Hi everyone, I've got a couple of questions concerning the actual technicalities of planning and mixing a DJ-set. I am not a DJ yet, but plan to get some equipment to start practicing on soon. I have some of the contacts needed to get to play at a few really big clubs already (they have guest DJs every month), but don't want to make a fool out of myself by just doing it without being sure of myself first. The music i want to play (mainly on CDJ at first) is regular alternative pop music or "indie", as well as electro. This means I want to work around the strict guidelines of not varying the BPM to much between songs, since most often the songs of that genre that fit together the best in my opinion are not the ones that have the most fitting beats. You are of course free to correct me if you think I'm way out of line.

When you want to play a song that's way out of tempo with the previous set - say, 150 BPM compared to the previous 125 BPM - do you then just let the end of the song ring out and then play the next one, or do you just never play songs that are that different in tempo after each other?

Do you gradually adjust the pitch during the song bit by bit if you want to play a song that's about 8 BPM faster next?

How do you manage songs that give you little or no time to find the correct tempo on your own before it kicks into, let's say the verse where you'd want the song to start on the dance floor? Do you just mix them really fast, or is there another way?

Perhaps more questions will come up, but I'd be really grateful for your opinions on these ones for a start. Thank you!

The best thing you can do with massive BPM jumps (8 BPM is not small, btw) is to make a feature of them.

Use a filter to roll off all the volume over 4 bars, then, as long as it has a big opening, bring in your next tune on the first beat of the next bar. Alternatively, you could 'Crash' the tune. That is, engage the Master Tempo function then, over 1 or 2 bars (any longer would get a bit tedious), reduce the playing speed to 99%. On the first beat of the next appropriate bar, bring your next tune in.

Also, some tunes have intro's that are quite different in their arrangements to the main body of the song. Using Master Tempo, you can play these intro's at whatever speed you like (again, making a feature of them) as long as you return to 0% the instant the main bit of the song begins. You can also loop some intro's and return them (over 4 bars, say) to their original speed before coming out of the loop. Another trick to make really big BPM leaps is to create a loop out of the first three beats of the intro of your second tune and have that running as a triplet over your (much slower) first tune. Unfortunately, if you don't have a rudimentary understanding of time signatures, it's a bit difficult to explain in writing. Sorry.

All of these things will help you jump about the BPM range, but the best trick of all though is NOT to use those tricks very often, maybe once or twice every 90 minutes - arrange your set so these massive jumps aren't actually necessary. It's also worth noting that very few Indie/Pop/Rock songs fade out these days. Thankfully most of them have an actual ending - and going between two tunes that have a 5 or 10 BPM difference isn't going to matter that much if one ends properly and the other has a pronounced start, as long as you keep time.

Remember; There's more to DJ'ing than just mixing.

Best of luck - and have fun!

Enjoy that free guru level advice, any who read.

Nicely put cheeb.

Try and rec. a group of songs that you would like to mix on one cd. try and keep the bpm range withn 2 bpms you can get around 12 extended mixes on one cd. Than copy the cd this way you can have a set loaded in your cdj's and not looking for music,and just work on your set.

quote:

Originally posted by PeterMichael:
Enjoy that free guru level advice, any who read.

Nicely put cheeb.

Ooh! "Guru" ...I like that!