Rusty1

Thanks for all the replies. I produce a lot and I understand how to eq and I know that when similar frequencies add up so does the overall volume. I always have the new songs bass eq cut and then I either switch gradually or dramatically depending on the mix I'm doing. I think my problem was that I was over trimming. I don't mean that I was turning them up to much I mean I was just touching and adjusting them too much. After Mitch said that the variance in volume shouldn't be too much I realised that I was probably trimming the tracks a bit too much. I just had a quick play around and it's going good. I still listen in my headphones but I hardly adjust the trim anymore and if I feel I need to I only do it a little bit. So far its been working but I'm still not perfect so I'm going to just keep playing around with it until I get there. Also some of my hip hop tracks have like crazy low volumes. I've done some research and apparently other people have had the same issue with hiphop tracks so I dunno maybe its a mastering thing that they do? I don't produce hip hop I only produce electronic in which we do the opposite and crush the hell outta the master. thanks guys

Alright thanks for the tips. I'll just keep practising until I get the hang of it.

Ok so you are always adjusting the trims. Is it bad to bring in a song too quite (or loud) and then adjust the trim? This always happens to me when I drop a track on the 1. Do you have any other tips for adjusting trims? I know different songs have different dynamic ranges and RMS volumes so should I assume something with little dynamics has a very loud volume?

I've recently upgraded to a Pioneer XDJ-RX and I've been trying to get used to DJ'ing without auto gain. I've been having a lot of problems though and It's really effected my performances at parties. I usually turn the trims down a bit (I don't keep them at 12 o'clock). Now I'll have a track playing and Ill be watching the VU meter. Then I'll cue up the next track and tap the cue button and look at where that track is peaking on the VU meter and adjust it to match the song playing out. Seems all good right? but its not, I've found that when I do this and try to mix these two songs together the volumes are very different. Sometimes quieter sometimes louder. I've also tried to just completely forget about the VU meter and just listen to the tracks in my headphones but this still doesn't help much and it takes way too long to do it. Like what is going on here? Balancing my levels is getting way too difficult and frustrating.

I've just bought a Pioneer XDJ-RX and it only uses rekord box so Im moving my whole library from Serato to Rekordbox and it just sucks. First of all rekordBox is completely screwing up the beat grids on almost every track and there is no way Im going through 500 songs to fix these grids. Most of my music is like trap and hip hop and some house music and most of the trap/hip hop stuff is terribly analysed. There is no way that other bigger artists that play this music with larger libraries than me have to go through each song individually to fix them. Also it keeps analysing tracks as 140 when they should be 70 because its cut to halftime, is there a way to fix this because half of my tracks are at 70 and then the other half is 140. Another problem is when I actually play the tracks I level out the volume of each track with the meter and then I mix it in and its dramatically too loud or to quite which is extremely frustrating as well. Alternatively is there another program I can use to analyse the tracks and then import them into rekordBox. Thanks

Alright thank you guys so much for the help really appreciate it!

The party was last night and it went ok. I found chewing gum helped with the nerves and a couple of drinks before hand. I thought I could have done better but everyone else though I was so good and really enjoyed it. It was hard to get people dancing but I found that playing tunes that girls love got it going and I didn't really notice how many people I had actually got on the dance floor until I looked at the photos. One problem I had was people messing with the mixer and my laptop. Luckily people didn't know how mixers worked and they touched the wrong jog wheel aha. I started playing at like 8:30 and I was playing by myself until like 12 and then my other DJ friend hopped on with more tunes and we did a mad B2B for like another 3 hours aha. Thanks for all the help as well guys it really helped me and I really appreciate it.

Ok I'm pretty sure I'm going to organise it like chilled then hip hop and dance and then another crate with the bangers that everyone likes. Doing it like that I should be able to just play the chill crate at the start then move onto hip hop and then onto dance as the night goes on and mix in some bangers where I feel its appropriate.

Any tips on organising the music Im going to play. Like right now I only have one big crate, should I separate them into like chilled and hard or something like that?

I've been practising so hard and I've actually improved a lot. The fear of not performing well has actually driven me to become a lot better. I showed my friend some of my mixes and some of the music I'm gonna play, I showed him a mix and by my standards I thought it was really bad but he said it was actually quite nice and smooth and perfectly fine aha. I'm still compiling tunes for the night, hopefully I've got the right ones. I found it very helpful to get the tunes that are popular this week.

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated. I hope this goes well and Ill try not to overthink it aha.

Thanks so much for your help, It's my first time doing this and I guess I was overthinking it. I'm just going to have to accept that somethings are out of my control and all I can do is my best. After all this is only a learning experience, hopefully I improve and get a better feel for DJing for a crowd. I'm always going to be nervous but I think thats ok and I think its natural. I might try chewing gum to calm myself down. Thanks for all your help!

Thanks for the great tips guys. Still feeling very nervous, just tried to play a mix and I didn't know what song to choose and it kinda sucked. Any tips on song selection? Like how should I play? Chill ones first? I have a Serato crate of songs I think will go down really well, like songs I've heard go down really well, when should I play these? (obviously not straight away) What if no one dances? What if I play a song no one likes? How do I get people to start dancing? How do I calm myself down because I definitely think I've done this really bad mix because I was too worried about what track to drop next. I'm looking at getting around 200+ songs for about 4 hours? I'm trying to play like half or 3 quarters of each song and the full song if I think it will go down well. So sorry for asking all these questions but this night is really big deal for me and I am so scared.

Ok Im just gonna get heaps of music and keep practising before the night. Hopefully it goes well and I'll get back to you guys on how this pulselocker streaming thing goes, it shouldn't be too bad it's built right into Serato. Thanks guys.

OK I'm starting to fear this less and less now. I'm just gonna keep getting music and I'm gonna ask around for songs that people like. I also like the idea of getting some mixes and playing them early in the night. With the mixing situation I'm probably gonna just play the full song if the crowd really like it otherwise I'll just do some mixing to keep it entertaining. I'm still not sure on how many songs I should have as just a minimum for a party. In my whole library I have about 400 songs but I've gone through and got 150 roughly that I could play. Is there a minimum amount you reckon I should have? And how do I calm myself before because thinking about it now is making me nervous! I think I'm more than capable of Djing this party (so does my friend) but I'm just so scared that people will dislike me. I'm scared that they would rather play music off of youtube than listen to me play music.

OK thanks for the tips. How do I go about mixing the music? Should I just be boring and let the whole song play and mix the beginning and ends of the songs or should I actually make it interesting and do some quick cuts that they wont be expecting? Also how many songs do you reckon I should have? The party will roughly be from 7-12. Should I play the whole time? So far I have about 150 songs (I know thats is definitly not enough tho) that I think I can play. About 10 of them are like songs that I probably wont play but could still possible play. I'm also gonna free trial that pulse locker thing and use that on the night so I can stream music that I may not have.

My best friends 18th is coming up and he has asked me to DJ. I really want to do it, I have been practising in my bed room for over a year. I've recorded mixes and chucked them on Soundcloud, a couple of my friends say that its actually pretty good. My problem and fear of DJing this party is not that I cant DJ or that I'm not that technically skilled enough to do basic mixes. Im super scared because I don't know how to read a crowd and I have almost no clue on what songs to play. Although this crowd is mostly my friends, their music selections at parties is so random and makes no sense. Some people will tell me how much they hate dubstep and then I would see them rage to it at a party. Sometimes very slow songs without a beat of any kind is played. I'm playing for a very weird group of teenagers. I know you guys on here can't tell me what songs to play, I'm trying really hard to sort that out now. I'm making different crates on Serato with songs I've heard go off at parties and some filler songs I can play when ever. I need some tips on how to actually play a house party. How do I play the music? How do I read the crowd? How do I deal with people that don't like the song I'm playing? I know this is the kind of question that everyone asks but I am playing for the weirdest crowd ever and I need some help. DJing and producing music has been my life for over a year and it's definitely something that I dream of doing as a career. This party is so important to me, I'm scared to death but it's something I'm going to have to do if I want to progress in this field and make a career out of it. So please I just need any kind of information, tips and general knowledge so that I can do well and impress my friends and play a good house party. Also I've narrowed most of my music selection to Hip hop & rap and some electronic music.

Thanks man really appreciate it. Just gonna have to keep practicing until I get a clean mix

That makes sense but how can I cut down the volume when its the main part playing? Wont that just sound bad? The type of mix I'm talking about is like a straight cut from one song about to breakdown into another songs breakdown. Also do you know of any tutorials that can help me out with eqing tracks whilst djing. I've looked and all I've managed to find is just crappy tutorials saying that the low end eq boosts or subtracts the bass of the song. I want a more detailed tutorial on making smoother mixes with eqing.

I'm recording my sets now and whenever I mix out of a song into another song very quickly I can always hear a bit of the song I'm mixing out of. Its like I'm not doing it fast enough. It sounds horrible. Is there anyway to fix this timing issue? Its mostly happening when using the up faders and cross fader

Hey guys, I'm a bed room dj right now, never played a live gig and really love djing. I've been practicing for a little while now and I think I'm getting really good. When I'm not recording a set I'm having fun, I'm doing solid transitions, everything is going great. But when I go to record a set I just get all nervous, I can't mix that well, hearts pumping, I'm stressing out and just not having fun. It's really frustrating that I can do these mixes so well and I'm being creative but when I record a mix its just bad and I cant figure out what song to play next etc. I really want to play live in public and I'm really worried that I wont be able to play very well at all and I'll just stress out and not be creative like I do when I try to record a mix. How can I fix this because it is becoming a real problem! and its so frustrating. Imagine just playing in your bedroom thinking your a good dj then trying to record something and it just sucks. Please Help!!!!!!!!!!

Hey guys, I'd really like to dj in clubs when I turn 18 and I've been learning how to dj for ages now and I'm quite confident I have the skills to dj in a club but I can only afford controllers not a full Pioneer set up. How can I prepare myself to play on cdjs in a club when I can only practice with a controller? Oh and by the way its not even a good controller, It has just the basics: two channels, eq and filter knobs, play & cue, cross fader and up faders, CDJ length pitch sliders though, 3 effects and master and cue knobs. I love serato dj as well and I'd really like to use this when I play in clubs and with a Pioneer set up.