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Thread: The art and practice of set planning.

  1. #51
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    This was a fascinating thread. I have to admit, I never pre-planned a set in my life (been DJing since late 80s with the exception of the last seven years--just getting back into it). I learned as a young DJ by the crash-and-burn method of guessing (hoping?) what song or string of songs would work for a particular crowd at a particular time of night, which wasn't much fun early on, but did teach me how to read a floor like a champ after much failure. I can honestly say that after countless hours of trial and error I developed various mental pre-planned playlists as I've no doubt a lot of you have after you get to know (or grow accustomed to) particular crowds or formats. You grow to learn how to build the night, when to drop the big anthems, how to sneak in new stuff or guilty pleasures, and bring it back to classics or whatever, depending on the crowd, the mood, the vibe, the time of night--and to be honest, if you were serious about the job (and had tough skin), it didn't take you all that long to learn how to do this. But I never actually thought about playlists before the night began. Only pre-planning I ever did before was for mixed tapes... I mean, mixed CDs, sorry... when I needed what I personally thought was the best assortment of 72 minutes of music in the best order that I found most pleasant--no physical crowd to react to, it was just a personal preference.

    More power to those who use pre-planning for live gigs. If it works for you, don't stop using it. I think this subject is analogous to writers of blockbuster novels who use extensive outlines before they start their first drafts versus writers of other blockbusters who have little more than a beginning and an end in mind, with a few plot-points in between before they wing their first drafts. The outliners have a general direction they're following and can make room for some unexpected surprise turns in the plot, while the writers working from stream of consciousnesses with minimal concrete plot-points can still achieve a satisfying story but in a more reactive manner. Pluses and minuses to each approach. Good luck to all!

  2. #52
    Book Marking this thread for later .... Looks very good .... Debate a plenty i think

    Both A and B noob dj's would have ZERO clue how to read a crowd .. Agreed ? ... It takes ages to figure that shit out ... Unless you drop something shit into a flowing set and EVERYONE walks away .... Remember this ... When people walk off the floor .... You can't just drop the next track and they all come running back.

    Looking forward to reading this thread later

    Peace yall !
    Last edited by Usta_B_aDJ; 03-22-2015 at 08:32 AM.

  3. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    It takes ages to figure that shit out ...
    Agreed. Okay, maybe not ages, but lots of hours of epic fails and small victories.


    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    Unless you drop something shit into a flowing set and EVERYONE walks away ....
    Been there many times. Amazing how quickly you learn when you have hundreds of people staring at you like you're an idiot.


    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    When people walk off the floor .... You can't just drop the next track and they all come running back.
    Do you mean if the next track is from your pre-planned set? If so, I agree. You need to learn how to go off the grid fast when needed. Usually there's a tune or two you can reach for in a pinch that you know will bring the crowd back usually--tunes you didn't expect to be playing so soon or at all, for that matter. Key is not to use too many of these bullets early on in the night or at all if you don't need to (depending on the song). They should be stored in a folder labeled "Break Glass in Case of Emergency." I broke the glass many times in the early years, but fortunately, not too often since.

  4. #54
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    ^^ I still remember the exact tracks that cleared the dancefloor, years ago - still giggle to myself about them, as they went on to be a lot of people's favourites.

    and I have to say, doing an off-the-bat set doesn't mean randomly selecting tunes; it takes a lot of mental planning, practice with each track in the boxes, and arrangement of boxes to aid memory [for different paths] on the night. Combine that with absorbing the energy of the people who come, and you're providing a bespoke night especially for them.

  5. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    Book Marking this thread for later .... Looks very good .... Debate a plenty i think

    Both A and B noob dj's would have ZERO clue how to read a crowd .. Agreed ? ... It takes ages to figure that shit out ... Unless you drop something shit into a flowing set and EVERYONE walks away .... Remember this ... When people walk off the floor .... You can't just drop the next track and they all come running back.

    Looking forward to reading this thread later

    Peace yall !
    hopefully, a newb DJ will be coming from the dancefloor, so will already know what moves it.

  6. #56
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    @Mosa: Cheers man, interesting post, sorry to pick a bit out.

    Quote Originally Posted by mosca View Post
    I learned as a young DJ by the crash-and-burn method of guessing (hoping?) what song or string of songs would work for a particular crowd at a particular time of night, which wasn't much fun early on, but did teach me how to read a floor like a champ after much failure.
    I've done that, but have no fond memories of it, scrambling around for anything that would mix in. I also feel (yet obviously don't know) that the above crash and burn would work in the 80s because people knew less about DJing. When I cut my teeth in the late nineties, there were many who would pounce at the first misstep.


    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    Both A and B noob dj's would have ZERO clue how to read a crowd .. Agreed ? ... It takes ages to figure that shit out
    Cheers Usta; though I'm with dlove on this one. I was crowd reading way before I got decks. Collione (did I get that right) might pop round and exclaim about boothriding being a valuable source of experience.

    For me crowd reading's like sex, nearly everyone can do it, but can you bring your partner to orgasm? Let alone a room full of strangers

  7. #57
    Quote Originally Posted by Jimanee View Post

    Cheers Usta; though I'm with dlove on this one. I was crowd reading way before I got decks. Collione (did I get that right) might pop round and exclaim about boothriding being a valuable source of experience.

    For me crowd reading's like sex, nearly everyone can do it, but can you bring your partner to orgasm? Let alone a room full of strangers
    I guess i come from a different era ... And a different scene ...And not a conventional route to the booth.

    My first encounter was in the late 70's with West Indian Blues Party's ... I lived next to a Jamaican family that had built a huge sound system.. 4x twin 18" Bassbin scoops ... 4x quad 12" Mid's ... 4 x 8 tweeter with 4 horns ... For anyone who knows this scene will know that's a pretty epic system .... So my love was for the sound system first.

    I grew up around the system... Partys ... Sound Clash ... Toasters ( Mc's ).... HUGE BASS
    By the time i was 13- 14 i was working my ass off to get money together to buy bit's of kit to build my own sound system.... At about the same time hip hop was just breaking in NY and a few dudes from NY come to my school on student exchange and brought this new music with them .... I was hooked !

    So with Sound system almost finished I started doing street party's ( Block Party's ).... Everyone come to dance ... No crowd reading skills needed ... You drop a beat and people would dance to it ... Break Dancing And Body Poppin all over the place ...pretty much all the music i played was import due to the fact that hip hop and Electro had not made it's way to the UK mainstream at that point... By the time i was 15 i had won a remix comp on a local radio station and was guest dj most weeks on a Friday night show... I had never been to a club at this point !... I was 15

    I won't bore you with the rest of the story ... But by the time i got into a dj booth in a club i was already known ... And people who come to the clubs i was Djing in come to dance and have a good time ...NOT to see me .... To Dance ..... No crowd reading needed .... It's almost like crowd reading was invented later on.

    I do have a bad story about guesting at a club in a provincial town in the mid 90's and trying to introduce the crowd to Speed Garage .....lol .... not a pretty sight ... This club was more your ABBA and Chart nonsense stuff ...... About 20 people got it and went nut's ... The rest left and went to the other room .... I played hard to the 20 people and we had a great time ...So i don't even consider that to be a horror story.

    So i dunno ...I guess if you play good music people will dance ....Attention spans seem to be shorter today.

    Sorry for the long story .... just wanted to put my experiences out there ... Some here might get it

    Peace
    Last edited by Usta_B_aDJ; 03-24-2015 at 08:54 AM.

  8. #58
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    ^^ I'd venture kids are more fickle these days...back when I went clubbing on a weekly basis, I went to everything, with no preconceptions of what I expected of the night. I went to absorb new music. Now, the kids are absorbing what they like before they come out on their computers, and deciding what they like and don't like before they get to the dancefloor.

    As an old-timer, I find this frustrating, as a commercial vibe has crept in as a result - sounds that grab you instantly at 320kbps top of the pile online (being the same tracks that sound absolutely horrible over a proper system), the art of the warm-up disappearing into the ether, and the DJ's following the crowd instead of the other way 'round.

    It's not all doom & gloom, with mighty problems come mighty solutions, but I think the clubscene has definitely been affected by social media.

    [sorry for going slightly off-topic!]
    Last edited by dlove; 03-25-2015 at 02:49 AM.

  9. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Usta_B_aDJ View Post
    I guess i come from a different era ... And a different scene ...And not a conventional route to the booth.

    My first encounter was in the late 70's with West Indian Blues Party's ... I lived next to a Jamaican family that had built a huge sound system.. 4x twin 18" Bassbin scoops ... 4x quad 12" Mid's ... 4 x 8 tweeter with 4 horns ... For anyone who knows this scene will know that's a pretty epic system .... So my love was for the sound system first.

    I grew up around the system... Partys ... Sound Clash ... Toasters ( Mc's ).... HUGE BASS
    By the time i was 13- 14 i was working my ass off to get money together to buy bit's of kit to build my own sound system.... At about the same time hip hop was just breaking in NY and a few dudes from NY come to my school on student exchange and brought this new music with them .... I was hooked !

    So with Sound system almost finished I started doing street party's ( Block Party's ).... Everyone come to dance ... No crowd reading skills needed ... You drop a beat and people would dance to it ... Break Dancing And Body Poppin all over the place ...pretty much all the music i played was import due to the fact that hip hop and Electro had not made it's way to the UK mainstream at that point... By the time i was 15 i had won a remix comp on a local radio station and was guest dj most weeks on a Friday night show... I had never been to a club at this point !... I was 15
    I've got to say that's a pretty cool introduction to dance music and DJing, great bit of experience.

    I got into things as a teenager on the cusp of the internet generation - i.e. early 2000s when it was still a bit of a pain to download music, Youtube, Beatport etc weren't a thing but there were music forums and so on, and as someone without friends into dance music and too young to go to clubs (and living in culturally devoid white-Scottish suburbia without any sound-owning Jamaican neighbours ) it was a major way I learned about music alongside radio. By the time I started going to clubs things were on the way to what they are now but still an element of what dlove talks about where you'd just go out without too many conceptions. Since then it's changed so much. There's still plenty folk with open minds and using the technology to its advantage (as in, to discover a wider, or even if genre-specific a deeper, selection of music than ever) but on the other hand there is definitely that element of people being more picky about what they go out to in the first place because they're able to educate themselves on it. Which isn't even always accurate - for example people often judge a DJ who's visiting the city soon by listening to a few of their productions even though their sound as a DJ could be much wider and/or quite different.
    Last edited by disparate; 03-25-2015 at 07:24 AM.

  10. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jimanee View Post
    For me crowd reading's like sex, nearly everyone can do it, but can you bring your partner to orgasm? Let alone a room full of strangers
    Fo real.

    I disagree.

    Anyone can play crowd pleasers. Not everyone can read a crowd at all.
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