What do you find frustrating about discovering new music?
I think discovering new music is one of the most important parts of being a successful DJ mainly because the music we find is the main ingredient of what we use to build a hopefully engaging and exciting journey in our sets.
Finding that gem of a track is exciting and we all enjoy playing it out and sharing it with our audience. The tracks we find along with the programming and how we mix them together is what makes each of us unique as DJs.
I think I’m probably right in that most of us want to find those gems first. I suspect even though we all have our favorite places to get our music and our own unique ways of finding it we probably all have similar frustrations such as the sheer amount there is out there each week to sift through.
What do you find frustrating or what do you think would make it easier for you to find music and help you create your own style?
Frankly, I don’t think it should be inherently “easy”. For me part of the thrill is the chase of finding something new and the excitement that comes from unearthing a gem. Part of the satisfaction and joy is when you either are looking for something particular to fit whatever mood you’re wanting to capture. Even when something falls unexpectedly into your lap, it can be a treat because either it’s something you never expected to hear or was outside your realm of “comfort” and challenges and entices you.
I think there’s also a false equivalence in making it easier to find music and helping create your own style. Our style should be informed and shaped by a significant amount of different styles and genres of music. A varied palette can create wonderful landscapes, whereas a palette of only grey, black, and tech house is incredibly boring.
I agree, I don’t think it will ever be completely easy or without needing effort. Needing effort to find the more obscure stuff certainly helps separate out the more enthusiastic DJs. I just wonder how much time folks have to do the searching, I’ve certainly found there aren’t enough hours in the day to listen to everything, which is certainly something I’d like to do.
Couldn’t agree more!! I love being challenged by new stuff I hear, a lot of times I hear a track and am not that enamored and then it grows on me.
That’s where the biggest problem comes in for me, I like all kinds of genres, some generally more than others and some I usually steer clear of but I do want to listen to all the genres even just to pick up that 1 track that’s special. This poses a huge problem for me then though because the volume of stuff to listen to goes up tremendously.
Do you not find there is not enough time to listen to it all?
Yes that’s a problem for me too, do you find too much good music or too much music in general?
There are tonns of sites, everyone has to find his favorites Sorry…it is so depending on what Music Style you are mixing and which preferences you have.
As I said, the song has to attire my Attention when I listen to it, so there’s no “Dumb Luck” involved as a song getting my Attention while listening passively will for sure end up in my set and for sure be a hit while mixing for the audience.
This is what we call experience and Music Taste and sorry there’s no Manual for that each one has ist own.
A lot of the cool records I find cost somewhere between 50 ~ 500 euros on discogs. Which is actually a good motivation to go out and visit (used) records shops and just dig there endlessly Most records in the shop are no more than 10~12 euros.
What I’ve noticed is that people have different ways of doing it, people’s aims are different and that’s great. What criteria do you use to decide what NOT to listen to?
Yes that’s a technique I use and what I put into Trackhunter, there’s a fast listen mode that auto skips the tracks based on your chosen settings. Then you just hit “Add to Shortlist” when something grabs your attention. For me a perfectly valid way of listening while on the move and doing “other” things. I understand that not everyone does or wants to do it that way though.
Yes I found this too, lots of sites all offering the same stuff BUT all having the off exclusive or a track before the others. I found it impossible to visit them all just to listen to the exclusives. Interesting that it sounds like you listen in a similar manner to me. Do you have any techniques to choose what to NOT listen to?
I agree there’s no dumb luck involved, although I guess you could argue you’d miss a track if you’re too involved in the “other” stuff you’re doing. I wonder what the alternative is?
Well for the first question: I have no Magic rule, as Music is something normally made emotionally to express those emotions or touch other peoples emotions every way to select it as DJ only can be emotionally and subjective as well no?
Second Question: Well always gonna miss a tune so it is, my Sets last between 4-5h which is a certain time but also not much in fact, so I will always get short in time to Play every Song that would deserve his place in a Set. I learned to live with it, that if I missed to Play a song, I will Play it at the next gig.
Same procedure for Novelties that come out, either I get them and Play them before everyone else, or then I Play them when everyone allready knows them.
The times when DJs could be Trendsetters are definitively over, Producers are Trendsetters and if I don’t Play 1 Song from a genre most People not even will get it.(exceptions always confirm the rules)
I must confess, that I once were out myself (yeah…I had no own Gig that night) in an irish Pub (Mainstream Crossover Music) and a guest requested “Stromae - Alors on Danse”, the song was #1 in most european countries and yes, I confess that when the DJ said “I never heard about that song, sorry”, I thought “What a poor DJ not even having the #1 Song in such a Place” but afterward I asked myself: WHat is more important, that DJ having that #1 Song or his Performance all over that Night? So I decided not to judge about 1 missing Song anymore.
PS: And Always bringing Novelties into the Sets means also that older Songs have to be kicked out and sometimes I don’t wanna kick out some classics because they are still better than the News stuff…so for me being DJ doesn’t mean only playing Novelties if Oldies are better
Yes, I agree and I think that’s why I’m finding it difficult to find another way to further reduce the number of tracks Trackhunter brings back when it grabs all the new stuff. So, far it filters out stuff you’ve already heard before, gets rid of the duplicates found across all the different sites, filters out artists or labels you don’t want to hear stuff from. But past that I’m struggling to find a criteria to further filter out because as you say music is emotional and very subjective. Hmmm, it’s eluding me at the moment but there must be something else that can be used to just show more relevant music?
Yep maybe it’s something that just has to be lived with but I wonder if there’s a tweak to the workflow that can help reduce the risk, maybe trying to prioritise the playlist in some way because possibly we’re more focused while listening during the first 30 minutes or so?
Are there no DJs out there who are trendsetters and not producers?
Well you know in the 80’s in Rap Music when DJs started using Turtables to scratch…they were Setting a trend, one that even never died since then as most of DJs still do scratch every now and then.
When in the 80’s some DJs in Chicago were mixing 70’s Funk with some electronic Beats, they were inventing House Music an Setting a trend that’s still alive.
Nowadays being “just” a DJ means playing just other peoples Music, the Music made by Producers…so in my way to see it…they set the Trends.
Not everyone will see it that way but it’s my humble opinion.
Makes sense to me, I still wonder if you can set trends just by the flavours of music you choose and “how” you mix it together. With the advent of Stems and also the ability to be even more creative using loops, effects and pre-edits. Having a more diverse range of tracks early on before they become “popular” maybe you can still set some trends?
Djs definitely are trend setters and will always be. DJs are the ones that group together like minded tunes for consumption. You as a producer can have all the bomb tracks in the world. But it doesn’t matter if there is no one to get them to the masses/clubs/festivals/radio.
This is not true for top 4/Open format DJs because you tend to be a slave to what is popular. You may break a song or two but it would be very hard to set trends inside of that format.
House DJs (all forms) have to adapt to whats news and whats old. People from this forum Like Kwal, Jason bay, and EliotHan are people that are working DJs in major cities. You can’t tell me that they arent helping set trends. The “sound” of house changes on a regular basis and you as a DJ have to recognize and champion trends before they are happening.
Look at Dirty Birds or Perfect Driver, they set the trends by producing that funky tech house and having their DJs go out and play it.
This is a chicken and egg argument. But DJs will always be the tastemakers.
The big names like Steve Lawler, Digweed, Claude Von Stroke, etc…see the trends coming and nuture the sounds they like by DJing with those tracks.
Preach dude. Sure Producers are the people that make music, but it takes an expert curator to piece it together and say “hey this matters”. That’s why resident club DJs, radio DJs, record store owners, labels, etc. are the ones helping set trends. It’s a narrative within the context of a community, not of one person.
Most records in the shop are no more than 10~12 euros.