Your DJ friend asks you to spin a 30-40 minute set.

So I've never really DJ'd before, and my buddy offered me a slot about 3 weeks from now.

-30-40 minute slot

-It's a dubstep party where drum and bass would be acceptable.

-They're using Ableton and Traktor Scratch Pro.

-I have Renoise, Ableton, and Traktor Pro.

-I have an M-Audio MobilePre, an APC-40, and a TriggerFinger.

How should I go about this?

(Also, drop your sick tracks here if you want me to play them.)

Play lot's of Dnb b/c dubstep is boring?

Just pick some songs that sound good together and keep mixing them and changing up the order until they mix easily into each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXXjcSyn3Sw+http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbWe8-XD9qo

Repeat

How do you feel about the following:

-extra production (transitions, effects, original sections) vs straight tracks

-live mixing vs prepared mix

Do what your comfortable with. If live mixing is going to make you neurotic about fucking up put something together ahead of time. I generally decide based on where Im playing and for who. If its a particularly large crowd or a bunch of unforgiving hipster douchebags I usually put some forethought into my set, even if its just a set list of what tracks I plan on playing. If its a smaller gig or mostly people I know just having a good time I just show up and play whatever.

Id slack off the digital mixing, and buy a bunch of 12".. much more fun, and responsive bass when playing at this sort of party.

  On 7/20/2010 at 6:11 PM, Drahken said:

If live mixing is going to make you neurotic about fucking up put something together ahead of time.

+1

  On 7/20/2010 at 4:46 PM, wahrk said:

How do you feel about the following:

 

-extra production (transitions, effects, original sections) vs straight tracks

 

-live mixing vs prepared mix

If you have tons of fx to throw on stuff during the set, i'd stick t more straightforward tracks. But I don't think it's that crucial, so just go with tracks you like and you think will "please the crowd". Good beats, upbeat, dancey, entertaining.

  On 7/20/2010 at 6:37 PM, Brandi_B said:

  On 7/20/2010 at 6:11 PM, Drahken said:

If live mixing is going to make you neurotic about fucking up put something together ahead of time.

 

+1

+2

Also, be sure and give em a dose of some sneakstep.

  On 7/20/2010 at 10:21 PM, sneaksta303 said:

  On 7/20/2010 at 6:37 PM, Brandi_B said:

  On 7/20/2010 at 6:11 PM, Drahken said:

If live mixing is going to make you neurotic about fucking up put something together ahead of time.

 

+1

 

+2

 

Also, be sure and give em a dose of some sneakstep.

If I can fit it in, you know I will.

  On 7/20/2010 at 10:54 PM, acid1 said:

I'd do this

This sounds awesome and is probably what I will do now. Thanks you kindly, sir.

Any other advice is still super welcome though. Still a newb after all.

I agree with them folks, I'd been DJing for a year or more before I stopped doing any preparation for a set. I always mixed live because the fear of fucking up is part of the fun, but at the start I had completely prepared mixes and carried around precise mixing notes and didn't drink before going on. Now I normally just chance it, or sometimes decide on the first few tracks so I can 'get into the groove'. 30 minutes will fly by, realistically thats about 6-8 tunes which is 4-6 transitions which is nothing, and dubstep/dnb are horrifically easy to mix.

My thoughts would be that athough dnb and dubstep tend to have the same crowd it is still a bit of a contrast so you wouldn't want to prepare a dubstep mix and have to play it following someone who's just got people dancing to drum & bass. So I would probably want to be ready to do either genre.

If you want to pull into dubstep from drum & bass this is a choice cut, sounds like jungle but is sneakily close to dubstep tempo

dubstep --> drum & bass is a lot easier, loads of dnb has 1min or more of ambient waffle at the start that can ease you into anything.

free good dubstep probably nobody will have heard of so if anyone asks you can be all smug about being on to the newest shit which is 90% of what DJing is about: http://www.echodub.co.uk/ (scroll to the bottom for free albums, both compilations are recommended)

  On 7/20/2010 at 11:08 PM, Coalbucket PI said:

I agree with them folks, I'd been DJing for a year or more before I stopped doing any preparation for a set. I always mixed live because the fear of fucking up is part of the fun, but at the start I had completely prepared mixes and carried around precise mixing notes and didn't drink before going on. Now I normally just chance it, or sometimes decide on the first few tracks so I can 'get into the groove'. 30 minutes will fly by, realistically thats about 6-8 tunes which is 4-6 transitions which is nothing, and dubstep/dnb are horrifically easy to mix.

 

My thoughts would be that athough dnb and dubstep tend to have the same crowd it is still a bit of a contrast so you wouldn't want to prepare a dubstep mix and have to play it following someone who's just got people dancing to drum & bass. So I would probably want to be ready to do either genre.

 

If you want to pull into dubstep from drum & bass this is a choice cut, sounds like jungle but is sneakily close to dubstep tempo

...

 

dubstep --> drum & bass is a lot easier, loads of dnb has 1min or more of ambient waffle at the start that can ease you into anything.

 

free good dubstep probably nobody will have heard of so if anyone asks you can be all smug about being on to the newest shit which is 90% of what DJing is about: http://www.echodub.co.uk/ (scroll to the bottom for free albums, both compilations are recommended)

Cool. Thanks. It will probably be dubstep -> drum & bass -> dubstep for my set, as dubstep is hot shit in Austin these days (as I assume it is most places). I'll prepare, though, just in case. I just love me some drum & bass. Shit gets me moving like nobody's business.

Neat track. I might snag it. I'll definitely check out those compilations too. I've got some pretty sick tracks (IMO) lined up, but some of them are more widely known than I'd prefer (State of Mind for example), so I'll see if I can replace them. I've got a few tracks from some BA peeps I know (kept blue ftw) and hopefully a track or two from some local DJ pals of mine and I plan on throwing in at least one original.

Speaking of originals, how big of a no-no is 4/4 deviation? I'm sooo tempted, because I have a sick drop in a track that dubstep kids would like, but it's in an odd time which might make them feel weird. I'm think about just lopping off the extra beat so I can drop it guilt-free.

Also, wavs or just mp3s?

Side Note: How do you guys feel about NiT GriT? (those of you who enjoy dubstep that is)

One note is I'd avoid complex music regardless of how awesome it is to you or how you can still bob your head to it.

Most people just want to get a groove going and dance, if you start trying to impress them with complex stuff they get agitated quickly at thier inability to comprehend or dance to it, so they blame you for being a bad dj.

honestly do it live...its really lame when people just queue something up because it just makes you want to go and put on your own music if the person whose supposed to be the "DJ" is just standing at the table...i mean come on whats the point. that said i like vinyl so im a snob and hate pretty much any form of digital DJ

  On 7/20/2010 at 11:08 PM, Coalbucket PI said:

ambient waffle

  On 7/21/2010 at 1:35 AM, Scrambled Ears said:

honestly do it live...its really lame when people just queue something up because it just makes you want to go and put on your own music if the person whose supposed to be the "DJ" is just standing at the table...i mean come on whats the point. that said i like vinyl so im a snob and hate pretty much any form of digital DJ

I've always "dj'd" pretty much unprepared. Sometimes i'll have a specific idea of what I would like and some tracks I know that work well into each other. But I've always enjoyed just having a huge library and dropping in stuff at random and doing my best to make it work. That said I'm not that great of a dj and would probably want to be better prepared for a party, but all in all keep the crowd interested or unaware and it's solid.

  On 7/22/2010 at 9:07 PM, Brandi_B said:

  On 7/21/2010 at 1:35 AM, Scrambled Ears said:

honestly do it live...its really lame when people just queue something up because it just makes you want to go and put on your own music if the person whose supposed to be the "DJ" is just standing at the table...i mean come on whats the point. that said i like vinyl so im a snob and hate pretty much any form of digital DJ

I've always "dj'd" pretty much unprepared. Sometimes i'll have a specific idea of what I would like and some tracks I know that work well into each other. But I've always enjoyed just having a huge library and dropping in stuff at random and doing my best to make it work. That said I'm not that great of a dj and would probably want to be better prepared for a party, but all in all keep the crowd interested or unaware and it's solid.

I find that to be my favourite advantage of digital mixing... you can have all your music right there!!!

Play some Rockwell-styled dnb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-JWwkM_iY&videos=nHMqdbRQwp0

I'd recommend Ableton for mixing. I also have a trigger finger, but there aren't enough sliders on it to make it good.

For starters I'd just use two audio tracks. Ahead of time I would mix together the tracks how you want them, and then put a 3 band EQ on each track. MIDI map the low, mid, and hi to 6 sliders (maybe you'll have to use both the trigger finger and your other device), and then just mix them together live, without having to worry about how they line up/sync.

Make sure the warp algorithm is on 'complex' and not the default 'beats' cause the sound quality will be much better. The 'hifi' button in Ableton does wonders for the highs too.

re-pitch for warping if you don't want any artifacts.