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£10 Bag wrote:in response to the original post, I'd say that tune in particular is not DJ friendly because you drop the bassline straight away on bar 1. I wouldn't play that in a set.
Take the bassline out for the first 16 or 32 bars and then DJs will be much more inclined to put it in a set

There's just no need for a bassline in the intro...build up to it...

Sorry, but that is all ridiculously untrue. A good DJ doesn't need a bass-free 16 or 32 bar intro. That is just pure laziness.

Doesn't matter where the drops are, or if there is an ambient intro or whatever. There is no rule that says one has to begin mixing from the first bar, and in fact, mixes that have all the tracks starting from the first bar tend to be formulaic and boring. Try mixing in from halfway through a tune, try using an ambient intro of one song, before blasting a drop from a completely different tune. Mix it up.

Mad EP wrote:
Sorry, but that is all ridiculously untrue. A good DJ doesn't need a bass-free 16 or 32 bar intro. That is just pure laziness.

Doesn't matter where the drops are, or if there is an ambient intro or whatever. There is no rule that says one has to begin mixing from the first bar, and in fact, mixes that have all the tracks starting from the first bar tend to be formulaic and boring. Try mixing in from halfway through a tune, try using an ambient intro of one song, before blasting a drop from a completely different tune. Mix it up.

True. I mix Techno and often will skip to the best part of the track and throw that in for a min or two. Gets interesting with 3 turntables when doing this, teasing.

I always have an intro lol

Mad EP wrote:

£10 Bag wrote:in response to the original post, I'd say that tune in particular is not DJ friendly because you drop the bassline straight away on bar 1. I wouldn't play that in a set.

Take the bassline out for the first 16 or 32 bars and then DJs will be much more inclined to put it in a set



There's just no need for a bassline in the intro...build up to it...

Sorry, but that is all ridiculously untrue. A good DJ doesn't need a bass-free 16 or 32 bar intro. That is just pure laziness.



Doesn't matter where the drops are, or if there is an ambient intro or whatever. There is no rule that says one has to begin mixing from the first bar, and in fact, mixes that have all the tracks starting from the first bar tend to be formulaic and boring. Try mixing in from halfway through a tune, try using an ambient intro of one song, before blasting a drop from a completely different tune. Mix it up.

No I think what he said was spot on. We are talking about dj friendly tracks here. Not saying a track has to be dj friendly but if you want it to be friendly then you shouldnt start it out on a bassline, pretty simple thing. Some people are getting worked up over nothing.

abZ wrote:
No I think what he said was spot on. We are talking about dj friendly tracks here. Not saying a track has to be dj friendly but if you want it to be friendly then you shouldnt start it out on a bassline, pretty simple thing. Some people are getting worked up over nothing.

why not?

Have you heard how 90% of Dubstep has the exact same structure at the same tempo? sounds used in a track have nothing to do with it being DJ friendly at all. only thing that matters is that things are in the 4/4 time sig and that doesn't really even matter that much. Everything is mixable and you have to be quite shit at mixing or boring if you have to have the intro like all ur other tracks. Zzzzzzzzz. wheres the diversity gone? I miss the character and I use to get from my oldskool Techno records. The mistakes and unexpected things were cool. Gave the track something different. Bit like Burial's stuff now days! its not all perfectly sync'd up.

It is not all about 16/32 intros to a drop. Dubstep has gone all jumpup and predictable.

serox wrote:

abZ wrote:


No I think what he said was spot on. We are talking about dj friendly tracks here. Not saying a track has to be dj friendly but if you want it to be friendly then you shouldnt start it out on a bassline, pretty simple thing. Some people are getting worked up over nothing.

why not?



Have you heard how 90% of Dubstep has the exact same structure at the same tempo? sounds used in a track have nothing to do with it being DJ friendly at all. only thing that matters is that things are in the 4/4 time sig and that doesn't really even matter that much. Everything is mixable and you have to be quite shit at mixing or boring if you have to have the intro like all ur other tracks. Zzzzzzzzz. wheres the diversity gone? I miss the character and I use to get from my oldskool Techno records. The mistakes and unexpected things were cool. Gave the track something different. Bit like Burial's stuff now days! its not all perfectly sync'd up.



It is not all about 16/32 intros to a drop. Dubstep has gone all jumpup and predictable.

Again you are missing the point that I keep trying to bring up. Guy is asking how to make a tune dj friendly and you guys keep saying it doesnt have to be dj friendly, I agree but those statements are not helpful to the subject. I dont know explaining this makes me a boring lazy dj? Nonsense.

abZ wrote:
Again you are missing the point that I keep trying to bring up. Guy is asking how to make a tune dj friendly and you guys keep saying it doesnt have to be dj friendly, I agree but those statements are not helpful to the subject. I dont know explaining this makes me a boring lazy dj? Nonsense.

Actually, it is you missing the point... we're not saying that a tune doesn't have to be DJ friendly, we are saying a tune doesn't need a bass-free 16 bar intro *in order to BE* DJ friendly. I checked the OP's track, and there is nothing about it that is DJ un-friendly. So what if it has a bassline from the beginning? That doesn't make it hard for me to drop in a set. It's got easily locked tempo, and it has some breakdowns, etc.. that is pretty much all that is needed in order to be DJ friendly.

When I made the comment about boring/lazy... it wasn't meant to try to diss or point fingers. I just meant that if a DJ needs rigid guidelines above and beyond an easily locked tempo (ie- specific number of bars for intro, on the condition of no basslines, etc etc)... in order to be easily DJ-able, then I don't think it is the track to blame. The EQ controls, crossfader, etc are there for a reason.

Mad EP wrote:

abZ wrote:


Again you are missing the point that I keep trying to bring up. Guy is asking how to make a tune dj friendly and you guys keep saying it doesnt have to be dj friendly, I agree but those statements are not helpful to the subject. I dont know explaining this makes me a boring lazy dj? Nonsense.

Actually, it is you missing the point... we're not saying that a tune doesn't have to be DJ friendly, we are saying a tune doesn't need a bass-free 16 bar intro *in order to BE* DJ friendly. I checked the OP's track, and there is nothing about it that is DJ un-friendly. So what if it has a bassline from the beginning? That doesn't make it hard for me to drop in a set. It's got easily locked tempo, and it has some breakdowns, etc.. that is pretty much all that is needed in order to be DJ friendly.



When I made the comment about boring/lazy... it wasn't meant to try to diss or point fingers. I just meant that if a DJ needs rigid guidelines above and beyond an easily locked tempo (ie- specific number of bars for intro, on the condition of no basslines, etc etc)... in order to be easily DJ-able, then I don't think it is the track to blame. The EQ controls, crossfader, etc are there for a reason.

Thats fine tbh I didnt even check the track but I dont like mixing basslines together because it usually results in clashing so it doesnt make it undjable but it limits where it can be used. Again nothing wrong with that but to me dj friendly is when the tune is written in a way that makes it usable in a lot of diffrent situations. I think our argument is on the definition of dj friendly and your opinion is every bit as valid as mine so I call a truce lol

a tune that starts with its bassline in bar 1 wouldn't really affect a DJ though


as that track wouldn't even be in the mix as it was cueing for the first 8-16 bars


yeah?



unless thats a too predictable way to cue tunes

jolly wailer wrote:a tune that starts with its bassline in bar 1 wouldn't really affect a DJ though





as that track wouldn't even be in the mix as it was cueing for the first 8-16 bars





yeah?







unless thats a too predictable way to cue tunes

I often bring track right in the mix on the first beat or shortly after by fading it in.

abZ wrote: I often bring track right in the mix on the first beat or shortly after by fading it in.

Jeez. I bring it in on the first kick 99% of the time. Maybe it's because I started as a hip-hop DJ, but that's always the way I have done it.

***unless there is some reason why I would only play a later part of song or something a la JJ Fad - Supersonic, etc

contakt321 wrote:

abZ wrote: I often bring track right in the mix on the first beat or shortly after by fading it in.

Jeez. I bring it in on the first kick 99% of the time. Maybe it's because I started as a hip-hop DJ, but that's always the way I have done it.

Sheesh, I normally bring stuff in 15-20 measures before the first sound on the record. Sometimes I bring stuff in before I've even got it out of the box, or when I haven't got it with me at all. Y'all are some lazy-ass DJs.

slothrop wrote:

contakt321 wrote:

abZ wrote: I often bring track right in the mix on the first beat or shortly after by fading it in.

Jeez. I bring it in on the first kick 99% of the time. Maybe it's because I started as a hip-hop DJ, but that's always the way I have done it.

Sheesh, I normally bring stuff in 15-20 measures before the first sound on the record. Sometimes I bring stuff in before I've even got it out of the box, or when I haven't got it with me at all. Y'all are some lazy-ass DJs.

sheeeeit im already mixed out of the tune before the first beat dops an im lazy az fuk bro

Please, everyone... start your tune off with a beat. PLEASE... it just makes life a lot easier.

one thing that concerns me about my tunes being dj friendly is the impact the mix will have on the listener, if say you have some wierd phrasing on your tune and you have an extra 4 bars in there somewhere, the dj mixes it from the top and the two tunes dont end up dropping correctly at the end of the mix, the crowd will feel that and possibly not have the same energy dancing to that drop as they would have had the phrasing and thusly the impact of the drop been "correct", the dj then feels the crowd didnt really respond to the tune and probably wont play it again or put it a studio mix.

same with say wierd time signatures or super duper shuffly perc, if the mix is always soemhow off for a dj and they have to "fudge it" to get it to work everytime they play it, the crowd wont react as well to the tune and the dj probably wont pull for it as often.

also being dj friendly can have to do with structure of your tune, if the last minute or two of your track is the most "progressed" or sickest part of the tune and the rest of the 3-5 minutes of the tune were building up to that point theres a good chance noone on the floor will ever hear that dope part because the dj has gone in and out of it already(and imo good djing is not letting tunes play all the way out and mixing out at the last possible phrase). this is why i try to keep the first drop as interesting as possible and get to the meat of my song before the second drop or outro of my tune, so the crowd hears that best part.

press wrote:one thing that concerns me about my tunes being dj friendly is the impact the mix will have on the listener, if say you have some wierd phrasing on your tune and you have an extra 4 bars in there somewhere, the dj mixes it from the top and the two tunes dont end up dropping correctly at the end of the mix, the crowd will feel that and possibly not have the same energy dancing to that drop as they would have had the phrasing and thusly the impact of the drop been "correct", the dj then feels the crowd didnt really respond to the tune and probably wont play it again or put it a studio mix.

same with say wierd time signatures or super duper shuffly perc, if the mix is always soemhow off for a dj and they have to "fudge it" to get it to work everytime they play it, the crowd wont react as well to the tune and the dj probably wont pull for it as often.

also being dj friendly can have to do with structure of your tune, if the last minute or two of your track is the most "progressed" or sickest part of the tune and the rest of the 3-5 minutes of the tune were building up to that point theres a good chance noone on the floor will ever hear that dope part because the dj has gone in and out of it already(and imo good djing is not letting tunes play all the way out and mixing out at the last possible phrase). this is why i try to keep the first drop as interesting as possible and get to the meat of my song before the second drop or outro of my tune, so the crowd hears that best part.

I often let the second drop go before I mix out. Good djing to me is not how fast you can mix. A lot of djs these days are only playing less than 2 minutes of each tune play and for me that isn't enough time for me to even get into it. That style of mixing is great if you are playing a lot of crap 320's from the forum tho. You mix out before people realize the tune is shite lol. That is just something I have learned after 15 years of playing out, let the tunes do the work. That said you do have a good point, I defo try to make my tunes get meaty from the first drop because regardless of how I mix I know how a lot of guy out there are doing it. Usually my tunes don't go much over 4 minutes anyway. My second drop might be coming in around the 2 minute mark, might force some people to play the second drop unless you are just laying one on top of another.

abZ wrote:

press wrote:one thing that concerns me about my tunes being dj friendly is the impact the mix will have on the listener, if say you have some wierd phrasing on your tune and you have an extra 4 bars in there somewhere, the dj mixes it from the top and the two tunes dont end up dropping correctly at the end of the mix, the crowd will feel that and possibly not have the same energy dancing to that drop as they would have had the phrasing and thusly the impact of the drop been "correct", the dj then feels the crowd didnt really respond to the tune and probably wont play it again or put it a studio mix.

same with say wierd time signatures or super duper shuffly perc, if the mix is always soemhow off for a dj and they have to "fudge it" to get it to work everytime they play it, the crowd wont react as well to the tune and the dj probably wont pull for it as often.

also being dj friendly can have to do with structure of your tune, if the last minute or two of your track is the most "progressed" or sickest part of the tune and the rest of the 3-5 minutes of the tune were building up to that point theres a good chance noone on the floor will ever hear that dope part because the dj has gone in and out of it already(and imo good djing is not letting tunes play all the way out and mixing out at the last possible phrase). this is why i try to keep the first drop as interesting as possible and get to the meat of my song before the second drop or outro of my tune, so the crowd hears that best part.

I often let the second drop go before I mix out. Good djing to me is not how fast you can mix. A lot of djs these days are only playing less than 2 minutes of each tune play and for me that isn't enough time for me to even get into it. That style of mixing is great if you are playing a lot of crap 320's from the forum tho. You mix out before people realize the tune is shite lol. That is just something I have learned after 15 years of playing out, let the tunes do the work. That said you do have a good point, I defo try to make my tunes get meaty from the first drop because regardless of how I mix I know how a lot of guy out there are doing it. Usually my tunes don't go much over 4 minutes anyway. My second drop might be coming in around the 2 minute mark, might force some people to play the second drop unless you are just laying one on top of another.

abZ wrote:I think our argument is on the definition of dj friendly and your opinion is every bit as valid as mine so I call a truce lol

Fair enough - truce accepted.