DJing at gigs

Okay guys just wanted to get peeps feelings on the best way to approach DJing live.

I think mixing skills aside, my aim is to try and mix it up with lots of difference styles but predominately keep dance based and funky. That said I do usually have my preferences at to the sort of shit I like to play and that usually evolves a heavy slice of electro funk shit. Anyways I wanna play some Techno, Electro, Old Skool Hip Hop/Electro Pop, Jazz Fusion/Funk, Funk/Disco, a little Punk, Psychedelic Rock, Drum & Bass/Amen shit and other tunes.

The question is; what do you guys usually do? Do you like feel the crowd and shit and keep it rolling as long as peeps are dancing or what? Do you throw in a few popular tunes so that peeps can boogie down and then throw in some not so known ones in between. Do you slow it down so peeps can chill for a mo and then get the shit moving again? All these thoughts are in my head but DJing live is not something you can teach people. Thoughts people?

i follow the crowd...if its the more trendy crowd i play downtempo stuff, if its a bar or club ill go with the more dancey stuff

Never DJ'd. Can't DJ!

  sinkfield said:

i follow the crowd...if its the more trendy crowd i play downtempo stuff, if its a bar or club ill go with the more dancey stuff

What do you mean about follow the crowd? I mean as long as they're dancing do you just keep pumping it up. Tell us a bit more. I'm gonna be playin for about 1.5 hours and I wanna keep people excited for that time but I don't want to tire them either.

Also like how do you choose your tunes? I mean I just listening to some tunes and its fuckin hard to decide 'cause I want to play it all. I play one tune and then say 'oh I should play that' then I play another and say 'I should play that too'. Its really fuckin hard to narrow this shit down. Plus I need to make at least 25% include some crowd pleasers i.e. shit peeps know.

Ktpa 1 & 2 fully crunk, man. Shit.

depending on the crowd i try to alienate them as much as i can...

when shit goes wrong i slam on ktpa1/2

Smojphace is a fucking life saver for moments like that.

Mmm I was hoping for some serious WATMM advice .... oh well this WATMM. :laughing:

I like to sometimes do half the set at 100-130bpm and then bring it down a little, and then go up to 150-160 and spank out some hardcore jungle

this is just what I like doing, nobody else ever seems that excited by it. I usually have a pretty good idea what tracks will be played because i like doing slick transitions that ive tried out before, ideally set out a few 'branch points' where i could change the direction.

Cool. What do you mean by Branch points? I was planning on using some short 1min ambient pieces as sort of cut off points between the next onslaught.

what are you booked to play? what's the venue like?

i use as much pre-planning as possible and then as little pre-selected tracks once i'm up there. just go with it, look for cues.

associate tracks with emotions and extend and move from those emotions.

  djslimchill said:

what are you booked to play? what's the venue like?

 

i use as much pre-planning as possible and then as little pre-selected tracks once i'm up there. just go with it, look for cues.

 

associate tracks with emotions and extend and move from those emotions.

The venue is The Embassy bar in Islington. I expect they'll be room for about 100/150 peeps to dance max I reckon. I'm playing at a private party and expecting at least 50 peeps there .... hopefully they'll be more like 100.

When you say pre-planning, what exactly do you mean? For example I've got a whole bunch of tunes categorized and ready under different genres but I feel that even though I've selected tunes I like you never know what tune you might want to play on the night and then you don't have it to hand.

  Promo said:

  djslimchill said:

what are you booked to play? what's the venue like?

 

i use as much pre-planning as possible and then as little pre-selected tracks once i'm up there. just go with it, look for cues.

 

associate tracks with emotions and extend and move from those emotions.

The venue is The Embassy bar in Islington. I expect they'll be room for about 100/150 peeps to dance max I reckon. I'm playing at a private party and expecting at least 50 peeps there .... hopefully they'll be more like 100.

 

When you say pre-planning, what exactly do you mean? For example I've got a whole bunch of tunes categorized and ready under different genres but I feel that even though I've selected tunes I like you never know what tune you might want to play on the night and then you don't have it to hand.

doesn't really matter if you don't have the tunes you need, as long as you have stuff you can use. minimze the amount of filler you have with you and keep a lot of titanics from each genre.

as for what i mean by pre-planning, right now my only steady gig is playing hiphop out back at a club which plays mostly indy/synthpop/new wave inside. my crowd out back is very diverse, especially since there is no cover.

i do laptop sets because they don't have turntables and i don't like cd decks, so i categorize everything on my laptop not only by genre, but by subgenres based on mood/emotion/situation. i.e. i have a folder for dancey pop hiphop, a folder for laid back hiphop, a folder for funk, a folder for 80s hiphop, a folder for early 90s songs that are nostalgic to a certain age group, etc.

when i get there, i usually throw on a little funk or soul or mellow hiphop, maybe some reggae to feel out the crowd. then i usually test the waters with some different 80s stuff to see what age group i'm dealing with and where they're comign from. if they dance to kurtis blow, i play run dmc, if they prefer the beastie boys, i'll move into 90s stuff, and so on.

find links within your genres and move accordingly. if you drop a sexy downtempo track, try giving them some massive attack, and then maybe go a little more jazzy or more abstract. see what the reaction is. if they dance to something funky, move it uptempo. like i said, look for cues.

  djslimchill said:

The venue is The Embassy bar in Islington. I expect they'll be room for about 100/150 peeps to dance max I reckon. I'm playing at a private party and expecting at least 50 peeps there .... hopefully they'll be more like 100.

 

When you say pre-planning, what exactly do you mean? For example I've got a whole bunch of tunes categorized and ready under different genres but I feel that even though I've selected tunes I like you never know what tune you might want to play on the night and then you don't have it to hand.

 

doesn't really matter if you don't have the tunes you need, as long as you have stuff you can use. minimze the amount of filler you have with you and keep a lot of titanics from each genre.

 

as for what i mean by pre-planning, right now my only steady gig is playing hiphop out back at a club which plays mostly indy/synthpop/new wave inside. my crowd out back is very diverse, especially since there is no cover.

 

i do laptop sets because they don't have turntables and i don't like cd decks, so i categorize everything on my laptop not only by genre, but by subgenres based on mood/emotion/situation. i.e. i have a folder for dancey pop hiphop, a folder for laid back hiphop, a folder for funk, a folder for 80s hiphop, a folder for early 90s songs that are nostalgic to a certain age group, etc.

 

when i get there, i usually throw on a little funk or soul or mellow hiphop, maybe some reggae to feel out the crowd. then i usually test the waters with some different 80s stuff to see what age group i'm dealing with and where they're comign from. if they dance to kurtis blow, i play run dmc, if they prefer the beastie boys, i'll move into 90s stuff, and so on.

 

find links within your genres and move accordingly. if you drop a sexy downtempo track, try giving them some massive attack, and then maybe go a little more jazzy or more abstract. see what the reaction is. if they dance to something funky, move it uptempo. like i said, look for cues.

That's just the insight I've been looking for. I guess if anything that tells me not to play some of the funky techno, house, electronic music shit I was planning on playing.

Funny you should mention Run DMC and Beasties etc 'cause I was planning on some of that shit.

The sad thing is I pretty much know that I'm dealing with probably an indy crowd and I'm just not into INDY but I think for future reference that's really helpful. I'm certainly gonna swing with it on the oldskool 80s electro/hip hop vibe if they're diggin it.

i play a bunch of dubstep/grime/glitch/chiptunes.

or i play a bunch of breakcore/drill n bass/drum n bass/jungle/acid

lather rinse repeat

no one can tell you your set sucks if you're on the radio!

i use turntables.