x

First DJ Set Live

Home 2023 › Forums › The DJ Booth › First DJ Set Live

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • March 11, 2016 at 8:11 am #2368401
    Terry_42
    Keymaster

    1. Preparation:
    Prep a plan B playlist that has killer songs that usually should fill the dancefloor no matter what

    2. forget key mixing
    Sounds to me you did worry too much to mix in key, when another song would have propably been better that maybe was not in key. There are tons of techniques where not mixing in key still sounds good. I play thousands of people and keymix only 50% of the time tops.

    3. forget the gear
    Take a controller and gear with you and forget the outdates CDJs they have. Being forced to play on outdated 2ks would be a no-go for me.
    I have even gone down the route that I decline offers from clubs that still think CDJs are relevant and want me to play on them. 99% already agree to that. (Actually had only 1 smaller club that did not go along in 2 years now)

    4. focus more on the crowd and interact
    I know on some booths it is hard, but you should focus and even make eyecontact and interact with people. Even when it is time to go home, if you kill them with their favorite song and a nod or wave they will stay for another drink and the management will acknowledge your skill to keep people drinking.

    March 11, 2016 at 8:42 am #2368471
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    You state “I’ve taught myself everything I know about mixing, and I enjoy it a lot and invest a lot of time into it, but I feel there’s a massive step up between DJing in my home privately and playing in a club”.

    It still can’t hurt to take a course like How To Digital DJ Fast. It’s got a 100% money back guarantee. If you find whatever new things you learned are not enough to warrant the price, you just apply for the refund. However, it really does put things into perspective with lots of best practice advice from some very experienced DJs. I’d recommend it for a self-taught guy like you too.

    Secondly, there IS a massive step up between DJ-ing home and club. Why? Because the main skill a DJ needs to have and master well is “knowing what must come next”. This involves reading the crowd, knowing your collection intimately and then picking the right track at the right time.

    It’s why we advocate having a small(er) collection where you know all the tracks really, really well. And have only tracks in your collection worth having. For a 1 hour set you’d be looking at about 20 tracks. Pick double = 40 and use those to prepare for your gig. Make mini-playlists of 3-4 tracks that go well together. Make sure you know (by ear – not by computer display) where breaks are approximately, so you can find them without the aid of screens. Have the plan B playlist handy that Terry mentioned. Now when you go to a club, you only have 40 tracks you know intimately to pick from, less choice stress. And the mini-playlists help you if you get stuck, you’ll have at least two or three more fitting next tracks that mix well ready while you make up your mind where to go next.

    March 11, 2016 at 2:53 pm #2368681
    DJ Tucker
    Participant

    All of the advice these guys have given you is probably all you need but I’ll add a few thoughts.

    If you’ve been asked to come back then you did a good job. There are a lot of things that can lead to thin crowds (time slot, weather, time of the month, news stories, seasons, etc.) don’t get too worried about it.

    Secondly, I wouldn’t worry about mixing in key unless it’s an unwritten law of your genre that I’m unaware of (like trance for instance?). Key seems especially unimportant in front of live crowds and room dynamics and harmonics and mono systems, who knows what key the stuff is actually heard by the crowd in anyway? I completely ignore key during gigs.

    Read the crowd but don’t over do that either because there are morons in every crowd that think they’re DJs and their requests/demands are usually wack. Probably the most important thing I can add is to take all the opportunities you can to play out because that’s where you really gain the experience you need to rock a crowd.

    Wait until you start having tech issues. I’ll post a link to a recent gig where my mixer (Xone:23C) abruptly cut out no less than 3 times during the night. I rolled with it, the crowd still danced and I had a backup plan in the form of my iPhone hooked up to the house mixer with a crowd-pleaser ready to go. https://hearthis.at/alt./altrock-akron-square-2-19-2016/

    March 18, 2016 at 10:33 am #2371681
    Lamid45G
    Participant

    1. Forget harmonic mixing,
    Its just a tools, if you did prepared your set, use your ears its your DJ best buddy !
    PS: to beable to keymixing you not neccessary depends on the traffic mixing, use keymixing software aka Mixed-in-key, keyfinder, those software will tagged your songs with the keys, for example, you analyzed a song Justin Bieber “Sorry”, once the software done anlayzed it will tagged the file with this format 06A-Justin Beiber “Sorry”, it will show up in your cdj 2000 screen, in the file name and in the upper right corner

    2. Being a “Closing DJ” sometimes just have to dealt with that kind of situation, folks started leaving home, just a few peeps dancing, because the event almost over
    Ask your fellow DJ’s see if you can have the “prime-time slot” aka around anything above 12 midnite, like 1 am, or 2 am slot

  • Author
    Posts
Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The forum ‘The DJ Booth’ is closed to new topics and replies.