Mike Check
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Mike Check
MemberI think it’s safe to say you save your bangers for later in the night when you have a full dance floor. I think this 10-12 lull is pretty common for dance clubs & when you tend to play your lower energy tracks, altho’ this doesn’t necessarily mean low BPM. This is when you can slide in some newer tracks, less popular tracks, & older tracks that used to be hot but have lost relevancy. Early in the night is also where I tend to do the majority of mashups, remixes, & DJ tricks.
March 23, 2012 at 5:32 pm in reply to: External HD vs Internal Laptop Drive for music storage? #17245MemberI have pretty much the same setup as the OP. I play my music off a WD passport with a 2nd identical WD passport in my gig bag just in case. I think everyone is in agreement with regards to backing up though.
Back when I started DJ’ing a few people advised me that you don’t want to use the internal HD, & honestly I don’t know the rationale but it stuck with me. I also do a lot of production where I prefer using my desktop and keep my laptop more for DJ’ing so having everything on an external HD just makes sense as far as portability ….but this reasoning prob doesn’t apply to most others.
MemberMost people don’t listen to music & process it by mentally segmenting it to the individual musical elements. Musicians, producers, DJ’s, etc do this but the majority of people don’t fall into this category.
MemberTroy makes a good point …the Mac version is hella buggy. I have a Mac and use Bootcamp so I can run Mac OS or Windows and I’ve tried the program in both and there’s no way I’d be capable of using it in Mac.
MemberFrosh is spot on. Also I dislike when DJ/producers have name drops in their remixes. As someone that also produces I’d love if other DJ’s played my remixes in their set however what DJ is going to spin a remix with another DJ’s name drop in it?
As far as where you can get one ….find someone that does production. They’re pretty simple to make you just need the right tools (DAW software, mic, some effects, etc).
MemberI agree with D-Jam, people come out to see DJ’s like Guetta to hear the hit tracks & could care less about his DJ skills. I think this is one of those instances where you being in the DJ industry are looking at it differently than the majority looks at it.
MemberDabbled in production stuff first which then got me into DJ’ing & now I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none. http://www.djsugarskull.com
MemberI think just yesterday this website did a story on how to do a name drop. In order to do a good one you’ll have to have some sort of production software & microphone …and it won’t hurt to have some effect plugins that can add compression, glitch effects, or even Autotune if you’re straight up pitchy.
February 15, 2012 at 12:57 pm in reply to: How much time do you spend each week looking for new tracks? #14953MemberI keep a little notepad and if I hear track @ work while streaming internet radio or while I’m in my car I’ll jot it down. Then maybe once a week I’ll spend 1-2hrs downloading them, normalizing gain, and loading them into my DJ software.
MemberUse a program like Mp3Gain or something similar to help set consistency w/ your tracks; however you’ll still notice it doesn’t help 100% and you’ll still need to trust your ears & make tweaks occasionally.
February 14, 2012 at 12:34 am in reply to: Skrillex won a Grammy. Is this the end or new beginning for dubstep? #14867MemberIs it the end or beginning ….I’d probably say neither & that Skrillex winning a Grammy probably won’t effect the dubstep scene.
MemberWhen reviewing the contract look for exclusivity language …as these clauses are the ones that will tie you down & prevent you from taking other gigs. You didn’t make mention of how the promoter is compensated but I’d shy away from any upfront or flat monthly fees & structure it to where his compensation is related to getting you work that way there’s more incentive for him to hustle for you (around here typical booking agency take a 10% cut). And don’t jump into a 2yr, make it a 6month or 1yr with an optional extension period if executed by both parties, this way if he sucks you aren’t contractually locked to him.
Since you’re producing as well you need to make sure there is language that addresses this specifically in the contract. Essentially anything you create is your copyright with full ownership and rights and in no way does this agreement impact or apply to that area of business. What you don’t want is for him to have rights or take a cut out of anything you make from an original track/production b/c he’s a club promoter not a record label promoter. Now if he actually wants to manage that aspect too and you want to compensate him for say getting a song on the radio then you need to address this specifically w/ language.
In the end more language is better & don’t assume that if it’s not mentioned in the agreement you’re clear b/c that’s an argument waiting to happen e.g. the 1st time you get compensated for an original song. One of the biggest reasons for a contract is protection & CYA so try to think of every possible scenario and address it head on in language. And BTW, I do this in my day job 🙂
MemberI went from playing guitar & bass in a number of bands to doing production work for these projects. I slowly started producing EDM and similar to someone else’s comment, I learned to DJ because I felt it was a necessity nowadays for any EDM producer. I think coming into DJ’ing from the production side also explains why I gravitated immediately to digital DJ’ing as opposed to having an interest in turntables.
MemberYou need production software commonly called a DAW (digital audio workstation). Almost everyone producing dubstep these days uses the VST plugin Massive by Native Instruments. In the world of production most people will tell you making dubstep isn’t that hard compared to other genres.
MemberI’m not familiar with DJay but 6k songs sounds too large to manage effectively. So if you own an album do you have the entire album in the library? If this is the case I’d think you’d only be needing about 16% of the songs in your library (I’m estimating on avg. each 12 track CD has 2 tracks you’d ever use).
I guess another approach is similar to clothes ….if it hasn’t been used in the past 12 months get rid of it. At the end of the day I think you just need to downsize your music. I’m sure you can still play a wide variety of genres with far less songs.
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