Reason808

You’re already one step ahead of the game by thinking about theory.
Too many begginning DJs / Producers think in terms of loops and the technical side of production.
Avoid that trap.

It sounds like you’re asking how people set up their cue points. I can’t speak for everyone, but I notice most of my cue points are taken up at the beginning of the track to mark noticeable jumps in the build. I focus on that because that’s most likely where I’d be mixing in from.

I almost always have one for when the bassline come in, and usually another when the other instruments kick in. I usually like to leave a marker where the 1st vocal verse (or instrumental equivalent) begins. I usually have two to three left at that point, and I use those to indicate mix out points. Sometimes I’ll save cue #8 (I’m on Traktor) to warn about a very sudden ending that might not be obvious from the waveform.

Sometimes I’ve noticed some “minimal” songs take forever (3-4 minutes) to get going so I may have a giant gap between cue 1 & 2 to remind me that I’ll really have mix from the middle on this particular track. I may also have cue points for special fill-in sounds that fall outside the normal 8/16/32 bar structure (like vocals, drum rolls, sound effects and so on).

Usually breaks in the middle of the song are obvious from the waveform, so I’ll save my cues for something else. I’ll confess that I haven’t road-tested this as much as other people may have. I’m a bedroom DJ these days, although I’ve had plenty of real-word (mostly vinyl) experience. I’d be curious to hear from somebody who changed the way they programs their cues after some hands-on experience DJing.

Nobody’s mentioned another big plus of the EDM term: distinguishing EDM from other genres of danceable music. Some people might only dance to Raggae, Polkas or World Music. Bob Marley and King Sunny Ade definitely ain’t EDM.

Personally, I like EDM as a catch-all. DJ-Quantum, you have it pretty much right. If people want to get more specific they can call it house, breaks, etc.

Well, I purchased Cross 2.0 and my experience wasn’t very good. I’m glad I only wasted $50 USD.

Basically Mixvibes don’t support their CrossDJ products. I’ll try to back up what I say succinctly:

1. The only option you have is to post technical questions on their forum.
2. I tried to post a question, but got this: “You need to login in order to post within this forum.”
3. After I registered I got this: “You cannot post in this forum”
4. I politely wrote to the administrator asking if I had missed anything.
5. I still haven’t gotten a response, it’s been one week.

I’m sorry, but this just isn’t professional support.

I was able to Download the Cross DJ 2.0 just fine, and even muck about a little bit. The interface was gorgeous and functional in ways Traktor is not. But I bought it expecting to make a custom mapping for my Traktor Kontrol S4. They certainly advertise this ability on their website: “If your controller is not listed, simply create your own preset thanks to CrossDJ’s MIDI-mapping function.” The Cross DJ forums have a section for user mappings, but no download links. Bizarre to say the least.

So I would not recommend CrossDJ to frustrated Traktor users seeking an alternative. I was so excited about Cross, I was prepared to spend an afternoon on a custom mapping and re-work my setup around the new software. Instead, my suspicions about “alternative” Digital DJ systems were confirmed. I started digital DJing with Torq.

For now I’ll limp along with Traktor’s lack of smart playlists, lack of elastic beatgridding, and their rigid, inflexible UI. Traktor’s has long been ignoring user requests for smartists. Hopefully they’ll wise up. But I’m scanning the horizon for an alternative. Sorry for the long post, but its gotta be said:

Too many digital DJ companies don’t listen to their customers after they make a sale.

Rant out.

Organizing your music collection is a HUGE issue, especially for digital DJs. I’ve wanted to write about it in more detail but I’m still sorting it out myself.

Since you mention that you’re new to this, I think you should really practice mixing more before you come up with a master scheme to organize a big collection. Ultimately you want to organize your collection around the way you mix. It sounds like you’re still working out your mixing style.

I hope I don’t sound condescending, I also had a lot of similar questions when I was starting out. Once I got comfortable with my mixing skills, my concern with the music structure of track mattered less and less. You get to a point where you generally know what spots to move in and out of in a track, and what type of tracks will work together. Then you can organize around those ideas of “melody color” and “vocals” you mention (sounds interesting, BTW).

Ultimately, if the emotional connections between the songs are right, the structure of the baseline, tempo, etc. won’t matter as much, if at all. A simple slam mix between two hit songs the crowd is dying to hear usually gets huge cheers from the crowd – even when going from radically different genres like rock to hip-hop.

To answer your other question, I make a both a rough plan, but also allow for flow. Most Djs have grouplets of tracks that work well together for about 20mins and then they shift accordingly. Just about every gig I’ve ever had, I had to change my plans to match the crowd’s mood and keep things flowing. Even when the crowd wanted highly predictable and formulaic hits, the peak of the night would always change, so I had to plan my buildups accordingly.

So again, I think it comes back to being comfortable enough with your mixing to adjust to situations that come up. But the situations that come up can also be that little idea that suddenly pops into your head during the outro. Sometimes they can be the best mixes – a little risky in front of a live crowd, though.

Interesting. I already have the S4 controller, so if Mapping it to the Cross 2.0 isn’t too much of a headache, then maybe it’d be good software for me. No upgrades is not a great thing, but at $50 for a new version is pretty close to what the Torq upgrades were.