many to do a night. It varies depending on the dancefloor. Just feel it out and don’t do them too often.
Those kind of breakdowns only work in a big room setting. For a small club you want to keep it going. Throw in some breaks, otherwise people will be pooped. But too many can really kill the flow.
so if you are playing tracks with lots of big break downs it would be best to pick and choose which you’ll actually play, the rest just get in and out of without the build up, play the main section of a couple then hit them with another breakdown a few tracks later?
But basically there is no hard and fast rule about these kinds of things it seems…
Sometimes I like to use the breakdowns along with a less-busy part of the next song, usually the intro – keep the beat going so it doesn’t feel like “dead time” but you still get the buildup, and ideally you time it so that you use the buildup of the outgoing song to build to the chorus of the incoming song.
Ok heres what i do sometimes with prog house. Drop a cue at the start of the break and at the end of the break if you are half blind like me. Loop some beats from your next track up and bring this right up to full volume just before the break in the first track. Keep this loop going till the first track starts to wind down, deactivate the loop and mix it in as usual. As long as this is in key you can do a few things here like a straight bass swap, fade in/out etc so there is still some steady bass going. This way you still give the first tune some respect while not “killing” the groove so to speak. The best parts of prog house are usually the last third anyway.
Just try a few different techniques for yourself and find what works for YOU dude.
this seems like the most logical idea and its what i usually try and do as well, keep a little bit of a beat going in the background for people to at least bob their heads to while the build up is going on