Tips for finding the right 'next song' in the heat of DJing

Tips and techniques of the trade

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Lawrence
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#31 Post by Lawrence » Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:56 pm

Nathan has demonstrated his system to me, and it is a lot of work (mostly in categorizing each and every song in five to ten different ways), but it is amazingly useful. If I had the time, I would do it, myself. He really uses the database capabilities of DJing off a computer to its fullest.
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straycat
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#32 Post by straycat » Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:21 am

Nate Dogg wrote:To find the next song, I run a smart view in WinAmp to find songs that fit what I am looking for in the next song (SmartViews are called Smart Playlists in iTunes, most of the MP3 players have a similar database function in them). Similar to what others have said, usually the tempo is not drastically different and there is something similar to the song before. However, sometimes I might want to play something radically different. The point is that I organize my collection to where I can find it very easily. I follow my system.
If you don't mind my asking - roughly how many tracks have you categorised like this? And how big was your collection when you started?

At present, I work off a small but slowly growing selection (around 500 tracks that I've selected out of my main collection) I try to listen to these a as much as possible, so I'm familiar enough with them that when I'm DJing, I can get a feeling for what mood /feeling I'm after for the next track, then scan through looking for tracks that roughly match the mood & tempo that I need, agonise over them until the last second, pick one, cross my fingers, and away I go...

It's a very seat of the pants approach, it's a lot of fun, and so far I've found it works very well for me - but as my collection grows, it's steadily getting harder to retain that 'feeling' for a lot of it, and I've been wondering about embarking on something like you describe here. I think it'll take a fairly hefty initial time investment, but with luck will be worth doing.

Haydn
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#33 Post by Haydn » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:41 am

straycat wrote:
Nate Dogg wrote:To find the next song, I run a smart view in WinAmp to find songs that fit what I am looking for in the next song (SmartViews are called Smart Playlists in iTunes, most of the MP3 players have a similar database function in them). Similar to what others have said, usually the tempo is not drastically different and there is something similar to the song before. However, sometimes I might want to play something radically different. The point is that I organize my collection to where I can find it very easily. I follow my system.
If you don't mind my asking - roughly how many tracks have you categorised like this? And how big was your collection when you started?

At present, I work off a small but slowly growing selection (around 500 tracks that I've selected out of my main collection) I try to listen to these a as much as possible, so I'm familiar enough with them that when I'm DJing, I can get a feeling for what mood /feeling I'm after for the next track, then scan through looking for tracks that roughly match the mood & tempo that I need, agonise over them until the last second, pick one, cross my fingers, and away I go...

It's a very seat of the pants approach, it's a lot of fun, and so far I've found it works very well for me - but as my collection grows, it's steadily getting harder to retain that 'feeling' for a lot of it, and I've been wondering about embarking on something like you describe here. I think it'll take a fairly hefty initial time investment, but with luck will be worth doing.
I like Nathan's approach, and I've started working on this idea in iTunes (which I use for my library). I use Smart Playlists to list by artist and by song title (all the One O'Clock Jump's for example). I've now started to categorise songs together by 'feel' - e.g. high-energy, or relaxed vibe. So in future I can create a Smart Playlist that lists my favourite high-energy songs between 160-180 BPM, or relaxed vibe 130-150 BPM. It takes a long time to categorise everything, but I think it should pay off when DJing.

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Lawrence
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#34 Post by Lawrence » Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:31 am

Haydn wrote:
straycat wrote:
Nate Dogg wrote:To find the next song, I run a smart view in WinAmp to find songs that fit what I am looking for in the next song (SmartViews are called Smart Playlists in iTunes, most of the MP3 players have a similar database function in them). Similar to what others have said, usually the tempo is not drastically different and there is something similar to the song before. However, sometimes I might want to play something radically different. The point is that I organize my collection to where I can find it very easily. I follow my system.
If you don't mind my asking - roughly how many tracks have you categorised like this? And how big was your collection when you started?
I like Nathan's approach, and I've started working on this idea in iTunes (which I use for my library). I use Smart Playlists to list by artist and by song title (all the One O'Clock Jump's for example). I've now started to categorise songs together by 'feel' - e.g. high-energy, or relaxed vibe. So in future I can create a Smart Playlist that lists my favourite high-energy songs between 160-180 BPM, or relaxed vibe 130-150 BPM. It takes a long time to categorise everything, but I think it should pay off when DJing.
Actually, Nathan doesn't just use playlists in ITunes. He uses a tag editor to edit the "comments" tag of the MP3 files, themselves. For each category (Balboa, Birthday dance, Old person song, Kiddie Neo Swing, etc...) he has a one or two word descriptor. Then he uses the smartlist to search the comment field alone for all songs with that keyword in the comment tag. That way, he is not limited to categorizing a song only one way (like the "genre" tag most people use limits you).

That way, even if he loses his smartlists/playlists (which has happened to me), he can automatically regenerate the playlists easily because the tags remain on the files, themselves.

Also, straycat, Nathan has one of the biggest music collections I know of: 3,000-4,000 CDs or more, plus thousands of songs he purchased in MP3 format. Most libraries do not have a collection his size. He also is one of the more ardent eMusic.com subscribers on this board and gets lots of music from that site. So categorizing all those songs is an immense task (which is why I have not done it, myself), but it makes a collection his size easier to manage.
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dogpossum
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#35 Post by dogpossum » Thu Jan 17, 2008 6:58 pm

straycat wrote:
At present, I work off a small but slowly growing selection (around 500 tracks that I've selected out of my main collection) I try to listen to these a as much as possible, so I'm familiar enough with them that when I'm DJing, I can get a feeling for what mood /feeling I'm after for the next track, then scan through looking for tracks that roughly match the mood & tempo that I need, agonise over them until the last second, pick one, cross my fingers, and away I go...

It's a very seat of the pants approach, it's a lot of fun, and so far I've found it works very well for me - but as my collection grows, it's steadily getting harder to retain that 'feeling' for a lot of it, and I've been wondering about embarking on something like you describe here. I think it'll take a fairly hefty initial time investment, but with luck will be worth doing.

That's pretty much what I do. I started using headphones and previewing, and found it really helpful - it 'reminds' me of the 'feel' of songs, especially if I've just added a new album and aren't quite familiar enough with it. I think it's one of those things that helps you out as your collection starts getting bigger.

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#36 Post by Nate Dogg » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:51 am

Lawrence did a good job of answering the questions. Big collection, lots of time has been put into it. I have not finished all the tagging. Probably will never be done.

The evolution went like this. I used to DJ from a bunch of compilation CDs and I had a plan to organize them into various series (by style, by type of singer, by bpm). Then, when I switched to DJing from a laptop. I started updating the comments and smart lists to have the same effect.

Also, as Lawrence said, I used to write databases in a former career. So, thinking of my collection from that standpoint was pretty easy for me. But, the queries and tags are very simple to write and understand.

Nathan

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#37 Post by Nate Dogg » Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:55 am

straycat wrote: I think it'll take a fairly hefty initial time investment, but with luck will be worth doing.
Yes, it takes time to set up. But, if you back up your files regularly, the results last forever.

Nathan

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#38 Post by Albert System » Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:47 pm

FYI- this is how I categorize my tunes for when I am calling a set of music with my band. I do not make set lists ahead of time- I like to call things as I go depending on the crowd. So I have my songs listed thusly:

Up tempo Instrumental
Mid Tempo Instrumental
Slow Instrumental
Blues
Latin

And the same way for male vocals (myself and the piano player sing) and also female vocals.

So I will try to construct a set on the fly, something like this:

Mid Tempo Instrumental
Mid tempo male Vocal
Up tempo Female Vocal
Slow female Vocal
Mid tempo Instrumental
Up tempo Male vocal
Mid tempo Female Vocal
Slow instrumental or blues
Up tempo female vocal out.

Another thing that I try to do, which is much more difficult with recorded music, is to change keys. I try to never play back- to- back tunes in the same key. Things will start to sound monotonous if you do.

Paul Cosentino
Boilermaker Jazz Band

Haydn
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#39 Post by Haydn » Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:06 am

Albert System wrote:Another thing that I try to do, which is much more difficult with recorded music, is to change keys. I try to never play back- to- back tunes in the same key. Things will start to sound monotonous if you do.
That's an interesting point. After listening to a few swing songs in the same key, I'm sure you're right. So to make use of this when DJing, you would need to know the key of each track. I wonder if there's an easy way to work out the key of a song on a computer, apart from using a musical instrument. Is there some 'key recogniser' software or hardware that will link with, say, iTunes?

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#40 Post by kitkat » Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:12 am

Haydn--don't worry about it. I have NEVER had a problem w/ it not labeling such things. As you change artists & eras & most importantly, makeup of the bands playing your songs, the key issue will take care of itself.

SoundInMotionDJ
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#41 Post by SoundInMotionDJ » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:15 am

Hayden, Kitkat is correct.

I don't know Albert, and I've never heard him spin - but I seriously doubt that the biggest obstacle to improving his sets is matching songs by key. I am not trying to single Albert out individually. The problem of finding the next song is one of "being in the moment." Attempting to be too technical destroys the "artistry" and "inspiration" and "intuition" that is the only way to create something that is truly "awesome." If you try to get really technical about selecting music, the more guidelines you have, the more rules you try to follow, the closer you get to "good" and the more unlikely you are to get to "awesome."

I primarily DJ for west coast swing dancers, and weddings. My collection has more than 25,000 songs in it - most of them I have not heard more than once. My CD collection grows by about 200 discs per year, and has for almost 15 years. Using a computer puts that full collection at my fingertips all the time.

The problem is that at any given time, I can only keep about 500+/- songs in my head - remembering the intros, outros, interesting bridges, lyrics, choruses, breaks, etc. When I had to carry CD's, that was not a big deal - the physical organization of my CD books and cases helped to provide me with some cues about the songs. Maybe I would remember a good song on "the red disc, near the back of the case" or maybe I'd remember that the CD cover had a big white bird on it. With a computer, it took a long time to transition to using cues from the ID3 tags to search for songs.

At this point, I use ID3 tags to encode information about artist, title, album, bpm, genre, and a comment that includes the dance (lindy, wcs, fox, wtz, 2st, ...) and a numerical rating from 0-9 ("0" are the best, "9" is something I should probably just delete). I can search across my full collection by any ID3 tag field.

The individual mp3's that are for "dancing" are organized into folders according to dance. If a song can "crossover" and be used for more than one dance (i.e. WCS & Hustle) I make a copy and put the song into each folder. The mp3's that are not any specific dance are organized by genre - Blues, Pop, Rock, Classical, R&B, etc, etc.

That is the "background" of how my music is organized, physically on the hard drive, and logically with tags. To add additional comments or category information is prohibitive based on the scale of my collection.

Now...onto the question at hand: how do you find the "next" song?

1) Constraints. As it turns out, constraints are liberating. Given a blank slate, i.e. "...play something good from your entire CD collection..." I would not know where to begin!

When you DJ at a wedding, you gain constraints from your meetings with the bride & groom and the discussions with them about their taste, the theme of the event, their family traditions, the time of day, the priority they place on dancing, and so on. All of that helps to "constrain" the range of choices you have in terms of what songs you will play, and what songs you won't.

When you DJ for dancers, you also have constraints. The event or dance was advertised as being an evening of some kind of dancing. So, you are "constrained" to pick songs that match that description. This weekend, I will be playing at a dance that is advertised as "C&W meets WCS" - so I will be playing C&W dance songs mixed with WCS dance songs. I will not play tango, or Lindy, or foxtrot, or "party" music.

Who hired you? What do they want you to play? Who do they want you to target your music toward? It may not be who you initially think.

2) Context

You need a context to help make your musical selections. What is going on in the room as you are playing the songs? Is this a practice set following a workshop? Is this music for the middle of a lesson? Is this music for a competition? Is this music for "prime time"? Is the music for "late night"?

Who is in the room? Are there mostly beginners in the room? Are there some "big dogs" who want to put on a show? Is the floor crowded? Is the room mostly empty?

Once you observe the context, you can use that to guide your selections - you can match the tempo, difficulty of the song, "energy" of the song, and so on to the people who are actually in the room.

3) Groove

What has been played in the room before you got to this moment? It may have been played by you, or by whoever you are taking over for. What is the "mood" that was set by the music?

In the "middle" of the event, I find that playing a predictable "cycle" of tempo changes - slow to fast, drop to slow -or- slow to fast to slow to fast - works well to establish a baseline for people to understand "what's next" and to plan their dancing accordingly.

I like to keep some common thread across 3+/- song arcs - either an instrument (I like horns, strings, and piano arcs), or a genre (keep in mind that I draw from a much wider array of genres that are commonly played at lindy dances), or a style of vocal, or something else. I rarely play even two songs from the same artist (tho I will occasionally play an artist and then a song by someone else who features that artist). Some people will disagree with this point, and instead want a new direction with each song. To each their own, finding a common thread across a song arc is one of the things that I'm known for.

When transitioning from one arc to another, I will use one of two techniques. I will either find some different thread in the last song of the arc to build a new arc on, or I will deliberately create a dis-joint and switch to a new arc. The dis-joint might be a new dance (moving from WCS to C&W), or a severe change in tempo (almost always "very fast" to "slow"), or a big change in the "volume" of a song (almost always "loud" to "soft"), and so on.

4) Preparation

At any given point, I can keep about 500 songs in my head. So, when I have an event coming up, I start listening to music that will be good for that event. I want to get those songs into my head. I start listening to radio stations that my wedding clients like, I start listening to their favorite bands, I start listening to music from genres that they like. That helps me to get those songs and that kind of music into my head.

For every event I prepare a set of "panic" songs. Songs that I know will go over well with the audience at hand. In general, these tend to be "familiar favorites" for the guests at whatever the event is. I will sometimes use these, even if I don't "need" them - just because they are "familiar favorites." In the event that I get stuck, I always have this list to fall back on.

In general, at any given point I am thinking 3 to 5 songs ahead. I have *never* actually played the 5th song. Because I am responding to changes in the room, the 5th song would never be right. Heck, 4 songs is 10 to 15 minutes of time. It is impossible to predict what that room will be like in 15 minutes.

--Stan Graves

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#42 Post by JesseMiner » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:22 am

SoundInMotionDJ wrote:I don't know Albert, and I've never heard him spin
Well I would highly recommend that you do get more familiar with him. Paul (AlbertSystem) is a clarinet player who leads the Boilermaker Jazz Band. He is one of the greatest band leaders in the country currently playing for swing dancers, not a DJ at all.

Jesse

SoundInMotionDJ
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#43 Post by SoundInMotionDJ » Thu Jan 24, 2008 10:24 am

JesseMiner wrote:
SoundInMotionDJ wrote:I don't know Albert, and I've never heard him spin
Well I would highly recommend that you do get more familiar with him. Paul is a clarinetist who leads the Boilermaker Jazz Band. He is one of the greatest band leaders in the country currently playing for swing dancers, not a DJ at all.

Jesse
Excellent. Thanks for the link.

--Stan Graves

Haydn
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#44 Post by Haydn » Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:04 am

SoundInMotionDJ wrote:I seriously doubt that the biggest obstacle to improving his sets is matching songs by key.
I'm sure you're right, but, responding to Albert's point, I think perhaps being aware of the relative keys of different tracks would help create a fresher-sounding sequence of songs for the dancers.

SoundInMotionDJ
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#45 Post by SoundInMotionDJ » Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:50 am

Haydn wrote:
SoundInMotionDJ wrote:I seriously doubt that the biggest obstacle to improving his sets is matching songs by key.
I'm sure you're right, but, responding to Albert's point, I think perhaps being aware of the relative keys of different tracks would help create a fresher-sounding sequence of songs for the dancers.
Now that I've got a slightly better understanding of Pauls's point of view (nice website, by the way)...

Live bands do need to vary the key (and tempo, and arrangement if possible) from song to song. Think about it - a live band has the same musicians, with the same instruments, with the same vocalists for all their songs. If the key (or tempo, or arrangement, etc) was not varied from song to song, then everything would sound the same, and would become monotonous.

A DJ is in a completely different boat. The DJ can change the artist with every song. Even if you play the the same artist for two songs in a row, you could change discs - sometimes transporting that artist forward or backward in time (two songs, recorded 5 or 10 or 15 years apart).

"Freshness" from the point of view of the DJ comes by way of the ability to craft arcs of music that come from different artists, with different arrangements of instruments, in different tempos, and from different genres. The key a song is in would almost never be even a Top Ten consideration in picking the next song.

--Stan Graves

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