Six hours to sort out 100 records? Packing virtual record boxes is even more important than it ever was with vinyl
The ritual I am about to relate was an absolute religion for me every single Saturday night, before setting off to DJ. It sometimes took two hours, sometimes six, and I did it pretty much weekly back in the days when I used to play from vinyl, which was from 1993 to around 2004.
The vinyl countdown
I’d hit the decks at around 4 or 5pm and plough through the vinyl I’d bought or been sent that week that I liked. I’d begin to pile up the tunes in two halves, warm up and peak-time. Then I’d look through the box of record I’d brought back from the previous gig. Again, I’d play and sort, adding to the two piles.
Next, I’d start looking through the rest of my tunes from the past six months or so. Those I’d pull out would be maybe one in 10, maybe one in 30. All the time playing them, but doing it loosely, in the background, while maybe taking down names for the guest list from the club’s incoming email, or posting to the club forum hyping the night to come up.
A bit later, I’d take all the tunes and sit on the floor, sorting each pile into subsections. Tunes I knew went well together – little batches of 2, 3 or 4. A new sub-genre that was doing it for me. A couple of tunes that shared a bassline. An acapella that fitted an instrumental. Some time-tested mixes that always got the crowd going.
Next, I’d hit the decks again, this time looking for new blends between some of these tight 20-minutes’-worth of tunes. Music would suggest itself. An old disco record. A house tune from 15 years before. A rock tune. I’d test, both the mixes and my nerve to play this unexpected stuff, all the time listening.
Eventually I’d leave for the club with a box or two of tightly programmed music, every tune thought about, the order in the box thought about, ideas still buzzing around my head. Prepared.
I’d have 2 or 3 times the amount of music I needed for that night’s set, and while DJing, my job would be to condensed that music into a set that suited the crowd and went somewhere artistically. But I was starting from a point of a finite number of records, all fo which I knew well and had included in my set after much deliberation.
Back to the future
Back then, I had maybe 8,000 records – I was harsh in trimming my collection annually, too. Of those, the shelves containing the current genres, the recent tunes, were those I could basically physically reach best. (Records took up a lot of room. Every now and then I’d find myself balanced on a stool looking for some old 80s electro tune or an indie instrumental I thought I could get away with in the mix.) But we were a certain kind of club and I was expected to play a certain kind of music. The shelves I got 95% of my tunes week-in, week-out from contained around 3,000 tunes. I was leaving my house with 80-150 records from a selection of 3,000-odd.
Nowadays, my iTunes proudly informs me that I am choosing from 21,000 songs. I buy my music as before, but I also scour blogs, get sent tunes by friends, pick things up from tagged music on SoundCloud and the like, and all the time as a DJ of 20 years’ standing, I am revisiting all the old tunes (long since digitised, but still there).
It is easy as a digital DJ to think that because you have X number of hundred or thousand tunes to take DJing with you, you can just turn up with no thought to arranging or organising those tunes. Or that you can just hit the “sort by date” column and play from there (actually, if you’re going to do anything, that’s a good start. But it’s far from ideal).
However, with the freedom a digital DJ has to carry all of his or her tunes around at one time, it becomes even more important to organise and sift, sort and categorise, and most of all – to listen as you’re doing it.
Sorting music out digitally is not the same as doing it with real vinyl. For boxes (warm-up, peak set), think folders. For “shelves” (house, deep house, drum & bass, dubstep, r&b…), think genre ID3s. For your own use (floorfiller, warm-up, “risky tune I’d love to pay one day”, end-of-night), think tagging. (Hint: you can tag tunes in iTunes using the Grouping ID3 tag and smart playlists.) And for the digital equivalent of pairing tunes off, think comment ID3 tags (“Goes well with X acapella”, “Mixes into X perfectly from second break…”).
Why digital slicing and dicing beats piles of vinyl
And while in the vinyl days, all that work every week was lost the second a DJ repacked his or her box for the following gig, nowadays keeping your sets intact forevermore is simply a case of managing the history in your DJing software, or dragging the set to an archive folder once a week. Want to know your “hour before midnight” set from last New Year’s Eve? With digital, it’s easy. Want to know what you played last night after one-too-many whiskies? No problem.
As with many aspects of digital DJing, the smart DJ can be set free by this fantastic technology. You benefit, though, from realising that nothing has really changed about the end-game, the result you’re aiming for: It’s still a case of knowing the best records to play, and the best order to play them in.
Skip the preparation, and at best you will take longer to find the tune you want, at worst you’ll end up half-drunk, wading through your girlfriend’s favourite albums in an unsorted iTunes folder, with 30 seconds to go on the current track, and with no answers. Don’t be that person. Take the time to plan your sets, and you’ll benefit from all that work by enjoying more the other aspects of DJing when you’re at your gig. Just like we used to in the vinyl days – only better.
How do you organise your tunes? Do you use iTunes or the library in your DJ software? Or don’t you bother at all and just do it all at the gig? We’d love to hear how you pack your “virtual record box”.
Now go to:
5 Reasons Why Digital DJing Beats Vinyl
The Magic Mix for Successful Digital DJing?
How Not to Move a Houseful of Vinyl
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Tags: choosing records for DJing, DJ record selections, DJ tune lists, how to choose records for DJing, preparing a DJ set
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It’s still hard for me to fathom that I have more songs in a single, specialized smart playlist than I would take to the club on Saturday night back in the day.
[ link ]It’s true, and it can be daunting too… but for me it adds so much to the fun when you suddenly remember a tune from 5,10 or more years back that you KNOW will fit perfectly… and there it is.
[ link ]Great article, I just started DJing again after a few years out, some good tips here though, time to start keeping up with this stuff.
Generally I store my tracks in a folder for the month I bought them (e.g. last month’s tracks are in a 2010-July folder), just easier to find the more current tunes for me.
I make sure the genre is always tagged properly but try to keep these at a minimum though (a load of sub-sub-genres is going to make it hard to find stuff for a particular set imo).
The track rating stars are good a measure to where the track fits in a set, 1 star – intro/starter, 2 – build up, 3 – mid set, etc.
As I’m using Traktor now, I use the ‘crates’ in the browser section to sort out the other stuff. And of course, keeping good notes in comments is always good.
[ link ]When you say “I use the ‘crates’ in the browser section to sort out the other stuff”, what do you mean? You use the crates to sort out individual sets (like, a night’s records)?
[ link ]I only use month based folders, and use genre and comments in songs, lots of comments, also m starting to use the rating system for the progression of the night… peak songs 5 stars, warm ups 1 star
[ link ]Yep, the “crates” in Traktor are good for sorting out a nights tracks, there are 10 of them if I remember, I try to only have 2 or 3 of them for the night though. Basically I’ll have 1 for the tunes I’ll definitely try to get into my set, another for a few “maybe” tracks, then maybe a crate for loops, samples, stems, etc, that might come in useful.
One other related thing I find useful is sorting the playlist in the browser of the software. Clicking on the sort filter in the order of BPM, Key, then Rating, it seems to help a lot in pulling out tracks that can work together at various parts of the set (using the rating system I mentioned in the other post).
[ link ]I agree with the BPM thing, that’s how I tend to DJ once I’ve got the set organised – just sort by BPM and play through from slow to fast (or the other way round if I’m playing a beach bar at sunset). Only fails when you suddenly realise near the end of your set that a load of new downtempo stuff didn’t seem to be there, and you find it’s been auto BPM-ed up at 180+!
[ link ]I’ve noticed a lot of DJ’s are filing by date. I file by Genre and since I don’t take my entire mp3 collection with me (I use a SD card) It’s a lot easier to keep track and attention focused on the task at hand. I usually keep around 200 songs depending on the set. I also think using the comment and star system is a great idea.
Thanks and another great article.
[ link ]If you prepare your tracks for Tracktor by checking the beatgrids and locking them, and use mixedinkey then add the key in the comments section you can use the sort tool to always find the right tune to play next, sometimes it leads you places you’d never have thought of.
[ link ]Good point Jim, but would work best if your set us all around the same BPM.
[ link ]well sometimes you do all the prepping and listening and planning and it sounds fantastic at home but then you get to the bar/club/venue and suddenly it doesn´t sound so great… and sometimes you just go for it with no planning and it turns out great.
[ link ]To Sausage: Ain’t that the truth! Sometimes you listen to the start of a tune and think “that’ll do nicely” and then forget to listen to the rest until half way through playing it out where it goes from mellow into hardcore dubstep or something…
[ link ]Great write up, thanks. I’ve been djing for just about 10 years now and jumped into the digital world a few years back because I was tired of burning tons of CDs every week and having to write down track names etc, then on top of that having to worry whether or not the club had adequate turntables. You’d be surprised at the number of clubs in Los Angeles that a) don’t have turntables at all b) have turntables in arguably the worst condition I’ve ever seen or c) have turntables with NO slipmats/needles (that’s happened a few times…once I had to cut up a table cloth to act as a slipmat…)
I digress…
Up until a few months ago I would just turn up to gigs and jump around my various playlists (everything is sorted by Month – Year then further by early set, late set, and a top 10 each month). One day I decided I would actually give my set a little prep time, and let me say it works wonders. Keeps a lot of the fluff out and definitely keeps you more concentrated.
[ link ]” at worst you’ll end up half-drunk, wading through your girlfriend’s favourite albums in an unsorted iTunes folder, with 30 seconds to go on the current track, and with no answers. Don’t be that person.”
wow… color me fuckin embarrassed. i was prepared for a deep set. but it ended up being a ‘hood/top 40′ crowd …and damn if that was not EXACTLY where i was ..cept i do have it sorted in the folder! i had to ask her and she actually suggested nelly’s tail feather which i thought was pretty classic
keep it up – this site is awesome
[ link ]thanks for the well written article.
trying to get serious about digital djing (with abelton live 8) and haven’t settled on the best way to arrange my files yet.
i think it makes sense to use itunes (wish there was something better) to organise playlists etc. the problem i find with itunes is that if you change the underlying file structure itunes loses files and you can end up with duplicates when re-importing. any advice on the underlying file structure for storing files?
i guess a very important part is backing up the music. i’m using dropbox at the moment.
[ link ]I’m adding bpm + key info to filenames as I’m not using Itunes or any similar software to manage tunes. That way I can use/see that kinda info in various programs even if ID3 tags are not supported. Also that allows me to load a track I havent scanned for bmp’s into a deck without having to scan it with the program 1st – comes in quite handy sometimes though I’d not advise to do it unless u know what u are going to do if mixing software “jams” and doesn’t load track properly.
[ link ]Sometimes it happens and if you know what to do you’re fine. If you dont know what to so in such a case you may be screwed.
It’s good to know what to do in case of such a “jamming” though as in very seldom cases I had mixing software “jam” when loading tracks that had already been scanned for bpm’s before (I had that happen a few times when playing very long sets like 5 hours or longer).
When software “jams” when loading a track into a deck you’re fine when u are using software with more than just 2 decks. In that case just find a track thats matching and load it into another deck then mix it in – while you may not have the exact lineup for the mix your actually desired u saved the transition and can continue from there without anyone noticing what happend.
However when just using software or a skin with 2 decks things tend to get a bit more difficult and u have to be fast to save your bum here. Say e.g. you’ve just mixed from a track in deck B to the one in deck A and then load a fresh track into deck B.
You see track isnt loading right on deck B as waveform/bpm’s/key/remaining time of that track dont show as they should. in that case a good bet is to go through that track fast manually like with needlesearch – chances are good u are able to get it to load in tiny bits. If you have enough playing time left on deck A u can do that for whole track on deck B if not at least try to get 1st and last minute right on deck B and u should be good to go to know at least where you can do a clean mix in/out (within intro/ outro part of track) without being screwed completely.
Yes here again while u may not be able to mix the 2 tracks on the spot you intended to you’ll at least get out of the red zone with a clean transition.
When playing with 2 decks there’s not much of a choice if you have no other backup solution – however when using more than 2 decks I’d advise not to use the deck that caused the jam as it’s likely to happen again during that set.
Restarting your mixing software will cure that though that’s not really what you want to do right in the middle of your set (unless u have some other backup solution at hand that gives you enough time to do it).
Using loops can as well help you out here.
Plus it may be a good idea when playing a practice set at home and u come across these problems to NOT restart your mixing software right away but instead use that occasion to paractice saving that situation as you’ll be way more comfortable than when it happens and you have real listeners.
ive been digital dj-ing for some years now, mostly bedroom and an off gig every few months. whether im preparing a studio mix or a sequence for a club gig, i pretty much always use the same method for selection.
i keep all of my music very well organized (by label and then by cat# etc) and keep a separate folder for warped tracks prepared for mixing (futher divided by subfolders – techno/house/industrial/idm, italo/synthpop, ambient/experimental, non-club etc).
as i am constantly buying or downloading music without discriminating if it’s old or new, i often get an inspiration for a particular substyle i’d like to explore in a mix. so while listening and reviewing music, i add tracks to specific winamp playlists and let them sit (stripped down deephouse stuff; really dry but easy nonmelodic techno, idm-ish anthems, saucy bangers etc).
when preparing for a particular gig i often find it easy to search and sort all of the files by modified/accessed date (which means those were either created or played recently), load the bulk into a winamp playlist, start going through it and just delete all that doesnt fit the mood i’m trying to achieve. in the process, i think of many other tracks and just add them to the bottom of the playlist waiting to get the same treatment.
i usually finish with about 200-300 tracks that i then re-skim through, look for nice combinations and start loading into live.
creating a definitive playlist for a four-channel mix makes me go back to older playlists to re-look for tracks that the current combinations made me think of, throw out many pieces that fit into a certain sequence but don’t fit into a grand dramaturgy etc.
anyways, i find using the winamp library combined with many smaller playlists, both for reviewing tracks before even loading them into live makes my life that much easier.
as i take all my warped files to a gig with me, it’s always good to have winamp running just to be able to quickly find a track i just thought of and drag into live.
for special selection mixes the process is pretty much the same – just load a particular playlist with pre-selected tracks, go through it and load into live. the process might make me think of many other tracks i then look for and try out.
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