Over To You: Where Do I Find Music For My Warm-up Sets?

Reader Maarten Provo writes: “In different articles there’s a lot of talk about how to DJ warm-up sets. It’s a bit sad it’s always so general. I’d like a more useful article with examples like right and wrong songs. Danny Rampling talks in his book about “interesting, attention grabbing gentle upwards energy curve”. But no examples. DJ’s from my local scene just show up, start playing popular tunes and by 1am I’ll have heard Martin Solveig’s “Hello” for the fourth time – and they’re considered good DJs! Admittedly very popular clubs do this well but it’s hard to find these instrumental songs and difficult to ask the DJs about them at the time. Can you help?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Over the years, my warm-up sets have tended towards dub mixes, more laid-back alternative remixes of hits from full release packages, and generally lower BPM tunes. It’s hard to give exact examples, because of course it all depends on the country, the city, the club, the crowd, the style of music, and when you’re reading this.

I don’t think it wouldn’t be instructive to start listing tunes, or even that useful to you, to be honest. But I’m sure our community has lots to say on the matter, so over to you readers – have you got advice for Maarten? Please help him by adding your comments below.