new to djing

[Mysterie]

so i have a set thats coming up in about 2 weeks

i have never djed before

i have a pool of songs which i still have to reduce to the correct time of 45 minutes, but i am almost there, its mostly beats/techno/house

i am using traktor pro 2

1. is there an affordable midi controller i could use to adjust faders and pots ? (i can get a numark mixtrack for $90, would that work with traktor if im using a cracked vers?) [do i need to use a controller if its my first gig? or is it okay to just use my laptop for the first time]

2. how can i crossfade 2 songs of a different bpm? i have tried syncing but it will slow down the next song, so when i un-sync and bring the song back to its natural bpm, the pitch changes and it sounds dodgyy. for some songs there is no rhythm at the start or end, so i can use that to transition, but i do need to somehow beatmatch most songs and theyr bpms are different..

3. should i be trying to use EQ's, effects? is there a resource somewhere for me to get some fundamentals on djing with the version of traktor i have?

4. i have an apogee duet, should i use this to go out of my computer through thunderbolt then out through the 2 outs which leads fit into, then into mixer. (this allows me to have a headphone mix?), or do i just go out through my headphone input with an audio cord that splits into two out leads.

5. any general tips or ideas based on what i posted?

most of my songs will be 128 kbps, but i don't think it will rly be noticeable in the space and sound system its at. i know 320 is preferable

iv been producing my own music for 2 yrs but i dont get very technical with it.

 

[jpgrdnr]

1. I don't think a controller is absolutely necessary. Why not just use a regular mixer, Traktor has an External mode?

2. Syncing only works when you don't have a huge BPM change. Generally a +/- 10 BPM difference seems fine. If you're just mixing pop hits, rock, rap, with widely different BPMs, a Cut Fade works. You don't change pitch at all and just mix in the next record. There's a bunch of advanced techniques like mashups, sampling, or getting a DJ friendly cut of the specific track. But for simplicity's sake, Cutting works. Arguably, you might want to read up on setting Beatgrids within Traktor, at a later date.

Like with vinyl if you are mixing tracks with widely different tempos, you're DJing wrong (at least with genre specific Electronic music).

3. EQing is sort of the core of DJing really. Effects are more the special sauce. Arguably, you don't have to use effects. And its probably better that you don't because it'll muck up the mix if you use them poorly. EQing is sort of a learned skill that takes time to learn. It all depends on what you are trying to mix, really. Techno may be the easiest genre to EQ because you can hear everything, and hear how it sounds in the mix. Its all kick, bass, hihats, melody so you can play around a lot with the different elements and hear more clearly how things match or don't match, clash in the mix. Build up from that.

4. Whatever the setup, you should be looking to have the Cue source in the phones. You could split cue I suppose, and that may be easier as you can do the mix without listening to the sound delay from the PA.

most of my songs will be 128 kbps, but i don't think it will rly be noticeable in the space and sound system its at. i know 320 is preferable

That's good that you know this. In the future try getting higher quality MP3s. 128 kbps loses a fair amount of low end, and takes a lot out of the top.

5. Relax, don't drink or do drugs before your set. Keep one foot in the DJ booth and one on the dancefloor. If a track isn't working, change it (that mysterious quality called reading a crowd)! Have fun!

 

[jpgrdnr]

i have a pool of songs which i still have to reduce to the correct time of 45 minutes, but i am almost there, its mostly beats/techno/house

DJing isn't about fitting songs into a specific timeslot. Or a tracklist. Its about playing the right track at the right time. I think if you're editing tracks so that everything fits in, you're probably doing it wrong. You want to read the crowd, and interact with them and be spontaneous. You don't want to know what track you are going to play next.

I think that's why producers don't make great DJs. They can't think outside the box in terms of what the crowd wants to hear. And what you want them to hear. Its the difference between, "Ok, I'm going to drop this 70s Jungle Funk record on them..." vs. "French House re-edit #2, the one with distorted cowbell"

 

[Bagseed]

let me tell you something, coming from somebody who has been mixing vinyl for over five years. if you are new, you will fuck something up the first time you play for an audience regardless of how much you practice. I still fuck up a mix sometimes, but over the years my skills became much more reliable.

also if you beatmatch two tracks, you don't change the track you brought in to the original tempo after the mix is done. you can slightly speed it up in right moments, but this also takes skill and practice to do right.

just get to know your gear and practice a lot. know your music, don't rely on prepared setlists, because chances are that the crowd might not feel what you've prepared. show up to the gig with a good selection of styles, energies and tempi an choose what is right for the moment.

DJing isn't something you just do, you gotta learn it and grow with it, even if the computer can do the beatmatching for you nowadays. DJing isn't the same thing as making music, but it definately is an art of its own.

edit:

regarding equipment, I agree with jpgrdnr... get an appropiate audio interface for Traktor and hook it up to a regular DJ mixer. If you buy used, you could probably get both for under 300 bucks. real mixers mostly have a much nicer feeling than controllers to them. and those which have a comparable feeling are as expensive anyway. if you use a normal mixer, you'd also only have to bring your laptop and audio interface to the location instead of carrying a weighty and probably expensive controller as well.

 

[dirtyfrenchman83]

How did u get a gig djing if you've never dj'ed before, is it just like a get together, house party?

 

[Mysterie]

it was like a club night, but the theme is self-expression etc
i sent some tracks to the promoter to see if they liked the selection i wanted to play

i sent the stuff i am digging atm and it was a shot in the dark, i was surprised when they said yeh

on their page it said that they would accept people who haven't djed before. now i would interpret that as ppl who have experience djing but haven't played a live set.. lol

it was an experience which had positives and negatives. there is a lot of things to be aware of and skills that need to already be developed, in order to transition tracks of different styles and bpms. sometimes there wouldn't be a very noticeable change in energy when i changed songs, but other times i fucked it up a little and it would go from BAMBAMBAM, to almost silence as the next song starts with a softer intro or w/e, so if i did it again i would want to be able to keep a similar feeling and flow from song to song..

it could have gone worse, and it was a nice feeling to be able to see other people dancing and enjoying music that i am really into, thats kind of the saving grace.

but i really felt like i had no idea what i was doing in terms of djing. i didn't have a prepared setlist, so choosing songs on the fly and trying to transition them really created alot of stress.

i think i prefer to do things where there is less expectations on what i am doing and where my expectations are realistic as well, otherwise it just creates drama for me which i dont rlly want.

i think the thing that bugged me the most is that a girl came, who in my head i'm already in love with, although we've had 1 conversation. and she and her friends left after the set without saying hi. which is understandable in a sense because we don't even know each other that well, but it was enough to send me into the depths of depression for a couple days haha, but thats almost over now~

re joe: thanks again for helping me out with the song recommendations, its helped open up new avenues for me in terms of musical inspiration etc.

 

[ld50 vs ssri]

so i have a set thats coming up in about 2 weeks

i have never djed before

Exciting times, when your set finally approaches just go out there and have fun, try not to let nerves wreck you, First's sets can be nerve wrecking for some, others not so much.

i have a pool of songs which i still have to reduce to the correct time of 45 minutes, but i am almost there, its mostly beats/techno/house

i am using traktor pro 2

Don't worry about reducing the tracks by chopping up the format, it all comes down to when you drop them so some sound advice would be to pick out the best 8's, 16's, 32's etc depending on what genres you are playing and drop your tracks at the right corresponding moments, this means yes you will have to study the arrangement and structure of all the tracks you are going to play but the pay of in the end will be max reward for a new dj like yourself.

1. is there an affordable midi controller i could use to adjust faders and pots ? (i can get a numark mixtrack for $90, would that work with traktor if im using a cracked vers?) [do i need to use a controller if its my first gig? or is it okay to just use my laptop for the first time

See if you can get your hands on a mixer and route the mixer through the external routing options that traktor 2 i would imagine should have. Failing that i have a 2 ch M audio x session pro usb controller that i will sell you for $20 if it's a means to getting your through your set and you have minimal equipment. I bought it for roughly 200 brand new i cant remember the price exactly. It's in brilliant condition hardly ever used as i didn't like the latency that the rotaries delayed when mixing in software. It's a discontinued usb controller, some people are willing to pay a fair bit for one too because they are discontinued. So if you don't like it you can sell it after your set and make some money ontop of that.

Here's a couple of images to give you an idea of what the mixer is like.

2. how can i crossfade 2 songs of a different bpm? i have tried syncing but it will slow down the next song, so when i un-sync and bring the song back to its natural bpm, the pitch changes and it sounds dodgyy. for some songs there is no rhythm at the start or end, so i can use that to transition, but i do need to somehow beatmatch most songs and theyr bpms are different..

Ok, First of all i Wouldn't use the cross fader to mix between channels, i'd use the respective channel faders for each track and blend from there. Of course you don't have to listen to me you can use the crossfader if you want but in all the years i been mixing i have been using the method as said at the start of this sentence. As for the differences between bpm when using channels or the crossfader, there simply shouldn't be any difference, if your using sync it should be reliable enough to synchronize two digital values i mean after all it's a computer isn't it, you'd think they could do it easily enough. What +/- pitch setting values does the software you are using offer? Try and set those values to the lowest so like +/- 6 would be ideal but it may go lower and the lower the better, it's what makes for a tighter more hassle free mix in terms of beat matching and getting the pitch of both tracks to be identical. So yeah go the +/- 6 option and then match the pitches yourself if the sync is failing you, if the differences in pitch are still enough to render your mixes useless and the sync isnt working i can't really offer you any more advice sorry. Are your tracks mp3 or Wav? I did however find Wav tracks to sync a little better then mp3 as mp3 doesn't pick up 60 - 120hz and reading the wave table can be a bit dodgy with mp3. Are you trying to sync one track after another before you drop them or are you trying to do it once the track is dropped, it does not make sense to me why the sync is dropping the tempo even less then the track you are mixing out of, sounds a little buggy/glitchy to me. You could always try different software. You could also check the way all your functions within your software are routed, the sync function and pitch function could be talking turkey with one another in the background.

3. should i be trying to use EQ's, effects? is there a resource somewhere for me to get some fundamentals on djing with the version of traktor i have?

This all depends on how you want to mix and how you want the dynamics of your mix to sound, eq's are dependent on the different dynamics of different genres. When i mix psy i like to play on just before 7 oclock on the eq pots which is on -26db on a pioneer mixer when mixing the track in and i wont do a transition of bass eq to 12 oclock untill the time in the mix is right and when the drop comes i kill the tracks bass to near 7 oclock and then the track that just dropped in is at 12 oclock on the bass pot. So it's a clean symettrical sweep between both tracks and both eq parameters. With the mids i bring them in slowly over +2db incriments over the structure presented. For the high's i use a filter on them and add them in + 4 incriments. Now i'm not bragging on how i mix im just trying to make you aware of your equipment and your mix and simply suggesting a way to do it or a way you could build from. The tracks that you will be playing are written in studio environments and have most likely been mastered so with that kept in mind you wont need to go overboard with the gain and adding to much eq because it will sound muddy if you add to much eq, less is more. Keep the tracks in the green to allow you for some headroom if you need them to get into the yellows, but ffs do not go into the red, in this case the red ferrarri isn't the fastest most sickest option. Let the PA system engineers look after the output levels, they will make it cleaner for you and they will appreciate that your making there job easier for them.

4. i have an apogee duet, should i use this to go out of my computer through thunderbolt then out through the 2 outs which leads fit into, then into mixer. (this allows me to have a headphone mix?), or do i just go out through my headphone input with an audio cord that splits into two out leads.

I have never seen an apogee duet and i don't know what thunderbolt is however im guessing your talking about routing options for your mix. how many input/output options you got we could go through the routing together if you like.

5. any general tips or ideas based on what i posted?

See above and ill add one more thing. Do you know how to key mix or does tracktor tell you what key each of your tracks are in. If it does try to mix in key or to scale because sometimes if you are mixing heavy on bass in which i don't but if you do and the tracks are a mixture of flat's and minors then the mix can sound like its completely drowning out killing the ears of many. Harmony is the key, our ears naturally appreciate harmony

most of my songs will be 128 kbps, but i don't think it will rly be noticeable in the space and sound system its at. i know 320 is preferable

You will be sorry if you don't go to 320kb tracks, 128k seems to hiss abit and wont sound all that desirable on a big system or any system at all really, i mean it's an acceptable format but id still suggest moving onto 320kb tracks if you can

iv been producing my own music for 2 yrs but i dont get very technical with it.

Nice one, i've been producing since 2000 in fl studio, good meditation!

Hope this helps,

Peace

 

[jpgrdnr]

trying to transition them really created a lot of stress.

stress/excitement/fun - practice!