Pacing a Set

 

 

Make your transitions smooth. If you Try to cut between some industrial remix of a Led Zeppelin tune mashed up with Biggie vocals and the new Katy Perry song, it's likely that you'll leave some heads scratching, even if the BPMs match. Try to make your stylistic transitions as smooth as possible, matching sounds, styles, energy, and beats. 

 

 

 

 

Make your mixes subtle. Don't do blatantly obvious mixing between tracks, mixing into another track if both are clearly audible. Cut some sound out of one track and slowly bring up the rest of it. Cut the bass and just leave the drums and slowly bring the bass up.

• Some tracks like Mickey Slim's remix of "Jump Around" change dramatically, so use that to your advantage. If the song slows down, mix a couple of slow tracks between it and then bring it back to where it was.

 

Maintain a consistent pace with subtle variations. If your set is going fast, keep it that way and only slow down if you want people to chill for a second. If you're speeding up, make it gradual, or surprising, not just some blatant full speed up halfway through a 90 bpm track to 125bpm so you can mix it into a house record.

• A good idea is to loop a standout line in the song and then slowly speed it up and mix to the next record. Don't confuse people, when it comes to changing speeds it's mainly faster, not slower, and always gradual, or surprising.

 

 Stay sober. Everybody wants to have a good time, including the DJ. But if you're not in a clear-headed place, it'll be too easy to lose track of the room. Save your free drink tickets until after your set is over and celebrate a job well done. Don't get bombed and think you can pull off a set made entirely of weird Finnish TV theme song mixes. That's weird, and sober-you would agree.