deathy

My DJ software is set up to specifically break the tracks up into their constituent parts, verse, chorus, bridge, intro, ending, fills, etc.

What I’ve found in my analysis is that many tracks, even those with vocals, do not follow the traditional song structure, but instead are just a steady build. This is especially common what Trance (and its children). Most of the tracks you’re playing simply don’t have verses or choruses, but merely phrases.

The way to identify if you have choruses in your track is, when you have it broken up into phrases, listen to each of the phrases. Are there any phrases that either sound exactly the same, or very close? Then it may be a chorus.

However, it’s not enough to just have choruses, of course… you have to have phrases also that are different from these choruses – your verses, the phrases that go in a different direction for a while, and then when your chorus phrase kicks in, it’s a return to the central idea of the song. If, instead, the same idea is repeated ad nauseum with minor variation, then instead you have what I personally call a “tag track,” short for “instrumental/vocal tag,” a type of phrase that is neither verse or chorus but instead just phrase. Without that “move away from the core idea, and then come back to it” aspect in a track, you do not have a true song structure (verse/chorus/etc.).

That’s not to say this is a problem… tag songs are very useful as bridges in complex mixes to get you from one place to another. My file browser actually color codes my tracks to help me to identify tag tracks, as well as tracks with no vocals, or tracks where the vocals never (or barely) stop.

tl;dr – a lot of the tracks you are playing probably don’t have choruses or verses, when working in Trance.

There’s a setting somewhere in the properties for whether to display keys as Open Key Format or regular Scale Notation. I don’t remember where, it usually took me a few minutes to hunt it down each time. That should theoretically get it to where it’s at least displaying Open Key. Not real sure on the color issue.

Howdy, DMND, welcome!

What’s your software?
Synner 3

What made you choose your software?
I wrote it myself because I wanted better control over my workflow.

What type of gigs do you play with it?
Mostly private parties.

What makes you favor it over the others?
As above, having total control over how it functions is a huge plus. The workflow is tuned for me and the way I want to do live remixing – a hybrid between Ableton and Traktor.

Yeah, I thought Germany as well… Alaskan living in the Netherlands (punt-nl) here. Welcome!

Hi, Boris!

Hello, Kian, Welcome!