i usually use my home stereo

edit: however i do not listen to 100 songs lol.

Last edited by 112268 on Mar-13-2011 at 12:04

Probably should have said a much higher number. There are so many songs out there--you've got to wade through a ton in order to find the songs that fit you and your sound. Less than 5% of the songs I preview do I end up considering something I'd play out.

try find some favorite labels, artists and djs instead and focus on them.

I do that, to be sure. But, I will say this--the "six degrees of separation" model of EDM (meaning: multiple monikers, learning about remixers of artists you like) requires branching out.

Say a song comes out with six different remixes--you're doing a disservice to yourself not to check out all versions, because the obscure one in the release (the "unknown" remixer) might be the best of the bunch.

But, I don't want to get off topic too much here. I was more interested in finding out how people generally preview new material.

I personally wouldn't feel comfortable playing out a song I only listened to on iPod earphones. But, at the same time, it's the most convenient method, because you can listen to tracks you've picked up anywhere at any time.

Apart from deciding what to actually get which I listen to in my home studio, in terms of actually previewing the tracks, I would normally do this by actually mixing with them at home. These days I generally don’t listen to music whilst on the move, I used to wear a walkman (yup giving away my age) all the time, but since MP3s came out I simply can’t be arsed. I actually stopped round about the time portable CD players became popular which is going back some.

My life is so immersed in music anyway; I find the need to take a break from it all and just have my thoughts, that doesn’t mean I don’t think about music in terms of composing or mixing, on the contrary, that’s usually when my ideas come into being.

I often play 1 or 2 gigs out per week, do a radio show and do a mix session for at least one hour at home per week, not to mention the countless hours I spend in the studio.

The other thing is that with 26 years of being a DJ you kind of get the knack of being able to tell on first listen if something will work or not, plus with the hours in the studio, musical structure has become something that just comes naturally through creating my own work.

Back in the day though when this was still new to me, I would create mix tapes and listen to how the tracks worked with other tracks. Would play the mix to people and get their reactions. I used to know the names and producers of all tracks and could even tell you what the design was on the label of the vinyl. That has long gone and I find that now, tracks have a much shorter shelf life and have become more of a face in the crowd, something has to really stand out and appeal for me to remember names.

I still think the best way to get most ‘intimate’ with your tracks is to mix them, the more you work and experiment with them the more you get to know them and their charms. Just listening to them would be more of a chill out activity when I specifically don’t want to think about DJing. That doesn’t however mean that I wouldn’t pick something out if I heard it but it’s not the purpose of the activity.

Cheers
Nem

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Great post! I think you bring up a good point. When I was using vinyl, I did all of my listening at the record shops. It was completely different then, because you could just pick up the needle and move it anywhere on the record. And, you could remember much easier because of the packaging (the record itself, or the sleeve).

Although Beatport and other sites still have pictures, and Traktor imports some of these at times, it's not the same level of intimacy I had, so I think I've overcompensated by practicing listening to a whole track (this has other benefits, however, as I've picked up tracks for certain parts, and then edited out the parts I don't like of the songs--I just label as "edits" in my library then).

Maybe I would be better off emulating that, but you can't do that on store sites because often they are only providing snipets of songs, and two mins is hardly the amount you want familiarity with if you want to mix a song (properly).

So, listening to my initially posted 100 tracks, and figure you multiply that by 5-8 mins per song, you're looking at a significant amount of time (and like I said, I only end up choosing to use about 5% or less of what I hear). I'll give the live preview a try (live as in practice, not 'real' live!)!

i don't care about how i listen to them whether its laptop speakers, headphones or monitors. as the overall quality of production isn't what i'm after. its all about how much i like the track itself. i know pretty much straight away if i'll like it or not. i usually flick through the sample especially on trackitdown and djdownload with the needle drop system.

i try to look at one genre per day and save the tracks in my basket/wishlist that i like. then the next day i'll weed through these tracks and buy the ones i really like.

also i don't normally bother listening to tracks that have >4 remixes as this IMO shows a labels poor focus on its genre. the same goes radio edit as i believe it'll be too commercial.

i put all the racks on my ipod and go a run or to the gym to get to know my tracks then i just practice mixing with them. simples

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Online mixes here!!!