Uneducated Newbie

… Go with an honest approach to the situation and tell your friend/bar owner that you’re simply not ready.

Come clean, be honest and don’t burn the bridge. You turn up Friday and mess it up, which without being rude, sounds like you may experience “on the night problems”… you’re going to burn that connection.

If I was in your shoe’s I’d come clean with the venue and not go ahead with it.

If you do choose too go ahead with it on Friday then;

Download Algoriddim Djay – https://www.algoriddim.com/

This would support your tracks in spotify and your MP3’s, I think it even has an auto mix function, I personally haven’t used the software so can not confirm this. I’d spend whatever money you considered going to spend on a controller and buy the full version of the software, you can then use sync etc and control everything from your laptop, probably your best chance of getting something learnt for Friday, concentrate on learning the software rather than a controller, a controller makes things easier in controlling the software but ultimately you can do it without. With the timescale going for learning the software seems a better idea.

Either way, Good Luck.

I would never recommend doing this since you are jumping in soo soon but you should be spending every waking moment between now and then working with djay on your ipad. You can set up a spotify playlist on your laptop then mix from that with djay on the ipad. If you really want to mix, use the djay app + spotify combo so you can set cue points. Your mixing will consist of dropping each new track on the 1. Look up how to drop songs on the 1, practice that all week and then mix that way all night. In a bar or club, considering it’s your first time and you are amongst friends, you can drop on the 1 all night.

If it were me, I’d be overnighting a WeGO 3 to my crib asap so that you have an actual mixer with an onboard soundcard to headphone cue with because mixing on the ipad is fiddly. Your main problem will be that you will have to resort to splitting the left and right output signal from either the ipad with djay and spotify, or the laptop with something like VDJ’s free version and the laptop in order to headphone cue. Whatever you do, you should have a plan on how your going to do it by the end of the day today. If it’s djay on the ipad, buy it and start practicing.

Lastly, don’t play bangers all night long, that’s wack.

Yes, buy djay and then use the temporary spotify pro that comes with it then sign up for a spotify pro account when that runs out to keep access to the spotify songs and playlists with djay.

And breaking the law in most countries with a hefty fine attached (in the US up to 100,000 dollars).

Hi, Mike

Glad to hear everything went ok.
I would stay away from using Spotify period.
Although i have not been in this DJ scene for long time (still paying my dues)
but I’m fortunate to get paid to play every week so maybe my insight could help you out.

sometimes forum can be a place for learning but best things are actual play-time.
1. practicing with the equipment that you are going to play
2. actually playing in public with your gears and songs will be the best practice
3. finding your style and polishing up your skills

with that said
1. get yourself a starter controller
2. i recommend DDJ-SB cuz they are affordable and does basic things (comes with serato-intro)
3. upgrade serato-intro to full version (perhaps with expansion packs if you want, no serato flip for DDJ-SB though)
4. SB already has basic mixer function anyways so it is fine for starting up.
5. learn the program, learn the gear, learn the music by heart
6. practice, practice, practice, play, play, play

I always looking for articles and inputs for mixing and such but if knowledge doesn’t output into a performance, it’s not worth your time. Playing it out, trying new things, see how crowd reacts, see how you feel these things that matter.
Anyways researching is always good, keep at it.
But playing is the most crucial part, I think this is something where everyone here can agree (right??)

anyways, stay away from spotify, pre-mixed playlist and whatnot.
use what you have and explore out with new stuffs

Music – If i have to hang up Spotify, what is the best way to get hold of the tracks from my playlists in MP3 format? I have a lot of older stuff but there is still a lot of new music coming through that i get on Spotify

You’ll have to buy it. Look at Amazon Music or iTunes or other avenues.

And don’t be afraid to try again. Maybe a house party or what not.

Frankly, if you are buying over something like 10 tracks a month, you are not being wise about collection building (unless in the early days when your collection is not filled yet). See other posts and blog articles on the subject.