Nothing wrong with "crazy speed changes". That's why us hip hop dj's can scratch and cut. Make changes of that nature more "natural".

I'm not saying cut or scratch on every song either. You want to keep the dancefloor going, but change is good sometimes. I always read the crowd, and at the same time... I'm the performer - I make them do what I want them to do.

i had the same question.... do you consider the bpm when buying records?

High tempo changes sound bad and you should definitely avoid those.

What I do is lets say I start with a song at 98bpm... I'll mix songs with similar bpm's for a while, simple enough... but during the songs, every once in a while I bump up the track like 0.2% (the track that is playing)... its not enough for anyone to pick it up... and if you do that every so often, you can start playin the 102bpm, etc...

Also, if you cut a lot, you can play your next song slightly faster (again, just enough that people wont pick it up-- maybe like 0.4% on a cut). This will incrementally allow you to be able to play faster songs.

Also, when I've played out most of my 95-105bpm (for eg) stuff and I wanna drop something at 115bpm, I'll turn the turntable off and draw it to a slow stop and have my hypeman do his thing before starting the 115bpm song off the bat.

-L-

I dont consider bpm when coppin vinyl cause if you have a decent collection, whatever you buy will mix into something.

My advice Seoul- listen to the little voice in your head, read the crowd and play what you want... Don't get hung up on being able to make perfect blends on every single track.

Besides for all the tricks everyone will recomend- there are so many songs that have cool intros that you can just drop... (Bonita Applebaum, TROY...) or songs that are so dope that they stand out on their own, Biggy- Hypnotize, Dr Dre- The next episode...

I have my own list of transition type songs that work when switching styles drastically... Keeping things fluid...

I usually play older stuff in the start of the night. Early 90s hip hop like Dre, Tribe, Roots etc. As the crowd comes in, I bring the music up a bit, slowly playing more popular songs. I always save the big hitters for my peak hour.

When I say "big hitters" I dont really mean only new music. Some of the big hitters can be the older ish too. Ya just have to be creative and work it. BPM has no influence on me when im doing my peak hour stuff. I could go from 92bpm to 113bpm in that time. Its all about how you present it to the crowd and how hype they are.

Wow!

BPM is a HUGE part of what I do. I'm really shocked to hear some of these responses.

Going from Missy's Lose Control to Still Tippin' would make you absolutely lose the momentum you had.

Playing the intros to songs like Bonita Applebaum or TROY will kill any serious dancefloor.

Everything is wrong with "crazy speed changes".

I was thinking the same thing but according to these guys, they can do it. I would love to experience this in a club and hear how some DJ's get away with crazy speed changes without having the entire dance floor stop and stare at the DJ!

To both Cashless and Seoul: Crazy changes can be done but not back to back. When done well, the crowd will actually love the change. That's my many years of experience talking. :)

It all depends on the song and situation, There are times when you need to go from a 120 BPM song back down to 110 BPM or something like that, I mean you cant keep going up all night, you will end up at 300 BPM, and I dont know of any hip-hop songs that fast. But then again you dont want to go from "It takes two" into something like "cool like that", wouldnt sound right, but on the other hand if you go from a fast BPM song like "it takes two" into a newer song thats really relly poppin (cant think of any right now), you will get away with it because the crowd will be more familiar with the newer track and wont really care about mixing (not that they ever do) you just gotta be doing this for long enough to know what the do's and dont's are. Expierience is the key factor here.

experience

I've been djing for over 15 years. I think I have more than enough experience.

"Crazy changes" never ever ever work. The only thing that DOES work as far as a crazy change back to back, is halfing or doubling a tracks bpm.

Such as Ciarra's "Oh" backed out of Newcleus' "Jam on it" or anything slow and bouncy always sounds good with a double timed snary/clappy track behind it.

I think these cats that are saying that "crazy changes" will work need to drop some of their egos and record some of their mixes and seriouly critically rethink them.

Ryhme. Why sdid you assume that I meant that mixes had to increase in BPM over the course of the night? I never said that or even think that. I dj in Houston, home of some of the slowest hip hop in the world, but at the same time a place where high BPM shit like Killa Mike's "My Chrome" rock the party too.

Hip hop is anywhere between 70 - 130 BPMs, if your knowledge of the music is so limited that you can't smoothly transition out of every song without blending, you need to rethink even messing with hip hop at all. Too many dj's out there are PISS poor skill wise and think that they can just "scratch" in or hot mix any song back to back and think it's ok. Blah.

my more than 0.02 cents.

I couldn't DISagree more!

You dj for a crowd that A) can't dance well or B) isn't very familiar with the music well enough to know that their bodies have to adjust to incoming tempos.

(good) Dancing is natural movement that is VERY sensitive to changes in tempo. I don't knwo where you guys dj but at my event's, the transistions better be smooth or you won't keep the floor moving and you will be out of a job VERY soon.

yeah, definitely REALLY good tried and proven techniques!

When Outkasts "Hey Ya" was banging a few years back, mic control was the ONLY way to properly getting into the cut. I would play a hot ass track before it, hit the stop button on the TT just as everyone is singing the chorus and get on the mic. When I threw the "hey ya" back on after like a 10 second mic check, the crowd was hyped as hell.

Getting out of "hey ya" wasn't easy either.

Come on Cashless. You think you're the only one around here with many years of experience? If you're a great DJ, you will make changes and make them work.

This is coming from someone who's been spinnin' since 1992 doing radio, clubs, weddings, hip hop events, raves and everything in between.

I'm not saying EVERY DJ knows how to do this and you have to remember that every club in every city with a different crowd may be different. But consider this: Play a hot song that's currently killin' on the charts after ANY BPM slow or fast and you won't bomb. Yes, the crowd will love it.

I agree, that an experienced Dj will make them work. But an experienced dj SHOULD possess the ability to make a 4 hour set blend seamlessly the whole way through. I prefer making everything blend, with the exception of "suprise" tracks. Even when I drop in a track hard, I adjust the outgoing BPM and the incoming BPM to where they would match anyway.

Just dropping a hot song anywhere in your set's tempo just to keep the crowd moving is cheap and will cause you to burn out of shit early. Programming is definitely the lost skill in hip hop mixing.

I don't wanna put my resume' online, but I do alright.

programming and reading the crowd is what makes a dj


i can't get over how all these new kids coming up think that 1.5 hours is a long time to spin.Or a promoter brings 3 guys on to play and it is more or less the same set every hour and a half

An experienced DJ SHOULD possess the ability to make a 4 hours set blend seamlessly. As a matter of fact, I know plenty who can go all night without any drastic changes. The point was and still is that dropping a song even if it's not along the same BPM CAN be done and done right without emptying your dancefloor.

Besides, I don't know about you, but I rather mix with flava than sound like any other DJ out there.

Lame. New kids have a lot to learn. Experience and knowledge doesn't come easy.

no it doesn't come easy and the dumb promoters all they are looking for is someone that is cheap and can play enough hits to make things work.Even if the crowd has to hear the same hits 3 times a night

It's like a never ending cycle. :)

Any DJ that would go from one extreme to another, back to back several times, would definitely be doing the wrong things. There is absolutely nothing wrong if you play like 8-10 songs in one beat range and then switch to something faster or slower that is a big hitter during your peak hours.

Those of you who dont think this can work probably work in a club that has 1 type of personality in it that wants to hear a same boring beat all night. If you play the same bpm all night people will get extremely bored in my opinion.

I DJ at a club that has thousands of people come through it every weekend. Latin, Black, White, Indian, Asian whatever... I have been DJing for over 12 years and have been resident every fri and sat at my current spot for almost 3 years. I know what works and when to do it.

DJ Seoul and Cashless- If you cant understand how this would work, I suggest going to other clubs and watching other DJs. Cashless- you say you have 15 years exp and dont understand it? Maybe I wasnt clear.

Im not saying to do the extreme mixes back to back. But after keeping the tempo at lets say 95bpm for a while and then switching to something faster to wake people up, there is nothing wrong with that.

example: going from like Tony Yayo to Jook Gal or Culo... This is a pretty extreme change but will ABSOULTELY work if thats the type of crowd you are spinning for.

Every DJ has their own ways of doing things. Some agree, some dont. We should just all do what works for ourselves and not bitch about others. I know that I only DJ every week, dont have a full time job, and I get paid very well for it. If I go into another club and hear some guy that I think sucks, Im not gonna dog him all night. I just wont go back to the club again when he is spinning. To each his own.

Wow, I highly don't recommend going from Tony Yayo to Jook Gal at any cost. I wouldn't do that if Tony Yayo himself asked me to play that and handed my 500 dollars. Not to mention that its genre jumping or does that not apply anymore. Not to knock where anyone is from but, I would honestly say that alot of DJ's are not good but because the music is so similar and you have people coming up to you asking for the song called it's your birthday by 50 cent. Alot of what we as DJ's concern ourselves with doesn't matter to the average or even the majority of people that go out.

Regarding song selection, I think every song that you "blend" to the next "should" make sense at least by genre first, bounce second and bpm third.

Regarding experience, the years that the people prior have posted mean nothing. Just think if you were taught wrong. How would you feel about being wrong for 10 or 15 years? Just a question. All things considered, It is all artist expression and the only thing that I would stress is that you 1) Play / blend what you like first, 2) Play / blend what they like second and 3) Play / blend what both of you like third. I haven't been in the game that long but have listened / researched alot of heavy weights and the worse thing a DJ can do is play records that don't mean anything to him.

Things have changed drastically over the decades.
I use to start out slow around 85-BPM and cap off every 45 minutes or so at 120+-BPM then play a video or a slow song. When was the last time you herd a slow song in a club? Friday and Saturday that would go on for 7 hours. Now a days I see people stay in the same range for long periods of time like a few hours.

Anyways. OutKast's Hey ya most likley has to be slammed.

You people forget that there are many clubs in many different cities from many different countries with many different types of people. You're describing what you know from your part of the world. I would suggest getting out of your area before saying that you cannot play this and that.

A great dj adds flava to his/her mix.

I agree with you, Wes_Wes. I was just using those 2 songs as an example for bpm, just in case someone didnt understand. I wouldnt mix those songs together either. Well if Tony Yayo handed me $500 I might : )

What you say about song selection, I agree with also. Although I dont think it would apply all the time, I feel that at least 95% of the time it does. Sometimes you just need to screw with the crowd and do something different, that is if you are a DJ thats capable of manipulating a crowd.

It all depends on the geographics of a crowd. If im DJing a club and its a bunch of mixed backgrounds in there, I could get away with doing stranger things then, lets say, if I was DJing for an all "black" hip hop crowd. Ya understand?

Sixxx is very correct in his statement. What works for some DJs might not work for others. To each his own. If you are rocking out a club, dancefloor packed and people cheering every time you DJ, you are doing something right and its no one elses business.

I know a shitload of DJs that have been DJing forever and some of them I cant understand how they arent embarrassed. Some people hire DJs for how they look, some for how they rock a party. Im sure you all know at least one of each.

As for me, im an ugly MFer but I sure know how to rock a party. And I get paid pretty damn well to do it...

i may get lynched for asking isthis.. BUt as I am recording track sinto itunes and than messign with them in ssl. I notice the difference..
Sometimes when I pitch a song down, frankly it sounds computery. Do ithink scratch live is great I do. But my concern i a bit of the true warmth of a track is lost.
It just a concern of mine. I mean cettain tracks I've listened over and over.
In SSl something is lost slightyl.
Enough to carry all my vinyl to a gig proably not. But hopefully enough that later versions of SSl can become even better..

Please excue the typos what I meant was after bringing into itune and than using them in SSL

Please excue the typos what I meant was after bringing into itune and than using them in SSL

Please excue the typos what I meant was after bringing into itune and than using them in SSL

How are you recording your vinyl, and what bitrates are you compress to? I wouldn't recommend bitrates under 192. Currently I've been using a variable bit rate compressor. It basically analizes the track to see what rate is best.

Nice sixxx, right on the money.

I personally hate sets that are like one big 7 hour blend. Where the tempo is like one big curve over the whole night and everything blends smoothly into everything else every second or third chorus.... Makes me sleepy. When I'm dancing, I want to be surprised every once in a while - mix 5 or 6 tracks smoothly, then do something interesting like cut, juggle, full stop, tempo change, genre change, have the MC step in (just don't use the 'motor off' trick). There's SO many ways you can go from one track to the next, if you use the same way every time it'll get boring, no matter how good you are. As for tempo changes: a dancefloor can handle HUGE tempo changes, as long as they're executed correctly, at the right moment. And stopping the record and dropping the intro to a classic like TROY while the MC hypes the crowd, DOES work.

True dat. I'm talking bout the Amsterdam heads.

Can anyone who's good at huge tempo changes please record a mix and post? I dont think I personally have ever heard a good mix with a tempo change of 8%+.
I'd love to hear one.

Jay-z Interlude and Jay-z Excuse Me Miss Again. I'd never do this but it sounds ok. Interlude is 89 and 102.

I could keep going...

I'm with Likwid...I would love to hear a good mix with a huge tempo change.

A good trick to make drastic changes is to go into the accapella of the song you're currently playing... (not too long of course) and echo it out (fader echo not effects echo) then proceed to the next song.

:)

What do yo mean you guys don't mix different genre's? Thats a staple in with good deejays in LA and SF. Examples would be z-trip and AM.

I cannot speak about different areas too much but where I am from which is the Tri State area, Delaware, Jersey and Philly and Maryland. The crowd likes what I would call climax mixing, I just made that up but that is what it is, you get people on the dancefloor with songs like Wait, Badd, Flipside, and you keep building on that, uusing breaks as well, like the AV8's so that your BPM's keep building you end up in House and Baltimore club music that is around 120-125bpm's then I usually break down to some 3-6 mafia Stay Fly, some Lil Jon Joints Like Bia Bia,Get Crunk, Knuck If U Buck, Headbussa, then play like Put it in your mouth Akinelye, Dreams from Bigge, The Public Service Announce ment from Jay-Z Get money Junior Mafia and start the climax all over again, but with different records. This works really well for me and mind you I am not playing the full song I may do 30 seconds of one record a minute in another some I may play the whole song if it is something the crowd is singing along to. The point is to get the crowd hyped as possible and you can do that easily by maybe dropping the chorus of one record dropping the hot spot in another record and then following up with a club banger that everyone can feel. That is how a lot of us do it here. I think whatever works for you in your area is how you should DJ but there really is no right and wrong way of doing your thing as long as your crowd walks out the club sweating, the bar made alot of money that night and the club owner says to you great job tonight and hands you your cash.

Okay, here is something I did Saturday regarding big tempo changes..... I was playing my booty bass set (salt n peppa push it, baby got back, shake it, etc) those tracks are in a 130BPM range I went from that set straight into Kanye's Gold Digger.... How you ask??? I turned off the turntable on the 130bpm song (I think it was push it) the whole crowd looks at me wondering what the hell im doing, then I throw in Gold Digger, the accapella intro where its just Jamie Fox singing, they went crazy. See it works in certain situations, not all, but some. See I knew they would go crazy because its a hot track right now, but if I would have done that with an older more out dated track, I would not have got the same response and would have ended up looking like a rookie. Just gotta know your tracks and your crowds.

On a side note, I threw on that new Pharrell with Gwen Stafani "can I have it like that" to test it out and the they didnt seem to feel it, its a good track too, I think its gonna get big (not gold digger big) that's what I dont like about new tracks that I know are good, but I cant really play em yet because the crowd doesnt know what it is. But I can play it on my radio show and get people to know what it is that way a good month or so after the song is out it will start to catch on. I might just start playing it anyways just because it's good :)

Yeah I am liking that New Pharell Joint I think It is hot Good Call Ryme. Are you playing the Ying Yang Twins Joint with Pitbull called Shake, I really am feeling that and it seems to be working really good in the club.

Oh yeah, that track has been big out here in L.A. for about a month now. Good club track right there.

DJ Ryme, you nailed it right there. See, big changes with songs that are currently hot always do the trick.

Also, I think that Pharrell joint is hot. I played it at a party last Saturday and got the same effect... no one really seemed to feel it.... but then again, radio is not playing it here yet.
That's the problem with new tracks. Actually, let me rephrase that. That's the problem with people... even if a track is good they won't pay much attention to it because they don't "know" it yet.

At the club, I "feed" new tracks to them in small doses so they can get use to them. :) After about 3 weeks of this, even if radio isn't playing them.. they begin to feel the new joints.

It's kinda like training a monkey: REPETITION works. :)

Hell yeah sixx can the church say AMEN!!!!!

Sup djratedrde, where you spin? I live in philly but have been the resident at The Red Room every friday and saturday night for the past 2.5 years. You said Delaware so Im sure you have been to or heard of my spot.

I love finding local peeps on here.

Upon contrary belief, I've seen both of those dudes clear dance floors. I on the other hand I appreciate the differenciality that both Z-Trip and AM bring. However, because they are so known they can regularly clear dance floors and have a job the next week. I wouldn't. So again, I highly don't recommend those drastic BPM changes or Genre "bumps".

LOL

What up Philly You over at the Red Room Huh? That's a good look big guy. I been over there a few times, very plush venue. Do you get to peep out 101.7 when u are in Delaware I spin on there everyday at 5 and Saturday Night 8p-2a I also do Extreme Nightclub in Dover, DE

good point Wes Wes. I was just talking about genres and not drastic BPM changes, but I've also seen them clear dancefloors. I usually start halfing my BPMs when it starts getting too fast (example california vs. sittin sideways). Has anybody figured out a song that matches with A-Ha's "take on me". That song is a bitch to blend.

Ok I may be stabbing in the dark here but did you ever try Outkst's Hay Ya with take on me, Might work. Let me know.

Oops Hey Ya. My Bad.

guys always loved hip hop but i started djing as a house dj.
and my style is lets say not traditional hip hop i mix seamlessly from track to track use lots of instrumentals and accapellas.
because thats how i learned to mix house style but i have changed it a bit i always cut in a few tracks and scratch when i want to get a reaction fdrom the crowd.
it dosent matter how you mix what style as long as you keep that floor moving.
heres one double up the tempo like kelis millonaire about 180 bpm i think, and an 90 bpm track i have played the mix it works well use insrumentals over it then drop the original.
i also use effects units when mixing hip hop try it guys u can really change tempo and nobody can spot it when done right.
just use echo break down, delays,filters,flangers.and of course master tempo pitch in time.

I'll dig it up when I get home. Lol the mix I did with it is on a cassete tape. Gonna have to find a player. I think I did route 66/?? from Depeche Mode with that or maybe it was a song form the cult.

I've tried hey ya, but that still keeps it at a high bpm. I've been trying to find somehting that will half it and still sound good. Hologram, I hope you find that tape, I would love to know.

Oh you want a cut down mix. I seem to remember trying lost in the storm by chubrock. heck I'll try it when I get home. I didn;t get a chance to look last night I will for sure this weekend though.