This is a follow on from this thread, if you haven't please read part 1 first
So you have prepared your set sequence, now, if you want, you can micro manage the individual mixes. One of the possible advantages to planning ahead is that you can work out the phrasing so everything drops nicely.
With vinyl I would just remember the point to start mixing, with CDs, well I use points in the “time remaining” display (this display is safer than “time elapsed” as the latter won’t warn you of the end of the track).
By all means use your own short hand; I use SM for Start the Mix, LM for Leave Mix and MID for Make Incoming track Dominant.
Now it is bad practice to just have one SM point; what if you miss it or need to mix out earlier?
Here is the great combo from MJ – Billie Jean to Eurythmics –Sweet Dreams
sm 03:08 LM 02:45
sm 02:07 LM 01:38
sm 01:38 LM 01:05
Not that I use these times literally, they can vary from device to device, just the start or end of the bar near that time will do. If you are into creative mixing, preparing and practicing in advance can give you the confidence and the time to do it live. And as you are micro managing anyway, you can go even further and practice, record the mixes and analyse them afterwards for mistakes you can avoid in the future (PS. I don’t really do this these days, too much effort).
The dangers of micromanaging mixes and how to overcome them.
Just mixing two tunes together with no thought other than mixing them is far simpler than when you are aiming for specific points, doing something complicated/ rehearsed and judging the results to all previous efforts.
Practicing the same mixes can make you stale, over critical and over confident. So why bother? Because if you practice a prepared set well, it can be a key to delivering a smooth professional performance under difficult circumstances.
By practicing well I mean find the optimum phrasing and EQ for each mix and then try to perform it under artificially difficult scenarios. Such as using no headphones, using only headphones, place your speakers in the room next door, no pitch control, no sync, whilst intoxicated, etc.
Listening back to these recordings should show you what you can pull off under those circumstances and you should have found some failsafe practices for when things don’t go your way.
Staleness
Now along the way you will also get rather bored of the same mixes/ songs, you will become stale. The way I get around this issue is to treat the performance of a prepared set the same as I would a martial arts Kata; the two share many similarities. One of the goals of a Kata is to perform a sequence of techniques in a natural, reflex like manner; sound familiar?
The difference in Kata from a noob and a master, is that the noob will be thinking “punch, kick, then turn, etc”. The master would be probably immersed in the performance, striving for the unobtainable perfection, mind and heart embracing the void spirit etc.
That’s how I try to perform prepared sets, with total dedication and focus; aiming for perfection in technique, body language and spirit.
In other words I really concentrate and make sure that I look like I’m doing something really difficult/ important, I really care and I’m having lots of fun.
Over criticalness
There is a problem with chasing perfection however, in that it can make us over critical, all those thousands of things to get right, being disappointed when you didn’t quite get it.
Well first of all, you should be the only one who knew what you were trying to accomplish. If you ended up just doing a smooth mix, when what you were attempting was the dropping both basslines together finishing with a triple spinback, that’s fine in your audiences eyes, don’t ruin it by pulling a screwface.
Secondly, with all your practice you should hear the drifts in your mixing before anyone else does, this can lead to the feeling that you think: that the audience thinks, you are drifting all over the place. There is no point analysing that at the time of the mix, just keep your focus, correct the drifts as you hear them and keep your game face on. Most people can’t even hear mixing if you don’t make it really obvious.
Over confidence
This can be a bitch too; after you nail a few of these prepared sets live, you can get to thinking it’s really easy and that you are really good, then you have to do your thing on unfamiliar crappy equipment and half of what you normally do becomes impossible and even the bare basics are a life and death affair. Remember to keep practicing under artificially difficult conditions and develop those failsafe practices/ mixes.
Be realistic in what you expect yourself to be able to pull off, if you do mix under the influence. There are certain mixes I wouldn’t dream of doing if I was too drunk and the consequences of drunken failure can be dire.
But, yes, feel free to practice the same set over and over again as long as you bear the above dangers in mind.
How to visualise what to play next in advance.
Well most of you are doing it naturally all the time, it’s the reason most of us became DJs in the first place: hear a tune and a track that would be good to mix in to it usually springs to mind. Great, make a note of that one(s); it will probably be the best.
Picking alternative mixouts is quite different from the above and to explain I’m going to have to use my method of crowd reading. It’s not the only one.
My way for crowd reading: I quiz nearly everyone I meet on their music tastes and categorise/ stereotype them, I find their likes, dislikes, their mehs and what they’ll put up with. Then imagine a venue real or fantasy, populate them with the appropriate stereotypes, in the right proportion too, then imagine their reaction to your choice.
For alternative mixouts you need to analyse the attributes of the track playing and their effect on the various groups of stereotypes. You identify the attribute that could cause a problem (ie. Cheesiness) and look for a tune that “fixes” the problem without angering the people who actually like the current track.
A quick dirty example, you are playing Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff, it’s misfiring, only a few girls, a couple of gay guys are really into it, middle aged men looking disgruntled; playing the planned great mix of Bee Gees’ You should be dancing, would be a mistake. Eurhythmics’’ Sweet Dreams should fix without losing the dancefloor.
Factoring in song history
Another common set planning problem is that the above is just one transition, peoples’ perceptions will be coloured by the previous tunes, to plan a set you must place yourself in each group and run through the entire set from their view point, based on their prejudices work through their perceived peaks and troughs to know what they are thinking at each point (what would Frank the Reggae freak from accounts make of these three funk transitions?). You may then manipulate those thoughts.
Now at this point you might scream “this is impossible”, well sort of it is and that's half the fun, but you can get pretty close. And, of course, you can be limited by the genre that you are playing, no need to worry about your Mum’s perception of your musical journey whilst playing Dubstep.
A simple set planning theme
Also you can simplify matters, one way is by picking two opposing extremes of stereotypes that represent the outer limits of those you are going to cater for. On my Disco/ Retro nights for the warm up I usually go between one of my exes representing a Club Bimbo and DJF’s own Badger representing a stuck in the 80s curmudgeon (only kidding )
I aim to move between the two every 3-5 tunes, so that both parties like 3 out of 4 tracks, favouring mainly the girls obviously.
In the club I keep a sharp eye on peoples’ drinks and I aim to play the track they won’t like, the moment after they have bought a drink. Be warned doing the above the wrong way round and playing the track that they hate, just as they are making the decision to stay and have another drink, will drive people away.
Moving back and forth will keep people in a club, but it won’t pack the floor, at the right moment play a track that everyone likes and blow the roof off the place. This track would ideally be part of the main anthem smasher set.
More set planning themes.
I have other variations of this theme, sets where I change genre and music decade every two songs, great for audience analysis. Or sets where you presume each song goes badly and play the “fixer” afterwards, this won’t win you fans but is kind of bombproof.
But why follow/ react when, ideally, you should be leading. There’s a fair amount of DJs that just play the music they love, I like to do that as well. I like being an “ambassador” for the tunes I support.
If I just played my best stuff locally, I would be playing it to an empty room. So I have to carve out an audience from people with an openish mind, students, hipsters, the fringe, ravers, band people etc. So here as an example is my “Jimanee’s reggae, funk, world, mash up Lounge all conquering" theme which aims to get into these people’s heads and reprogram their musical tastes to my (obviously superior ) way of thinking.
I usually start with obscure funk, scratch any of the above mentioned people you should find they appreciate bit of funk, then I start to play some evil head games with them, I play stuff that I like and know that they know, only I play better versions or the originals of the track they know had sampled and then I aim to pwn them with my even better more obscure stuff.
Bludgeon at them long enough for them to get the Meta message: “This guy plays really cool stuff that’s better than mine”. Once their spirit has been broken and they trust you, you can lead them into really uncharted territory.
This is still an experimental theme for me, also very dangerous and frankly immoral, but I’ve had more successes than failures and the failures are just me ending up playing requests and mainstreamish stuff. So I thought I’d include it as an example theme that leads and manipulates.
The idea I’m trying to express is to find your own theme or story, label it, pick your tunes based on it, then apply it live, see how it goes down and tweak and change.
Planning ahead in the club
There is another element of set preparation; preparing sets live in the venue. It’s a bit like the above, only with no reason to imagine the crowd; they’re right in front of you. Try to read the crowd not just for the next song but how they are going to react to the next six, this is handy for spotting trouble in advance, if you know that the crowd won’t like track four, you have three tunes to sort an alternative. I try and keep several rough “set webs” going, whilst being more specific for the next 2-3 tracks. Not always possible, but I try.
This is also handy for playing requests, as having a good idea of the next six allows you the option of substituting one of them for the request, if they are similar, and you can give the happy requestor an accurate eta. In fact having a few sets can be used as a kind of map of tunes to work out how to get from the track playing to the requested tune.
Many argue that set preparation is no substitute for “knowing your tunes” (KYT) and I state that they are both pillars of “knowing your collection”: both KYT and how to flow through your collection.
That said some requests can be so incompatible, that if I professionally feel that it would work better with the crowd than what I have planned, I’m not too proud to say: I would just gently fade it in there and get the party started.
IMHO be ready to junk any plan to play the right tune at the right time.
Bookmarks