Talent Show!

[Robsta]

A talent competition/music battle is happening soon at my school and I thought it would be a great chance to get some notice for DJing.

The mix would have to be between 5-10 minutes long (possibly less) and it couldn't be just a straight fade-in-fade-out mix for a bunch of drunks, it needs to be quite technical to show my prowess as a DJ which will hopefully get me some parties!

My question to you guys is where to start? What sort of music is good for being technical but will still keep my age's attention. At first I was thinking of doing some sort of scratching, acapella, sample mix but then I remembered at my current level I can't scratch for shit. XD

Any tips/suggestions?

[SourceRaver]

What sort of gear will you be using?

5 - 10 minutes isnt a long time so maybe break it down to 2 minutes per track.

Find some good club remixes of current chart music (familiar to keep their attention but different so that it isnt boring).

Find the best part of each song and note the cue point. Find the best sequence.

Practice, practice, practise!

[Robsta]

Something like this is what I want to acheive:

[mattus123]

i recon do some mash ups

work with maybe 4 songs and keep bringing them in through-out the mix

so it might go sometihng like song a>b>c>a>d>c>b>a>d>b

if that makes sense?

[Robsta]

Yeah sounds good, thanks!

[imadje]

10 min is purely a showcase of skill and is nothing more than a tease to people listening, So tease them: use tunes they will recognise, but at any point they expect that tune to break ot a chorus, hook or verse you change to a different tune instead. Until you drop the last one which should be the most popular and faded out after they recognise the break they love.

so at the gig: be prepped with 1st two tunes beatmatched, take a piece of paper or write the pitch fader setting on your cd covers if necessary. Have the whole set planned with tempo/pitch settings noted so you dont even have to put headphones on except to look cool

Start 1st tune, after 8 or so beats start track 2, it should be cued so it will break as tune 1 would, but you cut between them at the break. Then instantly track 3, etc etc, with a bit of to and fro back to later parts of the tunes you only heard a little bit off.

eg:

tune 1 intro, tune 2 hook, tune 3 verse 1, tune1 chorus, tune 3 verse 2, tune 2 main break and hook, fade out.

but obv you dont follow this, you structure it round the songs you have and use as many songs as you need. Aim to never have just one track playing for more than 8 beats or so and that will keep listeners on their toes for ten minutes. If you can scratch do, if you cant do some stutters on cue buttons.

Basically you build your own climax.

and i think someone already mentioned practise?

Finally: if it aint working it is better to play one song then fade to another and admit that's the level you are at, than cause a crime to a music by mixing badly in front of people.

[Buck_Choi]

bit late. but a mash up is a must. 10 minutes is way to long for someone to keep focus listening to music. if you can pull some djearworm out haha your set.