softcore

Personally speaking I would avoid playing the same track twice, even if the first time I played it only the bar tenders heard it (the place was empty).

Provided you ‘ll be playing house and tech-house, and if you are going to be the only DJ on that night, I would suggest to have about an hour of some deeper, minimalistic house as warm up.

Also, since the duration allows (5 hours) play some less known-commercial tracks that you believe could fit with the style of the more commercial ones – use them to let the audience know that you don’t only play the “established” and anticipated tracks and create the image that you are a well-informed DJ musically. Don’t be afraid to “touch” a bit of softer and harder genres (deep house as I mentioned for warm up – a bit of techno during the peak hour).

If you are an organisation freak organise your playlist track order by “hours”. I speculate you will be needing at least 80 tracks for a 5 hour set. Gather even more if you want to have a flexible playlist that you will be able to adopt according to the audience’s reactions.

All the above are personal opinions and as such should not be taken as “must do” but rather as “what I would do”. 😉

@Kranic
Actually, what I implied by my usage of the word “proffesional” is that literally its root word is “proffesion” which I always thought (not a native english speaker) is synonymous to “work” only a bit more “formal”. As such, I always thought people often mistaken the word profesional” with ” a guy GOOD at his profession”. However perhaps Im mistaken, because I just looked it up and it seems like the word certainly appears to have some sort of “quality” stamp to it…..

Anyyyyywayyyys, probably wrong usage of words on my behalf, but I think in the end, we are on the same path! 😉

I tend to approach my live mixes with as much professionalism as any other DJ would. (Or in my opinion, should.) What it sort of comes down to, I guess, is that just because it’s a hobby, doesn’t mean you don’t need to take it seriously. With the side note, that it is possible to have fun, while still being dedicated.

.

I understand what you mean “profesionalism” here, and I fully agree. In fact I have often got into “verbal fights” with guys when they dont deal with the required seriousness and dedication – profesionalism with the excuse:
“Pffff, who gives a ….Im a nobody anways”…My reply always is: “And you will continue to be, being in such a mindframe”.
😉

SmiTTTen, post: 8750 wrote: In my mind there are three kinds of DJs; The Bedroom DJ, The Commercial DJ and the Artistic DJ. The Bedroom DJ is self explanatory.

When I say “Commercial DJ” I am not referring to what they play, rather what they play for. The Commercial DJ’s #1 priority is to make a living as a professional DJ and hence will play (within reason) what is expected by the people paying their wages. Like everyone else, the commercial has their own music taste and will no doubt try to educate the audience when and where they can but their primary goals are to A) get paid B) make sure everyone has a good time and C) develop a reputation as someone people will want to book.

The “Artistic” DJ (and excuse these archetype labels that I am pulling out of thin air) care primarily about the music and specifically, their taste in music. They will likely act in the opposite way to the Commercial DJ, turning down paid mainstream events in preference for more “underground” (whatever that means anymore) gigs that may not even pay.

I think most DJ’s ultimate aim is to be the Artistic DJ who gets paid as well as, if not better than the commercial DJ. Unfortunately, just as teenage boys frequently look like idiots when trying to act cool, artistic DJs often come across as complete dorks when they look for respect based solely on their music taste. The reality is that for every artistic DJ I know that did manage to make the jump and blow up, there are 112 frazzled egos with their gear on craigslist and their pay check drawn from working a 9-5 they hate. I used to be one of those guys, you know, the “I PLAY HARDER THAN ANYONE ELSE!” guy. Then I grew up…

This post is very close to my personal views.

I would use similar terms to categorise DJs and the genres they “should” play accordingly.
Proffesional DJ: a guy who has DJing as a means to earn his living. This means he might play for a wedding (for example) so his love of hard-banging-techno beats should be suppresed a litle bit – if you know what I mean. Note that by using the term “Proffesional” I mean it in the most literal way, you get paid to play music and not by the notion that somehow “proffesional” means “good at it”.
In this category I believe the DJ is a “slave” ( and I dont mean this in any negative way) to his clients, be it the guy who booked him and subsequently his audience

Hobbyist DJ: Im using this term to describe any DJ who plays music for his own enjoyment and amusement without getting paid. I believe this guy can play whatever the hell he wants – who will listen to him is another subject.

Of course, as in all things in life, besides the two extremes, are the ones who try to get paid and also enjoy doing it, the ones who get paid but also try to educate musically their audience, the ones who try to express themselves and their musical taste and get paid for it, the ones who enjoy playing music and seeing their crowd dance, all the ones fluctuating between the above two categories.

As for that friend of yours I think it was a stupid thing to say regardless of what category of the above he belongs. We should always be careful of the expressions we use when describing our own personal preferences – “Personally, mate, I prefer playing only electro and tech house, as these are my favourite genres” would be more appropriate and in the end, wiser.

If you are planning to focus on DJing then you don’t really need to splash out on expensive monitors (studio speakers). Despite the fear of raising angry disagreements I would go far enough to say that your logitech speakers are fine for DJ practising in your bedroom.
If however you are planning to produce your own music, things get much more complicated. There is a huuuuge market (and budgets) for studio monitors and NOBODY, absolutely NOBODY can tell you what the best monitor is: and the reason is that even if I suggest to you a pair of monitors in the price range of 6.000 euros, there will always be someone suggesting a better monitor (probably costing twice as much). Soooo, coming down to earth, I’d say from my own personal experience that in order to get a pair of – at least – decent monitors prepare for a budget of 500 – 600 euros, (typical price range of 8 inch active monitors from known manufacturers’ low-budget monitors). Again, my perosnal opinion is that these are required ONLY if you are planning to compose, synthesize and create your own music.

I’ll take an “honest” criticism in, regardless of whether the person criticising is a DJ himself or not, a guy who knows the technicalities or not. See, I try to live by the principle that creativity should not be elit – ised. If a guy tastes food and he doesnt like it, he doesnt like it – he is entitled to his opinion even if he is not a chef or doesnt know how to cook at all. Likewise, if a guy listening to my music/DJing doesnt like it, he doesnt like it. I’ll of course take into consideration his general taste in music (if I can), and if it coincides with mine, then I’ll have to take his criticism under consideration.

As for the “why”…I prefer to figure it out myself because in the case of a simple listener the truth is most of the times he doesnt know why he doesnt like it – i will ask for “why” though if the guy criticising is a DJ-producer.

I’ll agree with Kranic. The laws are very strict generally speaking. Theoritically you can get in trouble when using copyrighted material and a mash-up is nothing more than that…but in reality everybody gets away with mash ups when there is no money involved – see, there is no real reason for a major label/artist going after you if you made a mash up for fun – if you sell it though and cash flow into your bank account then others will want a piece of the pie. Of course nobody can admit this in public officially, and Im only stating what I see happening.