DJs: How much of a tune do you play?

Silverfish · Post by **Silverfish** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 9:50 pm

A question for the DJs:

How much of each track do you play before mixing to another? If a track is 8 minutes long, do you play the whole thing (save the first and last minute for mixing in and out, of course)?

Part of me thinks if a track is worthwhile and the producer wanted it to be 8 minutes, then play the whole thing, as the producer intended.

I dunno, just curious I guess.

silveriofunk · Post by **silveriofunk** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:32 pm

i dunno man, some tracks i try to play as much as possible (usually if it has a cool vocal) while others i just loop various sections and i'm out... if the song is 8 minutes long i doubt that i'll leave it for that long, it will have to be my killer track in order for me to do so...
Peace

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:42 pm

wait, have you ever been to a club to hear how much of a song they play?

silly question, but I had to ask.

solacerodgers · Post by **solacerodgers** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:45 pm

when i used to spin it was all hiphop and stuff like that 3-4 min tracks and i used about 30 seconds to blend or flipped accaps and instrumentals ect

Silverfish · Post by **Silverfish** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:01 pm

@Tone Deft: Clubs? What are those? I jest. In all seriousness, when I'm in a club and listening to the tunes, 60 percent of the time I have no idea what track is being played, let alone how long that track might be in its original format. I've heard DJs play about half a minute of tunes, and I don't really get that.

@solacerodgers: yeah, I guess it's different for hip-hop/top 40 type stuff, but it still drives me nuts.

I think the answer to my question is that a good DJ knows when it's time for a new track, and with all things, you have to find balance.

Superchibisan · Post by **Superchibisan** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:02 pm

all of it, every song.

and i play 4 songs at one time.

i loop occasionally, but rarely. i just grab a new tune instead.

SpaceDub Productions BC · Post by **SpaceDub Productions BC** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:03 pm

The answer to this question would greatly rely on genre, and if your doing long mixes,short ones, or just cutting. Your not gonna hear many House or Progressive Djs cutting, they usually do long mixes and the songs have huge long winded progressions, so they , will be playing out almost the whole track intro to outro. Now HipHop and Breaks and DNB djs ect. are likely to cut a bit more and do alot of manipulation of tracks IE accapella drops, samples ect. and generally have shorter mixes and the need to jam as many tracks as possible in an allotted time, so they in turn would use smaller pieces of each song . AGAIN, this is generally speaking but mostly ture.

another point.....
People have short attention spans when it comes to breaks and DNB in my experience and want switch ups and changes to come fast and hard, this would make you use shorter chunks of songs . Prog heads LOVE long flowing progressing tracks that go on and on, therefore the use of the whole track is required !

solacerodgers · Post by **solacerodgers** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:23 pm

For me when i played at the club I had dual turntables and a sp808 as grabbing samples and also bringing pre loaded drums or vocal phrases are a huge part of rocking hiphop but as was mentioned you can tell when the people have had enough and when they want more, thats what sucked about spinning hiphop I would have to play the same lp about 5 times in the night because people could not get enough of the song as where i dont think you do that at the dance clubs.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:36 pm

Silverfish wrote:@Tone Deft: Clubs? What are those? I jest. In all seriousness, when I'm in a club and listening to the tunes, 60 percent of the time I have no idea what track is being played, let alone how long that track might be in its original format. I've heard DJs play about half a minute of tunes, and I don't really get that.

true, or they play a remix and there's no way you can tell what's remixed live and what was purchased as a remix.

I just refuse to dance all the way through 8 minutes of This Corrosion ever again, stop playing that song!

Silverfish · Post by **Silverfish** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:37 pm

You live sampled to an SP808?

solacerodgers · Post by **solacerodgers** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:42 pm

the sp808 was great for live sets not as fast as a pc these days but it was direct from disc reading no load times. Also you could hit the autosample set 2 bars and come out with a pretty close loop that was autosynced to a bpm that you could change from record to record. sweet stuff.

Silverfish · Post by **Silverfish** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:06 am

Wow. *digs out sp-808 manual and finds some zip disks*

solacerodgers · Post by **solacerodgers** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:10 am

lol i used it for almost 2 years and besides some headphone hum when using the cue mix it never gave me a hardtime.

inakiesarte · Post by **inakiesarte** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:27 pm

As long as you think is needed... or even more if you have chance to
do live looping.

beats me · Post by **beats me** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:45 pm

I play exactly 2 minutes and 47 seconds of each track. If I can't mix the next track within plus or minus 16 seconds of that point I turn all the gear off and go home defeated.

DJs: How much of a tune do you play?

DJs: How much of a tune do you play?

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