How Do You Get To Know Your Music?

[Nunz]

Some music pages also have an RSS feed, so yeah. . .

[epidemik]

Hoping not to threadjack too much and more just extend the discussion as I'm in a similar situation...

How do you guys prep your tracks when you find them? (I think I worded that kind of funny). I'm wondering if you guys setup all your cue points as soon as you find a track or if you wait and do that more in a live setting?

I've been setting cue points on potential places to mix in and out when bringing the tracks into traktor but I've found that this only leaves me with 2 or 3 free cue points for live stuff (juggling or even marking spots in the song/bringing it in at a spot other than my preset cue point). Is there a more effective way of doing this? Or should I just know my songs well enough that I dont need cue points on a in and out points.

[mr.magma]

Go for it, that's an aspect I'm interested in as well, I guess it depends on your style of mixing, as in if you prefer to prepare beforehand or do everything live on the fly. I personally don't do a lot of juggling and primarily play House, Tech House, so it's pretty straightforward with effects and looping playing the main roles. In my case I would just set up cue points while listening to the track before hand at 2-3 major peaks/drops of the track and go from there.

[Travis Trax]

@magma
i pretty just always have music playing around me no matter what im doing, whether its at my house, in the car, and using my ipod when i don't have a regular stereo to blast out on...this way i am always continuosly hearing my music and every little bass kick gets pounded into my head

@epidemik
whenever i buy new tunage i usually will spin a good hour or two long set and just feel the new songs and find cue points i think will be good for spinning that song in the future...however at the same time alot of those songs i setup those cue points on, when i go to spin them again sometimes i need the intro to come in sooner or later, or i want the song to start on the breakdown, etc. and i will just delete the cue points i had and reset them...so its an everchanging thing with all my music

hope that helps guys!

[tito]

Listen to the radio, talk to other dj , asking your friends if they found something interesting, take chances on buying records, exchange iPods and listening on shuffle, going to record stores and ask to try some records because of the label or even the art. Search for people with your same or kind of taste and be able to have drinks or coffee just listening music, subscribe to white label. It is not a one way or formula to doing it.
You need to dedicate more time than most of the people think, in my case it is a pleasure and maybe only the 10 percent of the music I own or listen get to the club to be played.
I remember the days without Internet exchanging records and mix tapes it was more a social affair to get the music. Now everyone looks that they no have time for dig in and wants that miracle blog or website that can give you the best and hottest tracks, I prefer to ask other people what they like and why.

[mr.magma]

Thanks Travis that helped!

tito yeah definitely needs a big time commitment, just thought I'd see how the more seasoned DJ's go about doing it... You're right with it becoming so easy to get a track it must take out the fun in physically going to a store and spending hours digging, though I'm sure many people still do and will continue to. I do speak to a bunch of friends about what their listening to and all that too. Given that it's personally a hobby at the moment I don't plan on actually playing anywhere and all that but would like to dedicate quite a bit more time to do so, it's especially pretty difficult at university lol... But yeah thanks for the input everyone so far, didn't expect such quick responses

[tito]

Mr. Magma: I started in this business because I was the guy who knew music, I was a regular to a night club (early 90's, indie stuff) and always had chats with the dj,s about music. Suddenly one day someone got very sick and they asked me if I was able to dj next week. I told them I have no idea about beat match and the job in general and the other resident dj told me: "bring your records, pay attention to the crowd reactions and do not worry about beat match in less than 3 months I will teach you to do it correctly".
And I learnt to beat match and get connected with the audience. I got an edge on those days because I listen to records, not tracks and I was dropping tunes that nobody did it even if they have the same record because always, many of the dj's , were looking for that popular or obvious headbanger song. So keep it in that way and the day you go for playing in clubs you definitely will have and edge.
Cheers

[jasperjones]

This post ist kinda tl;dr given that I just have one point to make: RL is at least as important for discovering new music as the interwebs.

Yes, I find new music to play out by skimming through Beatport et al (it's useful to subscribe to your favorite labels and artists), by following blogs, online magazines, and a few ppl on social-networking sites and by downloading podcasts/DJ sets. But let's not forget that on most places (including forums and Soundcloud). there's just a constant blabber by generation y-ers. "<3 your new track," "full support," "downloading now," "want," "will play," etc. There is little, if any critique. If you express critique about some community and/or their music, often you will not encourage discussion (instead, they fire nothing more than an internet meme a la "haters gonna hate" at ya). To put it bluntly, on the internet, it's standard that you better form your opinion alone, the people which think everything's perfect are not gonna help.

So what's more important? Visit your DJ friends. No worries, you won't just smoke pot, no, they'll play you all their new stuff. And when you invite your DJ friends over to your place, they won't just come to drink beer. No, they'll listen to your music and you'll discuss it.

Go out to B&M record stores. You'll overhear the discussions by those that work there. You'll ask about records. And you'll notice when someone is really enthusiastic about new music. They'll go out of their way to play it for you on the sound system ("you gotta hear this loud, you can't fully appreciate this on headphones"). And you'll know that they're serious, it's more than just taking a second to post "like" on a social network.

Go out to clubs, concerts, and festivals. Not just to the place(s) where you (or your friends) DJ. Discover music you've never heard. SEE what's rocking. SEE what's shocking. SEE what doesn't work.

Read the B&M press. Listen not just to dance music. There's stuff to inspire you even if it doesn't fit into your set.

[Maxted]

Lately i've been spending hours going through soundcloud and youtube trying to find key songs (mainly dubstep remixes of old dance tunes right now) to build a new mixtape around.

I love the "trail" you end up going down with this method, especially the reccomendations on youtube, find some awesome music that way.

It takes a lot of time though, but sometimes i enjoy it that much i never get round to recording my set (like last night) because i get too emersed in finding new tracks.

As for beatgridding, i'm relatively new to Traktor (been using VDJ) and i mainly use the autogrid, or i just place a beat marker on what i know is a definite beat and manually set the tempo to what i know it to be then autogrid.

[makesmiles]

If you don't mind I'm definitely using this as my sig.

was totally thinking the same thing! lol.