Going from producer to DJ! - Advice needed

[Megazoid]

I got a little bit of a strange request last night. Generally speaking i'm a private person when out and dont think i'm the best candidate to handle this request. Read on for a little more insight.


Last night while down at a local "pub/club" i visit (Weekly now almost) asked me if i would be intrested in entering a DJ competition with the chance to work their more frequent also.

I was a little shocked, but i knew a friend had made a passing comment to him some weeks back and hence the request.

I wasn't sure what to say, i've never really done DJ'ing with the exception of setting up some playlists in winamp (using crossfading plugin) and selecting good music for people to listen too.

I enjoy almost all genres of music, but my primary focus is trance. I am intrested in similar styles to Armin Van Burren, Chicane, Above & Beyond. Melodic, Progressive, epic style trance.

This enviroment whoever, plays more mainstream commercial driven Garage, Hip-hop and rap which i am not a fan of. I like a couple of track's, but not much.

Any mixes i've done have been put togther in flstudio then rendered out with sample/beat accurate precision, so everything is nice and tight and the mix flows well. I dont have vinyl's or many CD's, i've never even touched decks! Everything i won is purchased from online music stores (so generally 192/320kps audio files).

With all that said, I've got a good ear for music, but i wouldn't be sure what style of music to play in this enviroment. Technically speaking this isn't a club, but more a pub/club that holds around 1000/1500 people. It's a kind of general "Please-all" meat-market kind of place. I've also never played live with the exception of a classical piano performance at college and supporting a rock band for one performance.

Being that i have no vinyl or CD's i'm confused by what choices i will be able to make and if i'll be capable enough to beat match correctly using MP3's. I'm anxious about using a laptop live in fear of it crashing! so optimizing the laptop and selecting the right software is important. Also i have no clue about what DJ software to actually use and which will allow at least some form of interaction with the crowd.

I've looked at the program Traktion, but i feel this could take some learning to master. I've also looked at mixmiester which is in essence a multitrack based editing enviroment with real-time capabilites. Either way i need something flexiable.

I'm supposed to call the owner of the pub this week at some point to arrange a night and i think he might be expecting someone with either alot of vinyl or year's of experience in DJ'ng.

The sad fact is, it will most likely be me standing behind a computer and a midi controller. Not a great view or active performance.

Unless i prepare the entire set live in flstudio before hand i can't see this not being the case.

Can anyone offer advice as i'm a little anxious about the whole situation! Any advice on mixing, software to use, live usuage, etc...

I dont have long, i think he want's me either this friday or saturday, so i've got a week to learn.

[Polyphonic]

Ok, 2 things spring to mind.

If you want vinyl-style mixing then you could do worse than check out Native Instrument's Traktor. I remember doing a mix compilation CD with this and the results were really good (before anybody starts, I don't care about 'keeping it real').

Secondly, if you want a bit more interaction, Ableton Live could be the way to go. I guess it's a bit expensive though for just the one night. You could throw in samples though and really mess around with the mix.

[Rusty Shackleford]

^^^ What he said. The truth is, it sounds like the kind of club/pub where people won't care whether you're doing the mixing or the computer, so may as well let the computer do it for you. I know people who have used tracktor for a gig, with good results. Ableton's definitely worth looking at too, cuz not only will you be able to mix but also do tons of other effects (toss on synced delays, filters with lfos, gates, etc), and it's extremely intuitive to use. No replacement for vinyl mind you, but it'll get you up and running too. A well-respected DJ recently put out a compilation CD that was mixed in Ableton...

[Mr. Tunes]

i was in the same situation as you a year ago. i chose to go hardware, i didnt have a laptop and still dont. if you DO go laptop, keep in mind that there are many fall back methods around it crashing. you could keep a mp3 player or discman up there with you so if it crashes just hit play to avoid a lengthened silence.

i rented a sampler, the roland sp-505 and i used a numark cd djing deck alongside it. then i would do live looping with my roland mc-09. i had live bass and saxaphone alongside me, it was great. if i were to do it over again i wouldnt go to the extreme i did, since having live players covered up for the fact that i was simply triggering samples/songs.

[freeztar]

I'm kinda in the same boat right now. I have an opportunity to DJ and I've never done it. Fortunately I have more than a week to prepare, so I can understand your anxiety.

My plan so far is to use my laptop with a decent usb interface. I've been remixing songs and plan to just use Tracktion for playback, although EnergyXT seems like a good option too because of the modular environment. With that you could dynamically add all sorts of FX and modulations. Plogue Bidule would be the best modularly, but I didn't like the work flow and it was not nearly stable enough on my machine to use live.
Traktor seems like the best solution if you have $200 laying around. You can basically just create a playlist and as it's going along you can cue the next track on the other deck and crossfade it in. It also does auto beat matching which works pretty well if the songs are already close in BPM.

Let me know what you end up doing and how it goes. I'm very curious.