Forum: Music discussion

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INTRODUCTION AND SOME OPINIONS
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* Playing Different Kinds of Popular Music

When playing different kinds of popular music, the most important is to know what is popular with the audience on the place you are playing. Go to the place you are going to play and hang out there some nites before your gig. Get some impressions, ask the owner…..

On top of this there are a number of “rules” when pub & club dj-ing:
- Play every song between 3-4 minutes for urban music, 6-8 mins for club music. If you play songs longer people will find it boring. If you play songs too short people will become irritated. So dont cut it too short either. Ideally after 2nd chorus somewhere is a good place.
- Minimum 4 songs of the same style in a row (or the style change gets too comfusing)
- Always play two slows. After the first not everybody has the girl/the boy he/she wants. After a slow, kick in a beat again. No point in messing around with a 'good' build-up. Some (lonely) people are waiting to dance, and the people slowing will leave the floor anyway when you switch to a non-slow.
- In the beginning of the night choose your end style of music. If you change genres at end of nite, people tend to use it as their "cue" to go home, instead of the getting a drink or something, if its earlier night.
- Don't try to beatmix when you don't have the skills. Nothing is more irritating than two non matching songs over each other with the bass drums interleaved and a DJ trying to fix that live. Use fade out, echo out or microphone skills if you don’t beatmix. You are still a dj, technique is not everything. Music and giving the crowd a party is the most important part!

Also, if you are not comfortable with beatmix, but can do some, then do just that. Beatmix those songs that u can, and leave the others for other transitions. Even when you try to beatmix in the beginning, there can be times beats drift to far apart, or you are out of luck ;) If you ever happen to be in such a situation (which will occur) just cut one of both songs. The audience will be happy if you do that. When you cut one of both songs you will be disappointed, just remember that it was too late for a subtle mix anyhow. So better luck next time :)

- At every moment have a list of the three/four/five next songs you will play, this should ensure continuity. If people ask something, don't switch immediately, put them at the end of your list, and eventually adapt your list. Trusts people's opinion only when they are not to drunk. Otherwise neglect them…. Lol :)

- Don't play songs that will kill the “atmosphere”. Like, don’t play a slow song in the middle of the gig, people go home after the song, or leave… And don’t play a techno song, even if its your favourite, if the theme for the nite is hiphop and visa versa… Knowing what an audience likes is as important as knowing what the audience absolutely dislikes.

* Playing One Style Whole Night
Essentially, it is much easier to play the same style (Techno, House, Acid, and so on) whole night than playing different styles. Of course, you have to know the style before you even think of playing. E.g: don't play Salsa if you don't know crap about it.

- Build your music tempo up, instead of playing it down. Start at one “lower” bpm, and sort your database by bpm’s – and build up from there. If it’s a long gig, you can reach peaks many times by going up to a certain high bpm level, and then build it down again (don’t go to far down, will kill the atmosphere and expectations of the crowd) Build up again after a little while…
-Tempo breaks are long ambient passages, often found in trance, house etc. This is a nice are to beatmix, or fade song out if u cant beatmix…
- If you are playing techno-style whole night you might want to surprise your audience by slowly removing the bass drum and afterwards kicking it in again. Removing the bass drum slowly and kicking it in is better than boosting the bass drum because most installations cut the mid and high frequencies when you boost the bass too much (hardware limiter).
- If you are playing techno-style, you can build your own build-up using the equalizer. Set the frequency low, cut everything out at the right moment and start changing the frequency. Be sure to kick in the complete sound at the right moment. (This can be tricky :)
- you can also do the trick above only with the bass eq for the right moments, and kick bass back in at the right moments.

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BASIC BEAT MIXING
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Now, something more difficult: Beat Mixing. Beat mixing is mixing two beats exactly over each other during a certain period. The difficulty with this is that different songs have different tempos. Synchronizing B with A is the first problem, keeping them synchronized is the second (as a general tip, I would say don’t use beatlock for this)
Beatmixing is only possible when the two songs are playing at the same speed.

Therefore , during playing one needs the ability to move a playing song a bit forward or a bit backward, such that they stay synchronized. This is called nudging.

- Syncing & positioning
When a suitable song has been selected and it is playing at the correct tempo one needs to start the song at the correct moment. Typically this moment is at the beginning of a phrase (that is the beginning of 8 measures). Normally, when the song is started it won't start exactly at the moment you intended it. Therefore, you will need to nudge a little bit. Look at the waveform to see if you need to nudge it forward or backwards to make it stay in beat with the song playing. AND THIS SHOULD BE DONE IN YOUR HEADPHONES; when u pre-listen the mix, and NOT NOT live… lol.. First when beats are in sync, you can move crossfader so that the sound goes out live. Having an external controller like XP10 or Hercules makes nudge a lot easier, using the jogwheels on the controller.

(MORE ABOUT BEATMIXING AND POSITIONING IN NEXT POST IN THIS TREAD)


- Pitching and nudging
If your beatmix is a longer one (2 songs on “top of eachoter”) keep watching the wavedisplay. During the time the two songs overlap the tempo difference between the two songs (even if it is a VERY small tempo difference) will result in a slight synchronization drift.
To solve this one needs to know beforehand which song is the slowest one of both. Pitch the slower one up a LITTLE, and nudge forward to make it sync in beats again.

- Cross fading & EQ shift
When you finally have the two beats exactly over each other in your headphones you want to switch slowly to song B. Before you do this be sure to cut off the bass drum with the equalizer. Otherwise you get a very nasty (and ugly) flanging effect on the bass drums. If the volume is good, switch off song A's bass drum slowly while you turn on songs B's bass drum. This way it will go unnoticed.

- Breaking
Once you have learned how to crossfade two songs, you might want to experiment with sudden breaks and gaps in the music, or faster fades. This will give the music more punch and keep people dancing.

(MORE ABOUT MIXING AND EQ USE IN LATER POST)


* Some Final hints
Practice!! Have a small mixing device at home
Learn from other DJ's: Listen to them and what they do, the songs they are playing as the small shifts they make. Listen also at the faults they make and how they could have avoid it. Beware: the better you become, the more frustrating it is to go to parties :)
Take enough sound-cables, power-cables and so on with you. Don't expect something will be available. Also take a mirror with you. Some mixing tables are that fixed and unreachable that you will need a way to see.
Don't forget a lamp.
Tape your sessions and listen to them afterwards.
Check all settings at mixer etc – dj’s often leave a mess .. lol