Hello guys,

I have a few questions that relate to being a club dj. Even though they are very generic questions about DJing but i wanted to post them in MixMeister community because i want to hear how Dj that use MixMeister deal with these situations.

1) Let's say i create a nice mix of say 10 songs, they are beatmixed nicely. So let's say i play them Live and then somebody asks me play something completely different ..from genre perspective. Say i am playing trance and somebody asks me to play R&B. How do you handle situations like this? Do you try to find the tune that fits best what's currently playing and insert the song somewhere 4 songs back ..so it gives you time to beat-mix it ?

2) I have read on other forums that many clubs do not like when DJs bring very big pre-mixed lists, it makes DJs look amateur and not professional. Meaning that you do not know what you are doing because you can't beat-mix on the fly. How do you guys prepare for gigs at clubs? Do you precreate smaller sets ?

3) Let's say you are laptop dj only ..do you still bring a set of CD players just in case your laptop dies ?


I apologize if these questions have been asked before, but i could not find them.

I use MixMeister Fusion.

Hi Dynamox and welcome to the forums (be sure to say hello here).

I'll take your questions one at a time. These are my own opinions and I'm sure some other members will also comment...


1) This one is always difficult, especially if you're quite proud of the flow of your 'mixlet'. As long as the mixlet isn't a very long one (which I wouldn't advise - see question 2), I tend to cue up the different genre tracks after my little mix has finished. Of course if your choice has killed the groove, then I'd cut to what the punters want as soon as you can make it work. If you're going from one genre to another with a huge bpm difference, then I'd suggest Standard mixing for the transition. remember to slim down the transition length of the outgoing track to nothing.

2) Do all your tweaking at home. Making sure that tracks will just 'Drop in and work' requires considerable effort, but is worth it in the end.

Tweak all your tracks to your preferred measure length - for trance I tend to use 32 measures - then save the tweaks. I save mine in a category called 'All Tweaked and ready to go'.

Do create 'mixlets' as described above. Even Turntable DJs use this method with tracks that they know will work, and that they have practised with at home. I know 'cos I used to do that. It's not unprofessional to do this.

However, don't come to a gig with a two hour mix already set up and then just stand there twiddling your thumbs! Try to do what the vinyl DJs do - even if they know what the next four tracks will be they still add the records one at a time and listen to the transition.

The advantage you have as a mixmeister DJ is that you aren't limited to the duration of the currently playing track to set up your next one. We can do this as much in advance as the time of the tracks already cued up!

Still use your headphones to check the transitions though. This shows the audience (and the other pedantic DJs) that you are 'working'.

As part of your showmanship, it's even worth listening with one earpiece as your transitions happen - even when you know they're going to work, it looks good from an audience perspective - You're working the magic.

3) No I don't (and I have regretted it once ). But think of it this way. Do other DJs bring four turntables? Two dual CD decks? Two amplifiers? Two sets of speakers? Two sets of lights? - I'm sure some do, but hey ho.....


Hope that helps somewhat. I'm sure there'll be more comments soon...

ENJOY YOUR MIXMEISTER GIGS


Gaz

Hi Gaz,

appreciate the time you took to share your experience.

So you cue up different genre track after your mini mixlet, but when do you have time to beatmix it ? Somebody I seat there for 40 minutes at home trying to make one track transition nicely into another, there is no way I could do it playing live in 3-4 minutes? I can use simply crossfade right but then it’s not beatmixed ?

‘Drop in and work” – can you explain it please. I understand that it’s recommended to use slicer to make sure MixMeister got the ups and down correctly (I still struggle with slicer), but then I have two songs that just crash into each other …I guess I have to know my music pretty good to know what will beatmix ok ..cause on the stage you don’t time to be going through 50 songs trying to find one that will beatmix correctly. Recently I started not only picking songs based on their BPM but also based on keycode. I guess I just have a lot of practice ahead of me to be able to beatmix nearly on the fly
I know these questions are probably very silly, but I don’t’ mind asking stupid questions if it helps me learn

Hi,

Sometimes, if you are changing your genre, it may not be feasible to beatmix the track. As you are changing the direction of the music this will quite often be down to the BPM changing dramatically. In these cases, you'll have to use standard mixing. This may be the point (if you're a mic using DJ) to say something to the crowd. They need to know that you are changing the direction of their dancing...

The advantage of Mixmeister, as I pointed out before, is that you can have a lot more than 3 - 4 minutes to cue up a track. If you are working a couple (or more!) tracks ahead of the current playlist position, then you can have plenty of time.

As far as time spent tweaking goes, try to tweak one track at a time, rather than trying to make a single track work with another.

I am using Pro 6, so you may need a translation from another member...

This is what I do:

• Load up a track with a good 4/4 beat.
  
• Set to Beatmixing
  
• Listen and watch the intro beatmixing section, ensuring that the first downbeat is lined up with the sprockets
  
• adjust as necessary.
  
• Extend the transition length as appropriate.
  
• Listen and watch the intro beatmixing section again, checking that the beats line up all along the intro.
  
• Repeat the above steps for the end of the track.
  
• Save your tweak and set as the default.
  
• Now load the same track into Mixmeister, so that you have two copies of the track in the timeline.
  
• Listen and watch the transition from end of the track to the beginning of the same track.
  
• If it sounds sweet, you've got a good tweak!
  
• Repeat the above steps for another track.
  
• Once you've got to the sweet sage, try mixing the first track into the second, new track and vica versa.
  
• Still sweet? You've now got two tracks that will just 'Drop In'!
  
• Save your tracks to your 'Tweaked' category.
  

TIP* I'm sure fusion has it, so make use of the 'Find Similar Tracks' option. This will search for tracks with a compatible keycode and bpm for you. If you find a track here that is in your tweaked category, then the transition should just work!!

Hope that's given you some ideas. There used to be an excellent tutorial on the forums showing how to do this, but it was for Pro 6.

Perhaps a Fusion user guru would be interested in repeating the exercise?

Gaz

PS. Don't worry about asking stupid questions, that's where we all started!

Hi,

Just found a very very old thread that really helped me at the time. Although this came out at the time of Mixmeister version 5 !?!?!?!, the basic ideas remain the same to this day...

Link

Gaz

Hello dynamox,

Personaly I only use MM for making mix CD's because I hate making them "the old fashioned way"..actually mixing. But when I play out I'd never dream of using MM because DJ'ing is all about playing live and reading the vibe of the croud.

Cheers M8.

quote:

Originally posted by Colin P:
But when I play out I'd never dream of using MM because DJ'ing is all about playing live and reading the vibe of the croud.

not sure what a croud is, but that's a pretty bold statement colin. care to explain how your version of "playing out" differs from that of using MixMeister?