I want to pass my experiences on with Mixmeister in terms of a live setting and see if anyone else has had the same or different experiences.

I used it live with a preset playlist and didnt have any technical issues. The problem I had was when people requested songs or i wanted to change the order around. It seems a little difficult in a live setting to edit the points when the beats dont match up correctly. I guess its a little intimidating for the fear of screwing up the entire playlist.

Do most people who use Mixmeister stay with a preset playlist or put it together on the fly?

Also, if the beats dont match and need manual adjustment, are you able to match beats together in time to get the mix right?

Its sometimes hard to hear in a club and I find editing with Mixmeister to get the beats together is a little harder than just using standard beat mixing where you can cue and manually start the track.

If you can relay your experience to me, I would greatly appreciate it.

I never use preset playlists and always put them together on the fly in order to react to the audience.

What you need to do is set an 8,16 or 32 measure (whichever suits the track and your style) intro and outro sprocket for the tracks in your playlist and save them as presets (right click the track in hte timeline) then you know that when you add the track to the playlist the beats will always be in.

Hi,

In addition (if you can) use the preview capabilities of Mixmeister to listen to your transitions in advance of the mx. This way you'll have a feel-good factor when the mix comes up.

I also try and have the first three or so tracks in my set already tried & tested together at home.

This will give you a 3 track head start to add tracks on. This way, you don't get the dreaded 'black line' creeping up on you !

Gaz

i have used mm6 live, and still am, i agree with all the above, have a 15 min segement ready, 4 tunes already mixed in, and take it from there.
i've found the stuff i pulled off on mm3, in a non live situation is never going to happen while live, cause i don't have hours to spend on each transistion.
you can bang tunes down, mix them, quite easily, even jump from one 100bmp tune to 128 one, as long as you fade it, otherwise you'll get huge ramp in timeline, and pinky n porky style vocals. so don't be afraid to play a tune, even if it's out bmps with ya others.
having good headphones, and being able to preview your incoming transistions is the key. without it your fail. plain n simple. there's a monitor speaker set up where i play, but i never use it. no need i can hear all i want via me headphones. i've found that by laying a 15 minute start, i have plenty of time to add, remove songs, i've built up to 4 hours of mix this way, and not had a problem. my first ever set with mm6 was 5 and a half hours. which i thought was massive space to fill, but before you know it, the black line cometh, it stops for no one. i've even slapped a tune in, while it's was just getting to the transistion bit, and it mixed fine. did me nerves no good, but "one more tune" came the cry.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Celtic:
Its sometimes hard to hear in a club and I find editing with Mixmeister to get the beats together is a little harder

This is going to sound very obvious but if you're having trouble hearing your headphone cue audio then you are going to have a rough time accurately beat mixing. I was having this problem as well - as the party crowd increased the speaker volume gradually did as well, to the point where I could no longer hear the audio coming from my headphones very well and was stuck having to mix visually and hope for the best. So if you have your headphones connected directly to your PC or to a bus-powered USB audio device and find it doesn't provide enough power to the headphones, you might consider getting a headphone amp. The one I got is small and portable and worth every penny of the 50 or so dollars I paid for it.

And as Monk said, it helps tremendously to have your tracks "tweaked" with default intro and outro sprockets. It's not even so much about having preset intros and outros as it is about making sure the beat markers are lined up correctly throughout the track. So be sure to click on a few spots in the track (with "snap to beat" enabled) to make sure the beat markers actually do fall on the beats. If not, adjust your intro and outro sprockets so that they do, then use the "Rebuild Snap Grid Based On Sprocket Postion" function to lock in your adjustments. Then "Save Current Track Settings as Catalog Default". Hope this helps a bit.

i thought the tweaks saved themselves until they didn't so how exactly do they get saved? i not infront of MM to see it , that might help

I don't have v6, but in v5 you either right-click on the track in the playlist or on the timeline and choose "Save current track settings as catalog default" or hit "alt-s"

I would presume that it is the same in v6.

This is a critical point where many people get confused and miss out on one of the coolest features in Pro.

If you just save your playlist, then yes, your tweaks will be saved with all your edits intact. But that's only for that ONE playlist, and if you use the same song again in another playlist you'll be starting again with a blank slate.

By taking the extra step of saving your tweaks (as described above), you can then drop that song into any playlist, and in most cases the mixing is a snap. By "pre-mixing" songs in this way you'll find that it opens up a whole new level of possibilities for using MM.

And regarding tweaks in v5 and v6, the difference is that in Pro 6 you can save multiple versions of each song for different purposes. So go forth and start tweaking...

(((ardent)))

quote:

Originally posted by ardent:
And regarding tweaks in v5 and v6, the difference is that in Pro 6 you can save multiple versions of each song for different purposes. So go forth and start tweaking...

(((ardent)))

Now that to me is also a critical point, just because there is such a difference in how one track might need to be handled to mix with various other tracks ... until there was this capacity to have the multiple versions of tweaks, it didn't have the WOW factor ... it certainly does now.

Is there a master list of keyboard shortcuts (a PDF?) suitable for printing out?

Just did a quick google and didn't find anything.

OB

quote:

Originally posted by MadameFLY:
until there was this capacity to have the multiple versions of tweaks, it didn't have the WOW factor ... it certainly does now.

Yeah, that's a definite WOW factor. I may have to break down and get a copy of 6 now for my laptop (since I know have a system that has XP - 2K is still on the desktop), but the lappy is NOT a heavy duty system intended for audio work... so I'll have to give that some thought

quote:

but the lappy is NOT a heavy duty system intended for audio work... so I'll have to give that some thought

If you're just planning to do mixes for CDs and tag-teams ( ), then you may not need to much processing power...now if you had designs to go live...that's another story.

quote:

Originally posted by TRR*:
If you're just planning to do mixes for CDs and tag-teams ( ), then you may not need to much processing power...now if you had designs to go live...that's another story.

hehhe funny you should mention tag-teams, my Phunk Tribesman brother. There have been calls for a reunion (and was thinking about "tagging" ya) and I was re-looking over the lappy and it should have enough processing power - so I'm gonna d/l the pro demo and check it out Odds are i'll buy the upgrade and have 6 on the laptop and 5 on the desktop.

What I have done in the past is that I plan ahead of time to see what kind of music i will most likely play. Make sure that you talk to the people that hired you to see what kind of crowd is going to be at the party. Then I prepare a mix of about 10-15 songs and do mine mix and then wait for request and I usually can mix them on the fly as long as your intros mix well with other songs. AS a rule if I song ends with vocals I try to find a song that has an instrumental intro or I use just an instrumental bridge to mix the next song. I haven't had major problems and I usually tell the people that request music to give me about 5 minutes while I set it up. Most of the times though, I can mix within a couple of minutes.

hi fellow djs new to forum just reading posts from what dj celtic wrote i assume hes a mobile dj,what with requests etc,that is unless you usa club djs do it different over the pond, uk club djs dont do requests, full stop,however in my time as a mobile dj got plenty of them always when the floor was jumpin and you knew 9xouta10.it would kill the floor when it was played, did it when i first started, but soon stopped it, allways remember the majority outnumber the few and you wont go wrong if the floors jumpin keep it that way,stuff the request unless it fits in ,if it dont ,dont play it ,end of story. tell em u will play it later then forget about it ,as long as the floors full your doing your job right, stuff what anybody else thinks, that applys to all gigs weddings included just remember the most important person at the wedding disco is YOU everone remembers a good night, if its a crap night because you played stupid requests and killed the floor everyone remembers that crap dj ,not the the fact it was a request,so just remember your in charge ,stay incharge,dont let the punters take control you will regret it belive me,

This message has been edited. Last edited by: big al,

Got to disagree with you on some points Al, the most important person at any wedding is the bride, not the hired help!

If you want to make sure the night works well, then ensure you meet with your customers before the night, and set ground rules. Get their agreement that you control the music, and that they are paying for your experience and knowledge.

Double check if there are any particular songs that are important to the couple, or to their friends. It may be that the song you refuse to play, may be the tune that has meaning to the couple or to their group of friends, and by NOT playing it it could ruin the night!

Trust me, the last thing you want is an angry bride (and her dad, husband, family, best man etc) giving you grief for not performing the duty they are paying you for!

Preperation & planning are the important factors, and if you are forced to play something that you really don't want to, then make a feature of it....

• Get the name of the person who requested it,
  
• Announce to the corwd that you're going to play something for that person,
  
• Get that person to step forward (hopefully they will bring others with them in order to prevent them looking stupid)
  
• Play the tune, and if/when it begins to die
  
• mix back into the genre that was working.
  

This way if it dies, you can say to the person paying you, "it was a shame, they insisted I play XYZ, just didn't go with the mood".

The best bet with ANY wedding gig, is meet the customers first, get a realistic feel for the age groups that will be there, and what they expect - if they are looking for a 'wacky Dj' who will play games, and you are just a music mixer then do yourselves a favour, and suggest they book someone else.

It's far better to pass on a gig, than have a bad one, that others will get to hear of - you could end up with a bad rep just because you & they had different ideas of what's required.

As far as content, I ALWAYS ensured I had at least a dozen set pieces of 5/6 tunes that I could Mix and that I knew worked together. These cunning stunts would usually be based around well known songs that people would sing to as well as dance to, from different genres or decades.

I.E. 5 party tunes, 6 60's tunes, 5 disco tunes etc...

I then always had a plan to use the tunes I was told I 'MUST' play to link these stunts.

My

R.

not so R belive me been a dj for a great number of years You are the most importaint person at the disco, you are the one who makes or breaks the wedding nobody else, of course you play the first and last dance of the brides choice that gos without sayin, BUT the rest of the evening its up to you and your experance to make sure everybody has a good time, NOT play stupid requests, that some body whos sat down all night wants to listen to, WHY kill the floor for some idiot who,s prob, that drunk he or she would,nt know if you played it anyway, I have never had a complain regarding requests, infact like I said IF it fits in no proba, if it dont it dont get played ,(except near the end of the night when you want the punters to go home),belive me there is nothing harder than tryin to make people enjoy themselves and thats what your there for,and belive me I hold my hands up to mobile Djs they work hard for the money they get paid (peanuts for the numbr of people & entertainment they supply,not to mention luggin all that gear up stairs or whatever, plus the traveling involved)really hard, working the clubs is like a vacation compaired to mobile work, lets face it you work a club. NO requests, R&B , Dance Trance etc etc, the punters come for a certain type of music that the club plays, boy its so easy, your not all over the place 60,s 80,s 2000, you know what I mean., and those pub djs they work even harder, you do get about an hour break at weddings birthdays etc whilst they eat, pub djs are on the go from the off
nope you will never hear me calling a mobile dj ,salt of the earth they are, us club djs would,nt know where to start if we went back to mobile work
so bet that,s bent a few ears,but its true, mobile djs RULE,
and thats from a club dj