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-- How much music do you bring. . . .

How much music do you bring. . . .

Lets be honest. On average, if you had a gig that was about 2 hours long at a new place, how many crates of music do you bring? Do you bring your whole lot, or can you get away with 1 crate? Some ppl bring their whole lot just for the comfort level, while some bring only 2 crates. For those of you who haul in 1 crate or even less, why? Do you know before hand what youre gonna spin? Is there an ettiquette on the number of vinyls that you shoud bring because id be suspicious if i hired a DJ who brought in only 1 crate of music.

one crate = ~50 records
even if you play them all, for say 3 minutes(hell..thats not long @ all) you still have 150 minutes of music, which will do you fine for a 2 hour set.

Tho I have yet to see a DJ show up w/ crates, its always a flight case or travel bag.

in my last gig I played 5 hours
and I had 75records with me (1 crate)...
I played only 42 tracks...
And I never make a tracklist in advance... I just take records
that fit together.

If there are other djs (who are generous) at your gig they might lend you vinyl which they arent gonna plau. And if you have a big vinyl collection. Bring heaps prob all of them, coz the chances are another dj will drop 'THAT TUNE' before your gig starts and you'd be wondering what to play.

yea, 60 records will do you just fine

take about 100 with you (which usually = about 1 record bag or flight case) and you'll be sitting pretty

My bag holds around 90 records (officially anyway). That would be enough for a 4 hour set easily, you will not play all the records and you can still have varying styles to fit into any situation. I have never played more than 4 hours, but if I was I would maybe consider taking another small bag just to make sure.

Try to remember that some vinyl has 2 or even 3 good unique tunes on them, 90 records could easily contain about 150+ tunes!!!

VERY WELL PUT

I use cds when I spin, so I will take two cd cases, which can hold 104 cd each. I burn the best mix of each of the singles that I buy onto a separate cd (so I don't loose them, scratch the original, have them get stolen, and so I don't accidentally overplay into the next track) each, so I have 208 discs, and it's very light and compact. I could easily take more, but there is really no point. I usually only spin the stuff that I've found recently anyway, or the stuff that I still love from the classics. Overall, 17 hours of music is way more than I could ever use, but you never know what the groove is going to be like, so I will always be prepared!

quote:

Originally posted by Dj Flesch I use cds when I spin, so I will take two cd cases, which can hold 104 cd each. I burn the best mix of each of the singles that I buy onto a separate cd (so I don't loose them, scratch the original, have them get stolen, and so I don't accidentally overplay into the next track) each, so I have 208 discs, and it's very light and compact. I could easily take more, but there is really no point. I usually only spin the stuff that I've found recently anyway, or the stuff that I still love from the classics. Overall, 17 hours of music is way more than I could ever use, but you never know what the groove is going to be like, so I will always be prepared!

This should be a whole new different thread, but since you mentioned it . . .
The mp3s you have, are they from ripped vinyls that you have, or are they downloaded? With CDJs becoming more popular, youd think theyd sell more CD singles specifically made for DJing.

I suggest planning in advance what kind of vinyls you bring according to what type of crowd you're going to play in front of... common sense..


and 60~100 vinyls is a normal number

There is nothing wrogn with planning out a set. In fact, If I pay a DJ 4 grand to play for 1.5 hours or so, he better has some tricks lined up. I don't want to see him flying through his bag half the time trying to find tracks. I would show up prepared with at least the set I want to play + 10 fill in records in case your big tunes are played before you. ANd then I'd bring another 1 hour set just for back up. That's done easily with a 50 record flight case.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ-Kuza There is nothing wrogn with planning out a set. In fact, If I pay a DJ 4 grand to play for 1.5 hours or so, he better has some tricks lined up. I don't want to see him flying through his bag half the time trying to find tracks. I would show up prepared with at least the set I want to play + 10 fill in records in case your big tunes are played before you. ANd then I'd bring another 1 hour set just for back up. That's done easily with a 50 record flight case.

Planning up to a point is acceptable, but I have witnessed DJ's playing the same set on numerous occasions over the past few years. that shows no skill whatsoever. Yes if I am doing extremely complex tricks I will practise them before hand, but a good DJ should be able to pull of tricks whenever they are required.

If I pay a DJ 4 grand I want something unique, not a rehashed set they have been playing elsewhere!

That is a whole different topic man. ANd that DJ should be drawn and quatered. Now, if I send a 1 hour demo to a club owner, and he likes what he hears. Well I'm goign to play most of those tracks in my set since it's what he wants. So that in it's own right is pre planning a set. And by all means acceptable. As long as the Owner isn't some asshole who's goign to go download those tracks to spin off CD's before your set. This happend to a friend of mine. The Owner bastid played the 4 best tracks he was going to lay down that night.

it depends also on what time your set is, if its early hours or a warm up set for the big dj u dont wanna be hammering out all of your moster tunage,
u wanna start gradually and build up to get the crowd warm for whoever is on next,

otherwise if u r playing a 2-4 set u wanna b taking all of your bangin tunes.

id say fill up 1 or 2 crated of music depending on what time you r playing, fill your crates up with the appropriate tracks for the crowd, dont make a track list before u start either, play what u think is appropriate for that certain crow at tha certain time.

mick

quote:

Originally posted by Busy Child This should be a whole new different thread, but since you mentioned it . . . The mp3s you have, are they from ripped vinyls that you have, or are they downloaded? With CDJs becoming more popular, youd think theyd sell more CD singles specifically made for DJing.

Well, first off, when I buy music, when I can buy the stuff that I can get on CD and vinyl, I choose cd. It takes up less room, the digital quality is always there and you have to be less concerned about warping, storage conditions etc. I rip the original tracks into waveform onto my hard drive and burn the wave onto another cd. This way I don't loose any quality in the transfer to other media.

The cds I buy are cd singles, so they are essenially great for DJs. They have many mixes on them just like vinyl and they are all unmixed.

The tracks that I don't own yet, I burn from MP3--the highest quality that I can find. I have a small collection of vinyl (just under a dozen records) but I don't have turntables, and once I get them, I will either start buying more vinyl, or get a vinyl cutter. I have close to 400 cds though, so I'm set on music for a while

quote:

I have close to 400 cds though, so I'm set on music for a while

GOD DAMN dude. Are all of the tunes on your 400 CD's vinyl ripped music or cd complete singles? If so, where do you get them if i may ask

the way i figure it
most dj's play about 6 tracks every half hour (well that's my average)

so in 2 hours you should play about 24 tracks

so just plan around that
you'll obviously have maybe 10 - 15 tracks that you know for sure you want to play at some point in time
then for the remaining 14 - 9 tracks...i suggest bringing 2 - 3 vinyl for every potential track

for example...
say you have enough tiem for about 9 tracks...bring 18 - 27
so in this case...14 tracks = 28 - 42

i think its a little overkill when people bring more than a crate to a 2 hour gig
i mean a crate holds upwards of 70 - 100 vinyl
that's plenty of crap to sift through

quote:

Originally posted by Kid Lax i think its a little overkill when people bring more than a crate to a 2 hour gig i mean a crate holds upwards of 70 - 100 vinyl that's plenty of crap to sift through

But then you turn up and the other DJ's are off sick and you have to fill for them. Or a late addition to the line-up means that you will no longer be playing the main set but warming up for this superstar addition to the line-up. Don't think the crowd will like being warmed up with peak-time tunes, nor the other DJ's on the bill or the promoter who will look upon this lack of adaptability as a weakness in your DJ'ing!

You have to be adaptable, adaptability in a DJ is a promoters dream making them more likely to book you again.

i think we're coming from two different worlds though
im basing this on my experience in toronto, and here if you want to hear trance...you can either go to the guv (a super club which has one resident dj that plays the entire night unless there's headliners) or you have to go to a rave

im speaking strictly from the viewpoint of spinning @ raves
and more or less at raves you don't really warm up the crowd for the headliner...
because there's usually a lot of different styles of music, you just play your own thing

and its not likely that you will get bumped to an earlier time slot because well...you don't show up until its time to spin


if i was a resident at a club where i was warming up for other djs then i would completely change my viewpoint

im just basing this on my experience which pertains to toronto (i.e. raves)

Thats cool mate. Here in the UK the schedule of play can change before a night is just about to start. Dj's being held up in traffic, flight delays etc can cause problems. For example, there was one night in Glasgow where Guy Ornadel was spinning with Tiesto playing after him. Tiesto had been delayed but Ornadel was oblivious to this and had built up a set to its peak way before Tiesto arrived. The promoter came upto Ornadel and obviously asked him to keep on spinning. Most unprepared DJ's would crack at this request, Ornadel brought the pace down a bit and kept the night going until Tiesto arrived.

How does this relate to the original question? By bringing a lot more records than was needed Ornadel managed to hold the night together despite other DJ's being unable to play on schedule.

As for raves and big events you are spot on, no warm-up and you can play to your style no matter what the time!

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