eli92
Hey guys, i want to learn how to DJ Top 40, EDM, and House music, but non of my mixes sound any where near good. The closest good mix i had was nothing but premade remixes that i just beat matched and faded in. My biggest problem, is song selection, slamming, and when to switch over to the next song. I know how to beat match really well. And my timing is great on the vinyl release. But how do i practice, so that my mixes will sound professional. I know everyone is going to say practice. practice, but my question is what should practice on to get the skills to get better. I dont want to always play premades after premade after premade, because thats not real djing to me.
How do you guys pick the right song to follow up on? And what techniques are used.
Anyone got any ideas out there, maybe a curriculum to help gain the skills i need to bang a club mix.
Thanks guys
How do you guys pick the right song to follow up on? And what techniques are used.
Anyone got any ideas out there, maybe a curriculum to help gain the skills i need to bang a club mix.
Thanks guys
geposted Thu 21 Jun 12 @ 7:44 pm
eli92
bump
geposted Fri 22 Jun 12 @ 8:18 am
Alex728
as well as getting to know your tunes (for instance even when you are not DJ'ing listen to them with your portable media player etc), with the digital software look carefully at the waveforms. Then you can find the best parts to bring the tunes in and out.
Older folk like me who started out with vinyl had to look at the grooves on the record for this - you mention vinyl too so perhaps you are doing this instinctively? its hard to describe on this forum but once you see how the waveforms work it will become second nature.
Older folk like me who started out with vinyl had to look at the grooves on the record for this - you mention vinyl too so perhaps you are doing this instinctively? its hard to describe on this forum but once you see how the waveforms work it will become second nature.
geposted Fri 22 Jun 12 @ 1:11 pm
eli92
Thanks Alex for the advice, but i already do that. Im having a hard time picking the right songs and mixing them in the correct part so they sound good. I understand beats, phrases and bars, but i know im not always counting which i can understand can be whats wrong. Also when picking a song from my list, i seem to be just go going DOWN the list, i sort it out usually by bpm or key and try to mix it in. Is there another way of picking songs out? Also I have alot of radio edit songs, that are not really dj friendly, am I picking up the wrong tunes? should i be picking up more dj friendly tunes, if so where do i get them.
Again mixing premixed songs is a bit too easy to me, and isnt really the art of djing. Im looking for ways to master the art of it, like DJ AM etc. How did you guys get started?
Again mixing premixed songs is a bit too easy to me, and isnt really the art of djing. Im looking for ways to master the art of it, like DJ AM etc. How did you guys get started?
geposted Fri 22 Jun 12 @ 6:08 pm
Highder
Well generally when I mix out of songs I do on downbeats (I think that's what you call them) basically when the waveform looks like a line or repetitive. As for finding the right songs to string together I find it easy to mix the same artist and then once I did that for awhile picking out songs to mix got alot easier. Then again I'm a beginner myself and I usually mix dubstep and punk/alternative. Hope it helps though
geposted Fri 22 Jun 12 @ 8:49 pm
Alex728
you get DJ friendly tunes (i.e longer mixes of tunes with more convenient mix points) from places like Juno or Beatport. unless you are really quick you are going to run into problems trying to mix radio edits, they will be way too short.
if you stick to the EDM/house genres, the beat patterns you are faced with should be simpler for mixing, especially modern stuff where tunes generally stay at the same BPM as they are on digital mastering equipment as opposed to analogue kit which would drift in speed.
also don't let the amount of technology and the culture associated with it put you off or make you feel you have to progress too fast!
Assuming the "92" in your username is your birth year you are way ahead of me compared to when I was 20 (which was in 1992 ;) )
How did I start? Well I picked a genre with similar BPM's and music types but in those days it was mosly done by ear at the record shop, BPM counters and similar things were rare and even viewed as "cheating" until the late 2000s... However I think there is too much chatter about on the web trying to say that "the new digital stuff will make you the next Tiësto within 2 years", which actually ends up being really discouraging to young DJ's
Without going to deeply off topic into all the economic and political developments on the EDM industry worldwide there are many reasons why this is inaccurate. For one thing Tiësto is a few years older than me (I am 40!) and only recently (last decade) has he become a "superstar" and this sort of fame is fleeting, especially as EDM events are coming under harsher scrutiny of authorities worldwide (even in "liberal" Europe).
During the late 90s I did become a relatively well known local DJ at both EDM events and on our pirate and community radio stations, but certainly didn't make enough money from it to replace the "day job".
In fact I ended up having to leave the suburban city area near London I grew up in (where there was loads of raves and stations) for a small coastal town on the East Coast of England where there is currently a zero tolerance policy on EDM events, in order to keep my day job (IT/telecoms engineer). So today I mix as a hobby and for my own pleasure, and I find it way more fun than when the pressure was on at the frontline of events!
It sounds like you know a lot of the basics already, so perhaps the trick is to pay more attention to the selection of tunes you use - you don't need pre-mixed ones but try and get more "DJ friendly " tunes and maybe even not to push yourself too hard? It can be even harder when you are young and ambitious as naturally you want to go further, but its also easy to burn out and get frustrated...
if you stick to the EDM/house genres, the beat patterns you are faced with should be simpler for mixing, especially modern stuff where tunes generally stay at the same BPM as they are on digital mastering equipment as opposed to analogue kit which would drift in speed.
also don't let the amount of technology and the culture associated with it put you off or make you feel you have to progress too fast!
Assuming the "92" in your username is your birth year you are way ahead of me compared to when I was 20 (which was in 1992 ;) )
How did I start? Well I picked a genre with similar BPM's and music types but in those days it was mosly done by ear at the record shop, BPM counters and similar things were rare and even viewed as "cheating" until the late 2000s... However I think there is too much chatter about on the web trying to say that "the new digital stuff will make you the next Tiësto within 2 years", which actually ends up being really discouraging to young DJ's
Without going to deeply off topic into all the economic and political developments on the EDM industry worldwide there are many reasons why this is inaccurate. For one thing Tiësto is a few years older than me (I am 40!) and only recently (last decade) has he become a "superstar" and this sort of fame is fleeting, especially as EDM events are coming under harsher scrutiny of authorities worldwide (even in "liberal" Europe).
During the late 90s I did become a relatively well known local DJ at both EDM events and on our pirate and community radio stations, but certainly didn't make enough money from it to replace the "day job".
In fact I ended up having to leave the suburban city area near London I grew up in (where there was loads of raves and stations) for a small coastal town on the East Coast of England where there is currently a zero tolerance policy on EDM events, in order to keep my day job (IT/telecoms engineer). So today I mix as a hobby and for my own pleasure, and I find it way more fun than when the pressure was on at the frontline of events!
It sounds like you know a lot of the basics already, so perhaps the trick is to pay more attention to the selection of tunes you use - you don't need pre-mixed ones but try and get more "DJ friendly " tunes and maybe even not to push yourself too hard? It can be even harder when you are young and ambitious as naturally you want to go further, but its also easy to burn out and get frustrated...
geposted Tue 26 Jun 12 @ 11:26 am
djnutz
eli92 wrote :
Im having a hard time picking the right songs and mixing them in the correct part so they sound good. I understand beats, phrases and bars, but i know im not always counting which i can understand can be whats wrong. Also when picking a song from my list, i seem to be just go going DOWN the list, i sort it out usually by bpm or key and try to mix it in. Is there another way of picking songs out? Also I have alot of radio edit songs, that are not really dj friendly, am I picking up the wrong tunes? should i be picking up more dj friendly tunes, if so where do i get them.
Again mixing premixed songs is a bit too easy to me, and isnt really the art of djing. Im looking for ways to master the art of it, like DJ AM etc. How did you guys get started?
Again mixing premixed songs is a bit too easy to me, and isnt really the art of djing. Im looking for ways to master the art of it, like DJ AM etc. How did you guys get started?
It doesn't matter what any of us here think. It only matters what your crowd thinks. I would spend the time to get to know as much music as you can. The "art" of DJ'ing has NOTHING to do with mixing two premixed songs together. If you don't have a crowd to play to....see what I am sayin?
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there is not one single DJ on these forums who has the same fame as DJ AM. I could be wrong, but... And if you consider the number of users on online DJ forums vs the number of "big named" DJ's like DJ AM, you will quickly find out that the majority of us work the trenches at local clubs or private events.
If you want to "master the art of it" then you need to look beyond the music and your mixer, and your controllers/timecode and look at your crowd and their reaction to what you are playing. Sure beat mixing is easy. I taught my daughter how to beatmix when she was 9 just for fun. Until a DJ gets out in front of crowds ON A REGULAR basis the only "mastering" is master-bating alone in the bedroom.
geposted Wed 27 Jun 12 @ 9:54 am
Alex728
good points - and one thing I forgot to add about my youth in the 90s is that I lived in a place where the "crowd", the other DJs, the musicians and producers, the folk from the community radio stations all partied in the same circles, so long before there was as much use of internet etc that feedback from the crowd was already there at the frontline.
Don't forget also that you can share your mixes on places like soundcloud and various other sites and get feedback that way. Also outside the USA and big cities of Europe sometimes sharing mixes in this samizdat fashion is the only way folk can hear EDM!
Being British/European I am not 100% sure who DJ AM is, I do know about DJ's like Paul Oakenfold or Tiësto but I think the harsh reality is these guys were of a certain era which is now disappearing and replaced by a much smaller, leaner and localised scene even if the tunes and the equipment are international.
attitudes and local politics influence your scene, and your opportunitites to play out. in the 90s/2000s we had a different government in England which openly encouraged arts and music of all kinds, now we have a different one where the emphasis is more on conventional business and "day jobs" and DJ's/music is viewed judgementally and linked to drugs/crime and other unpleasantness. Some of my friends in England even tryed to buck the system and hold illegal raves because of zero tolerance - they had their entire system confiscated and got several months jail! I'm no expert on the USA scene but I think tolerance varies wildly depending on the state the events are held in, some simply do not allow EDM events.
in fact if the DJ AM is who I think he is, (I may have made a mistake though) he was
1. nearly as old as me
2. battling serious mental and physical heath issues in part caused by the pressure of staying on top (its way too easy to get into doing too much of drugs / booze to keep/boost confidence especially in liberal minded circles like the music/entertainment industry)
3. and he is now dead at a young age (well I like to think 30s-40s is still young ;) )
I might not have ever reached the kind of fame as him and today am stuck in some small coastal town in England where I make more cash fixing computers and networks than I ever did playing music, but I made my 40s, and I'd be quite worried about a young chap seeing someone like DJ AM as an icon, even though he clearly was talented and I have very liberal views myself on a lot of things. (The trance DJ's I like these days are older than me and are very careful to treat their work as a professional business (as much as I do with computers and telecoms) and distance themselves from excessive partying).
Getting back to todays environment, I won't try and hide the reality- though they still exist, the days of superstar DJ's, like other superstars are slowly fading (any resurgence in EDM events in the USA appears to be more because the venue owners are skint and will put up with the risks to get money for hire) the current lot are likely to be the last generation and it is software like VDJ which is part of this.
but thats not doom and gloom as there will always be some sort of local music scene, and this software opens up the whole sphere of DJ'ing across international boundaries and enables us to share tips and ideas without being frightened of helping local "competitors" - as I said previously I mix for fun.
As for frank advice to young DJ's - others have given lots of good tech advice. But theres also the personal side which is inmportant. I'm not going to say they should live like monks or nuns - I certainly didnt and TBH even religious types like music too! but they should try and stay in employment / education so they can obtain their tunes, software and other equipment legally, be careful about things like drugs and alcohol (they can be a distraction and a risk) and not burn themselves out chasing after long term "careers" which are no longer there. Even a lot of the local DJ's I remember from back in the day and some of the big names have had their careers burn out and the lucky ones have gone back to day jobs, unlucky ones are in mental hospital or took their lives. But one plus point of digital software is you need to learn a bit about computers and there is always work for those who can make computers behave ;)
Be a DJ because you like the music and have a passion for it and want to share it with friends, not because you want to make $ / £ / € as if thats your motivation you may as well work in a computer company as a engineer or salesperson... of course if you get a residency in some local venue or a radio show or similar thats cool and enjoy it whilst its these but don't get too hooked. Fame too can be as addictive as hard drugs and difficult to cope with losing your supply.
Don't forget also that you can share your mixes on places like soundcloud and various other sites and get feedback that way. Also outside the USA and big cities of Europe sometimes sharing mixes in this samizdat fashion is the only way folk can hear EDM!
Being British/European I am not 100% sure who DJ AM is, I do know about DJ's like Paul Oakenfold or Tiësto but I think the harsh reality is these guys were of a certain era which is now disappearing and replaced by a much smaller, leaner and localised scene even if the tunes and the equipment are international.
attitudes and local politics influence your scene, and your opportunitites to play out. in the 90s/2000s we had a different government in England which openly encouraged arts and music of all kinds, now we have a different one where the emphasis is more on conventional business and "day jobs" and DJ's/music is viewed judgementally and linked to drugs/crime and other unpleasantness. Some of my friends in England even tryed to buck the system and hold illegal raves because of zero tolerance - they had their entire system confiscated and got several months jail! I'm no expert on the USA scene but I think tolerance varies wildly depending on the state the events are held in, some simply do not allow EDM events.
in fact if the DJ AM is who I think he is, (I may have made a mistake though) he was
1. nearly as old as me
2. battling serious mental and physical heath issues in part caused by the pressure of staying on top (its way too easy to get into doing too much of drugs / booze to keep/boost confidence especially in liberal minded circles like the music/entertainment industry)
3. and he is now dead at a young age (well I like to think 30s-40s is still young ;) )
I might not have ever reached the kind of fame as him and today am stuck in some small coastal town in England where I make more cash fixing computers and networks than I ever did playing music, but I made my 40s, and I'd be quite worried about a young chap seeing someone like DJ AM as an icon, even though he clearly was talented and I have very liberal views myself on a lot of things. (The trance DJ's I like these days are older than me and are very careful to treat their work as a professional business (as much as I do with computers and telecoms) and distance themselves from excessive partying).
Getting back to todays environment, I won't try and hide the reality- though they still exist, the days of superstar DJ's, like other superstars are slowly fading (any resurgence in EDM events in the USA appears to be more because the venue owners are skint and will put up with the risks to get money for hire) the current lot are likely to be the last generation and it is software like VDJ which is part of this.
but thats not doom and gloom as there will always be some sort of local music scene, and this software opens up the whole sphere of DJ'ing across international boundaries and enables us to share tips and ideas without being frightened of helping local "competitors" - as I said previously I mix for fun.
As for frank advice to young DJ's - others have given lots of good tech advice. But theres also the personal side which is inmportant. I'm not going to say they should live like monks or nuns - I certainly didnt and TBH even religious types like music too! but they should try and stay in employment / education so they can obtain their tunes, software and other equipment legally, be careful about things like drugs and alcohol (they can be a distraction and a risk) and not burn themselves out chasing after long term "careers" which are no longer there. Even a lot of the local DJ's I remember from back in the day and some of the big names have had their careers burn out and the lucky ones have gone back to day jobs, unlucky ones are in mental hospital or took their lives. But one plus point of digital software is you need to learn a bit about computers and there is always work for those who can make computers behave ;)
Be a DJ because you like the music and have a passion for it and want to share it with friends, not because you want to make $ / £ / € as if thats your motivation you may as well work in a computer company as a engineer or salesperson... of course if you get a residency in some local venue or a radio show or similar thats cool and enjoy it whilst its these but don't get too hooked. Fame too can be as addictive as hard drugs and difficult to cope with losing your supply.
geposted Thu 28 Jun 12 @ 6:18 am