Crowd Control:


When you're onstage its true that your owning your set. You control everything from the lights to the music and the stage is your throne with the club your kingdom.  If your not quite in a spot where your sequestered by a Dj booth you're going to have to deal with stuff you might not have expected before you've gone through it. I'm talking about having that one dude who comes up wanting to hear some old school Will Smith (no disrespect Big Willie) when you already got the party popping off with a hot new electro remix of whatever's hitting the top 40 right now.

    Unfortunately what you'll find is 9 outta 10 times you won't be able to just ignore that dude as you still got him coming up, distracting you, asking stupid questions and potentially even spill his drink on your equipment?! oh man. Ok so here's a few ways to deal with "that guy".

-Have request box separate from your DJ setup, but potentially accessible without leaving your equipment too far behind to venture to the request box.

-Don't use the request box often, as in don't actually take requests from it too often,
That way people will feel like they were able to get a vote in on the music they're hearing and chances are even if you never get to their request, they will have gone back to having a good time anyway and won't care.

-If they do care tell em you got em next week.

-Parlay that request box into cash if you want, make em pay for the tracks, nothing wrong with that since you've got the stage for the next few hours anyway its your call if you wanna sell some time off, just gotta balance that with how your crowd feels about hearing some fools flow. I do $50 for a 3 min instrumental track otherwise no sale. 75 for each additional, they probably only buy one.

-Have private security, your bouncer or homie , handle the situation by firmly explaining theres no bothering the DJ anymore tonight.

-Drop some tracks that clearly state: No requests

     If you try to reason with "that guy" during a performance you're only going to get more negative feedback and distractions while your supposed to be mixing and throwing out positive energy.  I've actually seen a Dj let the music go quiet because he was so involved in telling a group of females theres no way he was going to drop some usher in the middle of hard house electro night. Wrong night y'all, wrong stage anyway.

Follow me on Twitter @DJbasics for daily #mixtips and insipration
Also google: TheSampleHouse760 for drum sounds, synth sounds, akai kits, and swagg

Remix the Remix with a couple remixes..?

     As a new DJ fresh on the scene behind the tables you'll want to have a wide arsenal of audio tracks you can lay down during your set.  The more you have at your disposal, the more likely you'll be able to be succeed in any DJ situation.  Builds, breaks, loops, organic string and drum sounds are all very important.  They are all tools that can be used in different ways when you need them.  Just as important as any of the tools you posses in your audio arsenal are the remixes that already exist.  You might be saying okay that's lame im looking to become a DJ so that I can make my own remixes, why the hell would I want to play someone else's work?!  If this was anything close to your thought process that's okay but I need to stress to you that you're job as a DJ will be to please the crowd that you have in front of you and throw down a sweet mix cd or two to showcase your skill sets.  In my opinion one of the very best ways to do that would be to get yourself some crazy cool remixes of the most popular radio top-40 in your area.  If Drake's new hit is whats playing day in and day out on the radio then when you set-up in the club or the pub and drop the un-offical remix its going to set it off, almost guaranteed.  What's more is that you shouldn't stop there. Hopefully you've had enough time with those new remixes that you can mix the two together during your set, maybe you had a cue point set on each of them (or several cue points) and you're about to get crazy flippin double slowing and speeding up during breaks and then dropping the other remixes drop where the first one was, YEAA. Something like that! All of a sudden you've got the crowd under control as you look around you'll find yourself in the lime-light that night.

     On a quick side note if you're looking to make you're own original remix the best way to go about it would be to obtain some vocal tracks also known as acapella tracks, that you can then mix over an instrumental or drum loop.  After you have an awesome remix of your own you'll need to contact the owners of the loops and vocals your using to ensure that they are royalty free and have been cleared for commercial use.  If you are interested in obtaining one-shot or single sound drum sounds that you can sequence into beats using a program like abelton or FL studio just scroll down to purchase a full selection of drum sounds professionally sampled from the Korg Electribe EMX-1.  Payments accepted through pay-pal only.

Beat Matching

&

The 8 Count

    Beat matching is the art of taking two beats, or a beat and a vocal and setting them to the same speed.  The speed of a track is displayed as a number representing the beats per minuet that play during the course of a track.  If the track selected is a very long mashup or mix set itself with many bpms involved in the course of play from start to finish, the BPM displayed will likely be an average during the length of the track. 

   By setting the two tracks to the same BPM you can be easily mix them together using some basic mix techniques.  The first technique you should familiarize yourself with is the 8 count.  An 8 count occurs when 2 steps have passed.  A step contains four meters.  Meters in this case is a unit of musical measurement.  A basics techno bass beat is usually an 8 count with the first hit of each meter being a bass drum, thump, thump, thump, thump.

     

     The 8 count is essential to being a well rounded DJ in my opinion. Like knowing how to read a map even though you can mostly rely on a GPS. 

     When it comes to mixing your set as a DJ you simply need two tracks with the same bpm and similar or compatible style such as two house tracks or two dubstep tracks (although with experience you can VASTLY stretch you definition of compatible and similar style tracks potentially getting to a point where your making mash-ups of everything).  To get started mixing lets start by playing track one. As it plays que the second track up to a 4x4 Bass drum beat, also known as a four on the floor beat. Now just wait for a build and at the right moment hit play on the second track as you move the crossfader from  track one to track two. If all went well then congrats, you just swapped out the next section of that song with another's 4x4 Bass line! This is just the start of getting crazy behind the wheels of steel, digital or otherwise.

Learning how to drop a track (meaning to play a new track in your mix) at the right moment will later allow you to manipulate looped beats to your advantage as well as Advert and Transition type samples.  If you have never mixed before I highly recommend starting with house music and trance in order to get yourself comfortable in your setup. After that it would probably be easier to then learn how to mix hip-hop and rock genres as some of the rules mixing change slightly based on the genres.  

Next week We'll be covering transitions as well as how to get out a tight spot if your systems fails you live or you get caught in a bad loop. Until then happy mixing, this is Dj-Jay Singing off.

Follow me on twitter @DJbasics Where I drop daily mixtips, news, and inspiration.


Check this out if u gotta sec too: rolling stones 25 DJ's that rule the world http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-25-djs-that-rule-the-earth-20121109

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