Trance Council Advice

[Vernski]

Good Morning Everyone,

I have come here seeking knowledge and wisdom from you guys and I chose to drop this thread here instead of general discussion for a couple of reasons...I'll get to that shortly....

Most of you probably know that I'm a DJ hobbyist since I joined in March of last year and I've gotten to know many of you in the past 10 months or so. I originally took it up at the time because I loved trance music and I really enjoyed listening to continuous mixes. I was lacking a creative outlet in my life and manipulating my own music purchases to create my own mixes was something that really appealed to me and so the this journey began. My original intention was to do a hobby that wasn't too expensive - (Wrong there :uhoh:) and something that I could do at home and be with my family in order not to miss time with them.

Lately my motivations have evolved as to why I do what I do now. What started as a hobby for me has changed into a passion and it has had an extremely positive effect in my life. The passion runs in different directions, there is the hunt to tracks/choons that give me goosebumps or practicing and continuing to try to improve in confidence and ability. There's also the listening and sharing aspect with you guys which honestly I find the most rewarding.

Some positive comments here and there from some of you had got me thinking about how far do I want to pursue this interest we all share here? In simple terms, hiding away in my Bed(STUDIO)Room isn't enough for me anymore.

There is a large chunk of a DJ's ability that consists of playing live and engaging the audience and this is the next step I am aiming to take.

So one of the reasons why I chose here and not the general discussion is that I really enjoy the stuff we all muck around with here, as I don't see myself wanting to play top 40, EDM shit etc...It doesn't do it for me at all. The other/main reason is that I have a huge amount of respect for the regulars in this subforum - you know who you are :love: So it just makes more sense to place it here. :)

I'm not it a hurry to start gigging and if someone asked me this afternoon to play somewhere out of the blue, I would say no, as it is something I don't want to rush into.

One last thing, I actually considered PMing some of you instead of posting as I was a little bashful about the whole thing.

I'm aware of some pitfalls to consider, but I am very interested in what you all have to think or say on what I've just discussed.

Cheers Everyone and thanks for reading my mini life story/novel :)

[Sedna]

I'll keep my advice to you short and sweet while trying to address each of your questions (in no particular order):

1. Find an event that will let you spin what you wanna spin. It's not gonna be a big place, and it's probably gonna be deep music as a warmup set (though this isn't always the case... my first gig in NYC was a closing set that I played 138-142 all night and my second gig was a peak hour gig where I played 128-136). Don't sell yourself short for a top 40 place. It's not worth it. The people there just don't want to hear techno and trance (at least not the good kind).

2. Play original tracks. I know you won't have a problem with this, I just like to reiterate. Stay away from cheesy Armin and A&B crap... all the big "commercially influenced" stuff. Armin and A&B tracks are fine, don't get me wrong, just play the ones that aren't marketed toward Avicii fans. The people who want to hear that shit just aren't the people you wanna impress. They'll forget about you in a day.

3. DO NOT program a setlist. Huge rookie mistake. Watch the crowd, feel the vibe. Start slow and groovy, and then ease into some techyness later in your set. See if/when your crowd is feeling the techy vibe or feeling the warm progressive vibe. Stick with what they're enjoying at the time, and if they look like they're anticipating a change-up, throw them a curveball and swing your set in a new (but harmonizing) direction. Stay on the same overall course and aim for a specific journey. It may sound corny, but try to picture the mood or even the color of your overall set as you're playing it.


As far as presenting yourself to promoters, just say "you're eager to work with them." They like hearing that type of shit. Get connected with your local scenes (LOTS of cool people to be found in the underground trance/techno scene). It will help you a lot. Send mixes around to promoters, keep them an hour or less because no promoter wants to listen to anything longer than that (unless they're your friend and you know they want to enjoy your mix).

Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions meng.

[Vernski]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Sedna again.....

Some really great stuff there, everything you mentioned makes sense to me and would definitely be the steps I will be making down the track.


3. DO NOT program a setlist. Huge rookie mistake. Watch the crowd, feel the vibe. Start slow and groovy, and then ease into some techyness later in your set. See if/when your crowd is feeling the techy vibe or feeling the warm progressive vibe. Stick with what they're enjoying at the time, and if they look like they're anticipating a change-up, throw them a curveball and swing your set in a new (but harmonizing) direction. Stay on the same overall course and aim for a specific journey. It may sound corny, but try to picture the mood or even the color of your overall set as you're playing it.

Number 3 here is probably my area of attention right now, I have cleared out about 200 songs of varied styles that I kept skipping when I'm mucking around at home. Right now I'm enjoying the discovery process with sub-genres and different artists and I'm building a more unique song "tool kit". During and after the our DJF Tourney, I really have gravitated towards the prog, tech and deep house stuff, even some techno (thanks Sedna :)).

I have 89 music files that fall under the warm up category, at the moment I'm experimenting with different tracks and seeing what goes well with what. I'm picking up about 10 tracks per week and I've been adding a note in the comments section of the file where I list good companion tracks to mix in or out of. I imagine that the need for notes will diminish once I get to know the tracks well, it's only that I'm getting new stuff regularly that it's tricky to remember it all. So right now, I'm trying to get to know the tracks I've got and getting and discovering what mixes in and mixes out well.

@Sedna: How many warm up style tracks do you have in your music tool kit when you do a gig?

[Sedna]

I dunno, man. I have thousands of tracks by now, all ranging from 118 BPM to 145. I would say that a really good chunk (1/3 maybe?) could be classified as "warm-up" appropriate. I also almost NEVER remove tracks from my DJ library unless they just really don't fit my style anymore.

Keep in mind that when you're warming the crowd up, you want to start reeeeeeeeeeeaaally deep, and then you probably want to hit your peak like 30-45 minutes before the headliner comes on. After your peak, simmer it down a little bit (not too much) in anticipation for the incoming DJ.