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Spinning club nights...do you create a tracklist? (pg. 2)
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| djkoolaide |
| 45-55 tracks for a 5-hour set?! I drop that many tracks in one hour :) |
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| Stu Cox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sound O fTrance
In regards to my previous statement...what you are saying perfectly makes sense. But don't you think the roundabout is already based off of who you are as an artist and what is expected of your sound? I mean if you play hard house for 20 minutes and techno the next, thats fine.
But I don't feel you should have 3,000 songs lined up in case some people are not "satisfied". You play what you play (in context obviously) |
Yeah, if it's a relatively underground night then it's your "right" to put across your sound to an extent, but you'd be daft not to have quite a wide view of what your sound is... I think just about any DJ you can name plays some deeper stuff, some tougher stuff, some more uplifting stuff and so on, regardless of the genre, and they'll all have some more commercial stuff they can bring out from time to time, e.g. remixes of chart tunes, probably Coldplay haha
So while you might be a trance DJ for example, particularly if you're playing a set that long you need to take a selection of the full spectrum of what you play and adjust it within that band to suit the crowd and the time of night... it's not just a case of "they'll like trance" or even "they'll like deep techy house" - there'll be stuff with big hooks, stuff with vocals etc in there you'll need to be ready with to grab the floor if people start to get bored.
It's the same with any genre, any gig - you've gotta prepare to be flexible, even if it's only within "your sound" (which as I say should never be TOO restricted)
And there is no greater feeling than totally selling out for one tune (with Insomnia or something) and watching the dancefloor totally going off :) haha |
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| Zild |
I've never thought that was a great feeling, but to each his own. Everyone is different though. I would much rather play what I want at my own house for 15 of my close friends than cheese it out at the club to make random people I don't know dance, and line the pockets of some bar owner I couldn't care less about. Thats why I only take gigs where I know the crowd will like what I also like.
But if you're trying to make this your actual job then you will be at the mercy of the crowd. So make sure you come prepared.
If you learn how to mix harmonically you can cross genres at a whim and it will sound great. |
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| Stu Cox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
I've never thought that was a great feeling, but to each his own. Everyone is different though. I would much rather play what I want at my own house for 15 of my close friends than cheese it out at the club to make random people I don't know dance, and line the pockets of some bar owner I couldn't care less about. Thats why I only take gigs where I know the crowd will like what I also like.
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That's why I said "for one tune"... throwing a "sell-out" tune into a set of underground stuff gets a much bigger reaction than it would do in a whole set of cheesey stuff, it's worth doing once in a while :) |
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| Zild |
The people I usually play for would all turn and walk out if I played something like insomnia in the middle of a good set.
At the very least I'd never hear the end of it from friends, other DJs, and maybe even promoters if it got that far. And in this business I better believe it will get that far. |
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| Sound O fTrance |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
The people I usually play for would all turn and walk out if I played something like insomnia in the middle of a good set.
At the very least I'd never hear the end of it from friends, other DJs, and maybe even promoters if it got that far. And in this business I better believe it will get that far. |
Zild I have had the same mindset as you for a while now. But I am starting to realize that it is very limiting if you would like to start playing at renowned clubs (even if they solely host to electronic music). It is true that many DJ's do have harder/deeper/mellow styles all of which they may implement depending on the event, and crowd. I myself stand as a producer and DJ, and I most certainly have a style and genre which I play... varies from progressive/house/electro.
I think it is important to realize that until we reach a point as professional artists to be placed in a significant line-up for an event, we need to be able to flex our sound and have fun while doing it.
I have been anal building sets (playlists) over the past few years tempting to perfect my sound. I feel like by reading the crowd and selecting tracks at random my mixes won't be nearly as solid. But then again, what defines solid? (the crowd having fun all night while you manage to flex in the genres that you play? Or playing a dead bolt tracklist just to make things "FLOW"?) |
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| Stu Cox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
The people I usually play for would all turn and walk out if I played something like insomnia in the middle of a good set.
At the very least I'd never hear the end of it from friends, other DJs, and maybe even promoters if it got that far. And in this business I better believe it will get that far. |
I think you'd be surprised what you can get away with. Not everyone at an underground night is as underground as you might think, loads of them have been dragged there by friends etc, I think it's very rare that you get a crowd of which even 50% are so snobby that they wouldn't find it a bit of fun when something like that dropped in...
I'm not suggesting do it every time, and obviously the kind of tune you can get away with will vary depending on the crowd and the kind of music you're playing, but I guarantee there are tunes that you might consider seriously cheesy that the majority of the people there would enjoy for one track before returning to more underground stuff, if only dropped in for 30 seconds.
And who gives a what your friends say if the majority of the people there love it? Nowadays I rarely hear "normal clubbing people" (as opposed to up-their-own-arse DJs) raving about how awesome an underground tune was... if I hear a good comment about a set, it's more often than not that the DJ had the balls to play something on the commercial side and it really worked.
But as I say, if you rinse a set with that you DO just become another cheese DJ... in my experience a lot of people want DJs who can play an underground set but aren't afraid to throw something in that literally everyone in the room will know from time to time, and it makes it more special when they do. |
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| Stu Cox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sound O fTrance
I think it is important to realize that until we reach a point as professional artists to be placed in a significant line-up for an event, we need to be able to flex our sound and have fun while doing it.
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Even then, do you think PVD still likes For An Angel, having played it 3 or 4 times a week, week in week out for the last 10 years? I bet he's ing sick of it (although I expect he's still quite proud of how popular it still is) - but he plays it because people expect it. Same goes for Ferry and all of the old System F classics etc |
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| Clovis |
| Its all a question of who you want to DJ for. |
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
I always follow my mates advice when I play out.
ALways know your opener, and the next two tracks to follow, just to give you time to get used to the set up and crowd. Then play whatever else feels right at the time.
Also helps if you know what you're gonna end on, but this is not so important when you got 2 hours to chose.
Static playlists are a no no, unless its like major major festival, in which case you'll knwo how to flow a set together. |
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| Zild |
| quote: | Originally posted by Stu Cox
I think you'd be surprised what you can get away with. Not everyone at an underground night is as underground as you might think, loads of them have been dragged there by friends etc, I think it's very rare that you get a crowd of which even 50% are so snobby that they wouldn't find it a bit of fun when something like that dropped in...
I'm not suggesting do it every time, and obviously the kind of tune you can get away with will vary depending on the crowd and the kind of music you're playing, but I guarantee there are tunes that you might consider seriously cheesy that the majority of the people there would enjoy for one track before returning to more underground stuff, if only dropped in for 30 seconds.
And who gives a what your friends say if the majority of the people there love it? Nowadays I rarely hear "normal clubbing people" (as opposed to up-their-own-arse DJs) raving about how awesome an underground tune was... if I hear a good comment about a set, it's more often than not that the DJ had the balls to play something on the commercial side and it really worked.
But as I say, if you rinse a set with that you DO just become another cheese DJ... in my experience a lot of people want DJs who can play an underground set but aren't afraid to throw something in that literally everyone in the room will know from time to time, and it makes it more special when they do. |
We are on a completely a different page. I wouldn't play somewhere if I knew half the people there don't like electronic music and were just dragged along by a friend. And really my friends would be the majority of the people there. After years of clubbing almost everyone in the place is your friend in one way or another. |
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| Stu Cox |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
We are on a completely a different page. I wouldn't play somewhere if I knew half the people there don't like electronic music and were just dragged along by a friend. And really my friends would be the majority of the people there. After years of clubbing almost everyone in the place is your friend in one way or another. |
I'm not saying they wouldn't necessarily like electronic music, they're just not necessarily used to nights like that, or they don't know enough about it to have an opinion of what's cheesy and what isn't - they're probably having an awesome time, but throw it a tune they might know and it'll make it their night of the year.
That's nearly always the case over here at least, maybe not half of the people there but enough people to make it worth bearing in mind. Maybe across the pond you've got the luxury of having crowds who only respond to the latest, most underground stuff.
And to be perfectly honest I think you're talking if you're saying you'd turn down an gig if you knew that anything another than 100% of the people there were proper hardcore underground ravers, but...
Anyway, my point in the first place (before I wandered off a little bit) was that you should just prepare yourself for eventualities like that. Everyone has classics they like to play every now and again, everyone has tunes that will be better known or more recognisable than others - just be prepared to pull these out if the crowd turns out to not be as underground as you might think. |
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