DJ Tricks & Tips : Set Programming
Part 1 of DJ Set Programming - Looking at the big picture - a few vital questions to ask before you begin preparing for your gig.
PART 1
Looking at the Big Picture
In part one of this feature we will be taking a look at the importance of set prep. For some gigs this is something that may not be so important. More experienced DJs who are familiar with their tunes will not require much planning before gigs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t do any. The first thing to do is look at the big picture before getting straight into the detail of track selection and order and this involves answering questions about the gig as a whole, such as who are the audience and how long is the set?
Let be honest, few things are as fun as jumping on the decks without a care in the world and playing some of your favourite tracks off the cuff. However sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where a little bit of prep may go a long way.
How you go about your preparation really comes down to the equipment you will be using, and it can involve as little as choosing the records you want to play in advance to fully harmonically programming a set with loops, transitions and effects.
Over the next few weeks we will be dropping hot tips from our up and coming DJ Masterclass, from choosing the right equipment for your set-up to choosing the right tracks for you podcast. With the likes of the incredibly useful RecordBox these days, prep can be extremely quick. This doesn’t always result to a quality set, however. With DJ technology advancing a rate that leaves most veteran spinners left behind with the tech they learnt on, we are going to take the tips on this feature back to fundamentals - i.e. tips that are going to be useful no matter what your choice of equipment.
Today we will be seeing what questions you should ask about your upcoming set to discover what, if any prep should be carried out.
The Context
Is the Set Live or Recorded?
Are you playing out at a gig in front of a crowd or on the radio? Or are you recording a podcast or mix to be played on the radio? This will normally decide how much prep you need to do, as something that is to be uploaded as a recorded podcast is the equivalent of writing a message rather than speaking it - it is permanent and therefore worth perfect before recording the “final draft”. Playing live, although perfection in mixing and beat matching is something desired by all DJs, small mistakes in a live DJ performance are forgettable. They only happened that one time and so long as the crowd remain the moment and the DJ recovers, all is forgiven.
From an artists point of view, however, this is not so easy to accept when it comes to mistakes whilst recording a podcast to be played (hopefully) over and over again around the world. It is only natural to want to make this as perfect as possible, and therefore prep is key to alleviating what can be an excruciatingly annoying task.
So by asking this question we know how much time in advance we need to begin our prep work. For example , if it is to be released as a podcast you might want to be starting earlier as you need to give time for mess ups whilst recording. This happens. And it is painful. But a right of passage none the less to creating a prefect podcast!
The Duration
How long is the set?
This is probably the most important detail you need to be aware of. It ultimately means “how many tunes do I need?” This is something I have been working out for a long time and it really comes down to your mixing style and the genre of music you are playing. If you prefer to mix long and slow, bring the new track in with about 2 minute or so to go of the current track, then I find 13-14 tracks per hour of set time is what is needed. I would also normally throw in a few more for good measure if I was playing a set, rather than recording a mix as things can go wrong in terms of set times and last minute decisions to play something else.
Things get a little more complicated the looser set time details become. Playing B2B for example with someone you haven't played with before would require a much broader choice of records to allow you to follow the other DJs tracks up.
The Audience
Who are you playing to?
Who is the Audience? Is it to a local crowd of familiar fans? Or is the crowd outside of your familiarity? Will you have to adapt your usual style somewhat to create accessibility to a different crowd? Depending on how much you value and commit to one particular “sound” you may not be willing to give too much leeway here, which is perfectly fine so long as you are not playing gabba at an event you were expected to play RnB at.
Of course, we all find ourselves being offered gigs that are perhaps not right for the sound we are looking to establish ourselves in. It is fine to reject gigs that will force you too far out of your own comfort zone.
It is however always good to spread your fingers into different pies when it comes to your listening, collecting and playing as a DJ, as ultimately it will only serve to give you more versatility in the long run.
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These are just a few important questions that any DJ needs to ask before he takes to the decks of an important gig. There may be further questions depending on the likes of equipments used by the DJ but fundamentally these 3 questions should be answered as it will give a lot more of an understanding to how best to approach the preparation process.
If you are interested in learning how to DJ or simply improving your current abilities behind the decks then feel free to check out what courses we have on offer at our Manchester based studio.
Next time in Part 2 we will take a deeper look into tune selection, whilst analysing each to create a sense of journey when putting them together.
Music and Gaming - 'Grand Theft Auto' (PS1, 1997)
In this series we take a look at computer game soundtracks from the past that influenced a generation of people to become fans of electronic and underground music. It is no secret that for the youth of the 80s and 90s, computer games played an integral roll in influencing and forming musical tastes. From techno to hip-hop, video games exposed the youth to music that was outside of commercial radio at the time, and long before the internet. Join us on our journey in rediscovering the best of the bunch.
LONG, long before it was abbreviated to just 'GTA', the first release in the franchise was graphically a far-cry away from where it is now. The now infamous Rockstar Games were a practically unknown games developer before they smashed into people lives with this epic title. Sure, they were still called DMA, based in Dundee, when 'Grand Theft Auto' was released, but they became Rockstar. Not only was the game perfect for any teen of the 90's being rebellious in nature and rife in its reference to drugs, guns and gangs, the developers reputation was cemented as bad boys of the gaming world when they were faced with lawsuit, after lawsuit after lawsuit from all areas of the concerned mainstream world, from parents to priests. These mostly failed, but was a PR gold mine for Rockstar.
Even to this day and throughout the series, there are similarities that remain from the genesis of the most successful gaming series in history. The gameplay, the violence, the sheer enjoyment are all aspects that have kept each title as spectacular as the ones that came before it. But it's the music that has always remained top notch and instrumental in adding to the ambience of each time and city you find yourself in. Young adults across the world will credit GTA and the series as introducing them to classic tracks from years gone by, and we will look at these in detail in future posts on the topic.
'Grand Theft Auto', however, wasn't embellished with the huge artist roster we are familiar with in the versions later than PS1. The soundtrack was written primarily by a relatively unknown composer and producer named Craig Connor, who is credited with the entire playlist.
For only 60 minutes of radio play this was by far the most advanced and captivating reality based soundtrack of any game that came before it. It was actual radio, that switched on when you got in the car! And was a different station in different cars! WTF! Very exciting stuff as a 10 year old playing a game rated as an 18.
Hip-hop, trance, acid, break beat and techno are all evident, along with a quirky country number that was always playing in the pick-up trucks.
Reminisce, people...
Music and Gaming - OctaMED (Commodore Amiga)
In this series we take a look at computer game soundtracks from the past that influenced a generation of people to become fans of electronic and underground music. It is no secret that for the youth of the 80s and 90s, computer games played an integral roll in influencing and forming musical tastes. From techno to hip-hop, video games exposed the youth to music that was outside of commercial radio at the time, and long before the internet. Join us on our journey in rediscovering the best of the bunch.
Stepping outside of the standard agenda of this series, today we take a peek at an absolute revolution in the use of home gaming consoles and electronic music.
If you think Ableton looks confusing, the below image shows the equivalent back in the early 1990s.
OctaMED was a music production suite designed for the Commodore Amiga console.
The distinguishing feature of MED and OctaMED in comparison to other music trackers on the Amiga was that MED and OctaMED were chiefly used by musicians to create stand-alone works, rather than by game or demo musicians to make tunes that play in the context of a computer game or demo.
In others words, the entire bedroom producer culture was born out of this software and its limited, yet brilliantly used capabilities.
It only had 4 Channels to work with, and graphically there was a rather daunting interface, making Ableton today seem like a dream.
Here is a video showing a track produced on the software playing by heavyweight Jungle/DnB legend Aphrodite.
DJ Aphrodite who was also part of Urban Shakedown, used two Amiga 1200's running OctaMED to create a range of his early hits such as "Dub Moods", "Summer Breeze", "King Of The Beats", joint productions with Micky Finn such as "Bad Ass" and the remix of 'The Jungle Brothers'-"True Blue" and also including his first album, Aphrodite.
NOTE- The stereo field is pretty messed up. (For reasons we won't bore you with here)
Music and Gaming - WipeOut (PS1)
In this series we take a look at computer game soundtracks from the past that influenced a generation of people to become fans of electronic and underground music. It is no secret that for the youth of the 80s and 90s, computer games played an integral roll in influencing and forming musical tastes. From techno to hip-hop, video games exposed the youth to music that was outside of commercial radio at the time, and long before the internet. Join us on our journey in rediscovering the best of the bunch.
Last time we posted about the 'G-Police’ soundtrack from the Sony Playstation 1, but this week we feel we have to talk about the game series with the most pounding of soundtracks of all time which gave it classic status as the series that embraced the harder forms of electronic music, Wipeout.
The description for the title reads "Ballistic Antigravity Racing", and the soundtrack couldn't any more perfect. Fast, acidy, pounding, rolling, racing ballistic AF techno... it melted my tiny mind then and it does so even more now.
If you grew up as a kid in the 90s and now listen to techno, there is a good chance this is the reason why... with tracks by The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield and Orbital it is absolutely no surprise. If you have never heard of WipeOut then I suggest you play it. But for now, enjoy the noises...
TRACKLIST:
00:00 Intro
01:16 Cairodrome
08:44 Cardinal Dancer
16:01 Cold Comfort
24:10 Doh T
32:27 Messij
40:16 Operatique
48:57 Tentative
57:06 Transvaal
Music and Gaming - 'G-Police' (PS1)
In this series we take a look at computer game soundtracks from the past that influenced a generation of people to become fans of electronic and underground music. It is no secret that for the youth of the 80s and 90s, computer games played an integral roll in influencing and forming musical tastes. From techno to hip-hop, video games exposed the youth to music that was outside of commercial radio at the time, and long before the internet. Join us on our journey in rediscovering the best of the bunch.
For those who played the futurist 'G-Police' released in 1997 on the Playstation 1, they should remember the soundtrack that was comprised of jungle, DnB, trip-hop, acid and techno numbers that still would destroy any soundtrack of current games.
The game itself took place in 2097 on Jupiters Moon 'Callisto', where flying cars exist in cities encapsulated by giant domes to protect the citizens from the dark void of space beyond (and presumably to keep the player confined to a map). The gameplay as I remember was fun, and the graphics and the relative freedom you had to fly about it your jet propelled police helicopter was unique for the time. But it was the soundtrack that keeps me coming back to this game in moments of reminiscence.
As a 10 year old I recall loving these (to me) new sounds that I hadn't really heard on the commercial channels such as the Radio and 'Top of the Pops'.
An appreciated of the music through a big old boxy TV of yesteryear in mono was one thing, but listening now through an actual sound system gives a whole new level of appreciation for the soundtrack.
Enjoy.