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Posted by aidanwelsh on Dec-10-2003 21:34:

When composing a demo CD...

Hey -

I've been DJing for about two years now and have a sizeable collection of vinyl dated from about 1999 or 2000 to present. I have made about 3 demo CDs (one of them ended up getting me a gig at a local club, Necto, in Ann Arbor). Anyways, just wondering what some processes people used for narrowing down tracks to use in demo or possible stucture for a set. I always just make a list of all tracks and think about good intros, good middle tracks, good ending tracks and try to compose a set that way. I think this is my biggest hindrance from becoming better as a DJ...technical skills are pretty good overall. Any advice would be helpful.

thanks,
aidan

Posted by JoH_HEiL on Dec-10-2003 22:30:

well i have been djing for about 3 years now and i found a similar problem to yours when doing my first official demo about 2 months ago.

have a look at my site www.daniel-jose.tk and download the set from the music section.

accapella intro.. hard... less hard.. harder...
this is the way i reasoned it out

cu mate

Posted by aidanwelsh on Dec-12-2003 02:07:

thanks for the reply mate...any other comments?

Posted by zapper on Dec-12-2003 02:23:

You know I'm in the preparation stage for a demo-mix too, so I know what you're talking about

Basically, first find the records that you definetely want to include, just mess around as much as you can with them, try a lot of different transitions, see which tracks go well with each other. Then you can add other tracks later if you need to. Sometimes you have a lot of good tracks you want to play, but you need a filler track to for instance slow the mix down a bit. Lastly I suggest practicing some of the harder transtions, so that you know exactly when to bring in the new track.

Also, the mix I'm going to do will be my first 3-deck mix, which means that I'll try to have two tunes running at the same time most of the time. Not easy AT ALL, you have to concentrate all the time and there's no time for record hunting, have them lined up! The good thing is that if you experiment a lot you'll find tracks that when played together makes up a great, unique tune, and that can sound amazing (and impressive). Additionally I plan to use some acapellas during transitions ++. It's not going to be easy, but I'll do me best. There are so many "OK" DJs out there that you really have to do something special to be noticed.

Good luck!

Posted by aidanwelsh on Dec-12-2003 06:37:

thanks very much for the suggestions zapper and JoH_HEil. wow, three-deck mix should be pretty sweet if you call pull that off...ambitious . i would definitely like to hear that when you're finished.

-aidan

Posted by zapper on Dec-12-2003 16:57:

Heh, I know, it's very ambitious, in fact I haven't practised a lot with three decks, sometimes I can do really smooth transitions, the challenge comes when I'm going to record a whole set in one take

Posted by KrissO on Dec-14-2003 16:10:

Anyway I like to build up my set in the way as said above too. On a gig it would depend very much on the dj that played before me.
But like on a demo cd I would start slow and then after a few tracks go hard and then slow again for a little period and then finish hard (sounds messy)
That would be intro-slow-hard-slow-hard...

Damn, 3 decks must be fun experimenting with... got to get myself a 3rd deck