Hey guys, I'm a DJ in san diego and have a question about opening at events. Now when I play after another DJ and when there is a semi crowd on the dance floor I think I do great. I'm having a good time, the ppl are, and there's a lot of energy when I play. But when I open and start with zero crowd building up the night i feel like my sets dont have that same energy when I play peak hour. I want to start slow ofcourse but feel like the entire time I play its mellow or when I try to get more banging the ppl are not dancing or into it like when I take over. Can you guys give me any tips?
All the Best

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Warming up well can be the hardest thing to do.

What I try and do is go for tracks with a groove but relatively few elements and not much of a "hook" as such, which means you can give things a bit of life without them being too energetic or too "peak-time". This kind of thing can be quite hard to find though because most producers just want to make anthems! You can always steal tracks from other genres - some tech house can work really well in a warm up for a trance night, it's just a matter of looking around, listening to lots and lots of music and seeing what you can find.

Try and avoid long (or even average-lengthed) breakdowns too - for me, a warm up isn't so much about going from mellow, chilled music to hands in the air stuff, it's about going from stuff with a bit of a kick that makes people want to nod their heads at the bar, to stuff which makes them want to bounce on the dancefloor. Leave the emotional stuff to the DJs playing later on (depending on how long your warm up set is)

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Stu Cox |

My best advice and I think Mr Cox is saying the same is that it's got to have a bit of funk.

As stated, avoid breakdowns and yes borrow from other genres. A bit of funky medium paced techno can also work. Housey Breaks can also do the trick.

There is an art to picking out good warm up tunes and it does take some time to learn how to pick them. Just as warming up itself is an artform.

It also depends on the venue, music policy etc. Stu and I may warm up differently due to the venues we play but we would probably take the same principles with us. The advice he has given you is sound.

The thing I would add to his comments is that the other thing is that you have to be able to create an impression of building energy even if the set itself is quite understated so your ability to pick tunes has to accomodate this.

It's actually quite a bizare experience the first time you find yourself shopping for a warm up set.

Your goals are to get as many people comfortable with the idea of dancing and to take the energy to a level where the next DJ can follow on in a logical way.
The latter is a bit more the DJ after you's concern but you don't want to find yourself in a place where you are ending your set with the type of tracks that he would logically be playing in the middle of his.

Just create a groove, use a few modulation mixes when the dancefloor thickens with people a little and keep it bouncing.

Cheers
Nem

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Talk to the guy you are setting up. Make sure if you are opening for a DJ that cost the club a pretty penny that you don't play his tracks and that you leave him in a position to be right were he wants to be when he gets on the decks. When the headliner doesn't have to reset the floor and ends up playing a legendary set that people talk about for a while to come, the opener doing his his job perfectly always tend to happen. You might not get the glory, but this is a skill that i personally think goes above what most touring dj's do. Communicate, know the expectations in advance (club,artist..ect) and follow through.

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a good opening dj is worth their weight in gold, the only thing i can add to what nem and cox said is you want to get people grooving without having to get them on the dancefloor necessarily

pick tunes that aren't too overpowering but have that feel to them that'll get people tapping their feet and bobbing their heads while they drink and socialize

your job is to get the crowd primed to dance while they drink and have a good time before the headliner gets on

then during the last few songs, kick it up and get people on the floor

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Nothin too fast, something groovy/funky that gets people in the mood. But really make a conscious effort to keep the bpm down.

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Look around you and smile if you look at the people at the bar and such you'll see a bit of reaction to good tunes...just don't simply expect them to come to the dance floor too soon...

if you were them would you start dancing right at the beginning of the party?

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quote:

Originally posted by Tony Morello nem and cox

That's our collab name sorted haha

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Stu Cox |

for the first few hours when a club opens, it's a given that people aren't going to dance.

the most important thing to warming up is to keep people there, and the way I believe that is done is by creating atmosphere and an electric sense of potential in the air.


The best thing you can do IMO is to play so that people feel the urge to dance but they don't want to because it would be social inappropriate for them to do so. You create this web of tension in the room where everyone is feeling the same thing.

Milk it for all you can.



Then when the room fills up just right, people have had some drinks, and the tension is really high, you make your move.

My favorite thing to do or watch is to pick one track ahead of time in the set that I know will be impossible to resist dancing to.

Drop this track dramatically in the set - use the drama of the track or mix it in such a way that gets people's attention.

One group of crazy girls or a couple or several will jump on the floor, a little buzzed. Keep it going and people will slowly accumulate.

It's like flash point in a room filled with gasoline. If you have lighting to work with, or an engineer, try to coordinate. Lighting has a huge effect. At the beginning ideally lights are low but not too low. Volume is low, people can talk/drink. Work up the volume and dim the lights at a point when the crowd is bigger. People will feel intimately connected to the music. Start playing things that catch ears more, and then use the lighting to create energy on that 'flashpoint' drop.

You need to still be focusing on creating atmosphere and tension.

Don't blow your load too early - it's not about you. No one cares about you. Resist the urge to play peak-time music even at the end of your opening set. All the music should have an upward direction as you go into the main set. If you 'joyride' the crowd and play a bunch of peak time music and leech off of the headliner's crowd and bounce around/jesus pose it just looks unprofessional and lame.



Opening sets are the most fun for me. It's really like a game of psychology. It helps that I tend to play more atmospheric/chill music



all this is easier when you play for a good crowd full of freaks

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Originally posted by Stu Cox That's our collab name sorted haha

Kewl! What are we making by the way? :P

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Back in the day when I would buy LOTs of vinyl records every monday & friday, I would pick out tracks specifically for the warm up.
I KNEW I would never play them later on in a night, but they had a kind of warm up-y vibe to them...they built nicely, had a good groove, and no long breakdowns. There was a box with just warm up tunes- and some of them stayed in there for a long while.
Don't be afraid to drop some older tracks- familiarity can work very well.

The best word I would use to describe the perfect warm up atmosphere, is 'tension'- you should be able to feel it building and building, until right near the end of your set, you let them have it- by that I dont mean drop some huge anthem, just a track that will release that tension.

Also, dont forget to build the volume -on the master ideally. Blasting it out at max volume early doors when the room is empty will sound HORRIBLE.

You can either do this well, or you can't- thats why I get rather irritated sometimes when mr big DJ whos had a couple of big selling downloads is suddenly headlining.... no concept of paying your dues anymore, which myself, Nem, Stu and Tony, and thousands of others in the past had to do.

Any cnut can get on at peak time and bang out the latest wankport top ten. however, getting people to dance to unknown or lesser known tracks when the floor is empty and people are not yet toasted is an artform.
I firmly believe still to this day, that getting a warm up residency is where you REALLY learn the art of Djing properly and it will stand you in good stead for your career.

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec all this is easier when you play for a good crowd full of freaks

oi

Last edited by Freak on Mar-10-2008 at 01:35

quote:

Originally posted by ******** get it started. you might like to play really sick sick music with a sick groove and tribal esque etc.. that will inspire any dancing bone to shake. It's all what you have I guess but I think tribal tech and house are the best groove sounds to get into the groove with.. but I guess it in part may be what the crowd likes.. but hip hop etc.. seems popular around these parts. Personally I think house is my favorite fresh groove music... trance is more the 3 hours later stuff. Good techno is alright too.. For some it may not be as inspiring to get into a 160bpm track from the ignition.. for others anyhting goes.. I've always been someone to go to the dancefloor even if there wern't people or few people on it. You could try screaming to people GET YOUR A#*'S ON THE FLOOR!!!! then get some hardcore going to that maybe.... or some gabba/terracore.. etc.. nothing like 360bpm to get people in the mood to dance. it might now work in all environments.. some dj's even dance to their own music... play some name of your dj.. then anything may go after that. so many tracks.. get yourself going.. then work with what you got on the floor or otherwise. it'll warm up regardless.. if time and space provides see if you can do two sets in the night.. one warm up and other when it is fresh. (at the least it might be entertaining) I think it depends on venue and audience

Let me get this straight...

You are advising people to scream at the clubbers?
You are advising people to drop music at 360bpm for a warm up?
You think that techno is 160bpm?
Terracore or Gabba to get people to dance?

The Hip Hop thing I can swallow, as it's lower bpm and may work in the US, what do I know? In the UK it's doubtful that it would work except perhaps for a DnB or Breaks night.

Admitted that a bit of mic control is a good skill to have in case of emergency, but to scream at clubbers you are venturing into the world of being an MC and that requires massive amounts of charisma.

Dropping Gabba or Terracore on a Trance night, you are most likely not just to empty the dance floor but to empty the club, get sacked by the promoter and loose face all over town and possibly never work again...

Techno tends to exist around 120bpm to about 140bpm, at a 160bpm you start getting your DnB and HardCore, but not Techno. Techno can have quite a soulfull groove and is very user friendly for all kinds of nights.

I really hope that I have misread your post because otherwise you are either from the strangest clubbing culture on the planet or the worst warm up DJ in history. You could also be taking the mickey.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood your post. If not then avoid this advice at all costs.

Cheers
Nem

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