Over To You: How Many Tracks Do CD DJs Have Per CD?

Digital DJ Tips reader Beepo writes: “I hope this does not sound like a dumb question but, here goes: Do DJ’s who use CDJs put just one song on a CD they want to mix or would they put entire playlists on one CD and just skip to the track they want to mix?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

It’s not dumb, as digital DJ we’re not necessarily expected to know how the “old school” operates! Often CD DJs have just one track on a CD (because it’s a single track someone gave them, or a hot new remix they just burned on their way out of the door); or, they may have anything typically between three and seven tracks as an “EP” (ie all the mixes of one track, as given to them by the record label or producer). They may also have compilation CDs produced by labels. But also, often DJs burn whole sets (as individual tracks, of course) onto CDs. It is even possible to burn the actual MP3 file rather than audio onto CDs, in which case you can carry an awful lot of music on one CD (presuming the host player can handle it, of course).

DJs who prefer to play digitally regularly carry backup CDs in case there’s an issue and they have to revert to CD DJing, in which case you’ll very often find they only have two or three CDs in total with them.

Over to you: In your experience, what’s the best way to organise your music on CD? Are you a digital DJ who carries CD backup? Do you have experience of DJing actual MP3s straight from CD? Please share any experiences in the comments.