AsTheDJ
Can A Dj Have to Much Music/Video And Dont Know What To Play?
Posted Fri 19 Mar 10 @ 6:25 pm
tayla
I wouldn't say that, but it's pointless loading stuff onto a drive knowing you will never play just to make the numbers up, is the way i would look at it. Not saying you have or would, but I know guys that have and they like to boast about how many tracks they have, pointless exercise as far as I'm concerned.
Posted Fri 19 Mar 10 @ 6:34 pm
Charlie Wilson
Maybe your played out, too much of the same thing does that.
Posted Fri 19 Mar 10 @ 6:42 pm
Paulie_C
I load everything I buy just so it's on there. I will most likely NEVER use MOST of it but it is on there just in case. Storage is cheap enough to have ample room for most anything these days.
Posted Fri 19 Mar 10 @ 10:02 pm
DJ Cyder
too much music? I never know what I'm going to play untill I'm ready to play it and I'm sure many DJ's are the same way. In all my years of djing I've tried the whole plan everything out route half way though I find myself deviating for the pre-programed route. I belive a good dj can only play with the feedback of a live audience. If its not working I'm on to the next thing, thinking 4-5 songs ahead but still keeping an open mind. Nothing beats chaning your mind with 3 seconds left on the other deck.
Posted Fri 19 Mar 10 @ 10:15 pm
Nemisius
I'll mirror cyder on this one. It's also called information overload. I used to be able to name 4-9 songs to mix off of any other song in a snap - I wish my mind worked that good now (more time was spent back then looking for the record or CD).
I used to manage a smail dj record pool and the master library for a large DJ company so I did it to myself on that front. Now I get 250+ tracks a month of everything and have to distill that for a client that DJ's but only wants the best most common music for general play. If he doesn't have it it doesn't get played- simple as that - must be nice to be a Karaoke jock!
Here's some food for thought:
I have 2 libraries: Full and backup.
Full sits on a matching 1.5 tb drives and is music video and karaoke.
Backup sits on the main drive of my MBP and in a 16gb flash drive.
Backup has a culled library of the best of the best for every thing and reduced top40 hits club anthems and stuff I use for remixing and personal favorites. This one's easy to know what you have on it...
I did it this way because it made sense - I have a Computer based system that had CD's for back up then switched to a Cortex HDC1000 with a hard drive - For simplicies sake I did the flash drive. It's stable and quick. This back up saved my butt when the MBP's sata drive started to die at a gig and when some one yanked the usb cord out of my laptop. Computer buffered just enough of the song to studder once and continue as I mixed into the cortex. I can easily do a whole gig off the back up or grab a set of powered speakers and gig off my laptop only.
There is 2 good schools of thought you presented, why not use both to there fullest potential? >or not, cuz it makes it easier to pick up former clients ; )
I used to manage a smail dj record pool and the master library for a large DJ company so I did it to myself on that front. Now I get 250+ tracks a month of everything and have to distill that for a client that DJ's but only wants the best most common music for general play. If he doesn't have it it doesn't get played- simple as that - must be nice to be a Karaoke jock!
Here's some food for thought:
I have 2 libraries: Full and backup.
Full sits on a matching 1.5 tb drives and is music video and karaoke.
Backup sits on the main drive of my MBP and in a 16gb flash drive.
Backup has a culled library of the best of the best for every thing and reduced top40 hits club anthems and stuff I use for remixing and personal favorites. This one's easy to know what you have on it...
I did it this way because it made sense - I have a Computer based system that had CD's for back up then switched to a Cortex HDC1000 with a hard drive - For simplicies sake I did the flash drive. It's stable and quick. This back up saved my butt when the MBP's sata drive started to die at a gig and when some one yanked the usb cord out of my laptop. Computer buffered just enough of the song to studder once and continue as I mixed into the cortex. I can easily do a whole gig off the back up or grab a set of powered speakers and gig off my laptop only.
There is 2 good schools of thought you presented, why not use both to there fullest potential? >or not, cuz it makes it easier to pick up former clients ; )
Posted Sat 20 Mar 10 @ 10:56 am
hippydog
asthedj wrote :
Can A Dj Have to Much Music/Video And Dont Know What To Play?
Too MANY choices can sometimes make things harder.. Information overload and all that..
I personally compensate by using a rating system.. I don't like pre-planning sets as I like to be able to change up what I play based on requests and the "mood".
thing is, trying to scroll thru 100's of songs just to find one that may or may not mix well can be a pain..
so.. everything is rated, this way I don't waste my time looking at songs that I already know rarely work.. (yet I still have them for requests or "experiments")
Posted Sat 20 Mar 10 @ 2:55 pm
Caliente123
This is why you practice and try to get many gigs. When you are not busy with gigs and have some once in a while, You will wonder what to play. Just play what you hear on the radio from the friday and saturday night mixes. There are too many songs songs coming out daily and you have to be able to keep up with the good ones.
Posted Sat 20 Mar 10 @ 5:34 pm
nitebeatdisco
Often as I walk thru the club area of Town it amuses me they are all playing pretty much the same stuff, the same as Me.
Logically to be the best you must be different, but with being difference comes the risk of being worse.
If you have a small collection of surefire dancefloor fillers covering your genres, its often easier to not make a mistake in music selection.
As a mobile DJ the fact you are likely to get into a rut may not matter to much.
With a larger collection you are often better equipped to fill more unusual requests, which pleases the person making the request, but what about the rest of the crowd?
OK maybe this is the difference between a DJ and a Machine, so in short a larger collection means more desions and a greater chance of mistakes, or being outstanding.
Logically to be the best you must be different, but with being difference comes the risk of being worse.
If you have a small collection of surefire dancefloor fillers covering your genres, its often easier to not make a mistake in music selection.
As a mobile DJ the fact you are likely to get into a rut may not matter to much.
With a larger collection you are often better equipped to fill more unusual requests, which pleases the person making the request, but what about the rest of the crowd?
OK maybe this is the difference between a DJ and a Machine, so in short a larger collection means more desions and a greater chance of mistakes, or being outstanding.
Posted Sat 20 Mar 10 @ 7:46 pm
fatkatzdj
I agree with Nitebeat 100%
Posted Sun 21 Mar 10 @ 9:46 am
theStylishDJ
@ hippy an other who cares to chime in...how do you rate your music for fast selection...i see people say it all the time, give me an example of what that means or how it works my selection is growin and if it helps me i may want to use it!
Posted Tue 23 Mar 10 @ 3:00 pm
hippydog
myself, I use the comments section and place 1 to 5 "!" exclamation marks..
IE: "!!!!!" is an awesome song, "!!!!" is good, and "!" is garbage, never ever play.
lots of my songs are not rated, but as I add songs or play them I try and get into the habit of always putting down what I think they are worth..
For new songs I usually 'give em the benefit of a doubt'. basically I rate them higher then usuall until I have a chance to play them live.. If they bomb, then they get rated lower..
For those times I find myself having trouble finding something to play next I made a bunch of filters.
IE: Filter : Comment contains "!!!!" and Genre=Club
IE: "!!!!!" is an awesome song, "!!!!" is good, and "!" is garbage, never ever play.
lots of my songs are not rated, but as I add songs or play them I try and get into the habit of always putting down what I think they are worth..
For new songs I usually 'give em the benefit of a doubt'. basically I rate them higher then usuall until I have a chance to play them live.. If they bomb, then they get rated lower..
For those times I find myself having trouble finding something to play next I made a bunch of filters.
IE: Filter : Comment contains "!!!!" and Genre=Club
Posted Tue 23 Mar 10 @ 5:25 pm
GadgetMan
For me it's a combination of virtual folders & filters, my history and the last played & play count columns...
I don't see the need to complicate things and fill out the comments field. If a track is worth playing it will have been played recently. So it will have a recent "last played" and a "play count" > 0. You can create filters on both of these along with genre, pitch and key to home in on these tracks if you get stuck...
I regularly trawl my history and make sure my newer/popular tracks are also moved to one of my virtual folders. I can then use the "last played" and "play count" to float the best tracks to the top... All tracks in the folder will be credible, so the ones at the top are the popular ones, the ones at the bottom are thos rare tracks you pull out at the right place & time.
VDJ has all the info you need to manage this...
Cheers,
Roy
I don't see the need to complicate things and fill out the comments field. If a track is worth playing it will have been played recently. So it will have a recent "last played" and a "play count" > 0. You can create filters on both of these along with genre, pitch and key to home in on these tracks if you get stuck...
I regularly trawl my history and make sure my newer/popular tracks are also moved to one of my virtual folders. I can then use the "last played" and "play count" to float the best tracks to the top... All tracks in the folder will be credible, so the ones at the top are the popular ones, the ones at the bottom are thos rare tracks you pull out at the right place & time.
VDJ has all the info you need to manage this...
Cheers,
Roy
Posted Tue 23 Mar 10 @ 5:48 pm
hippydog
GadgetMan wrote :
I don't see the need to complicate things and fill out the comments field. If a track is worth playing it will have been played recently.
makes sense, in my case it doesnt work, as I am always playing around and playing stuff I would not normally use live.
Also as a mobile DJ I play a lot of dinner and cocktail music, so again , the "last played" would be filled with jazz and just semi OK music LOL
as they say, "theirs more then way way to skin a cat", myself I like the idea of virtual folders, but its seems more complicated to ME :-) LOL
and I don't think virtual folders translate across different computers? (if your using an external hard drive)
Posted Wed 24 Mar 10 @ 1:03 pm
theStylishDJ
thanks....
Posted Wed 24 Mar 10 @ 3:44 pm
GadgetMan
hippydog wrote :
and I don't think virtual folders translate across different computers? (if your using an external hard drive)
The virtual folder is stored in the VDJ database on the drive where the file exists. If you have files in a folder called "Top 40" then each database will have a virtual folder by the same name. These get merged when you start VDJ.
If the files only exist on your local drive, then the folder will only appear in the databse in the VDJ folder.
Virtual Folders aren't complicated. They are just virtual crates that contain a link to a file. That means the same file can appear in multiple folders. I used to maintain local playlist folders by copying files in to them. As soon as I got virtual folders these got replaced.
You've got nothing to use. Create a couple and have a play. I started with very simple folders like "Bankers", "Kids" and "Looney Tunes". These soon expanded to include "First Dance", "Last Dance", "Party", etc... You'll find them extremley useful once you start using them.
Roy
Posted Wed 24 Mar 10 @ 5:21 pm