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Forum: General Discussion

Topic: Songs and Advice for a new DJ

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Hi Everyone:

I realize there are probably thousands if not millions of posts like this but I thought I would ask. I am brand new to DJ'ing and right now I DJ for a resort that will probably get 100 to 200 people a night which isn't too bad for starting I guess. When I was first approched by a bartender if I wanted to DJ I said..."sure why not, how hard could it be"...do which I found out you can't keep playing songs over and over and over again during a night. People get bored. My playlist originated from 30 good DJ songs and now I have just over 100 and those I have mainly just got from requests. I am trying everyweek to try and find some great songs to hit the crowd with every weekend but haven't progressed very fast, which is why I am kinda asking for help I guess in a couple of ways:

For all those pros out there, where do you get all your songs from? Just collections from over the years? Do you head to a special site or forum that really just discusses new songs? Or maybe a site dedicated to new songs coming out or that have already been released?

I guess it depends on the night but I am talking about all those great songs like:

Follow the leader
Mony Mony
Jump on it
Save a horse Ride a cowboy

...I mean those are just a few and of course those are really old but still are great. Anyone care to share some songs? I am trying to get my playlist from 100 right now to about 500 by the end of the year which really takes a lot of work I am just trying to see if there is different way (than what I am doing right now) to get top DJ songs

Anyway, I appreciate the help, maybe even generate a little discussion also :)

Adam
 
Posted Sun 02 Aug 09 @ 8:19 pm
mobilebeat.com

discjockeys.com
 
Hey Adam,

As was just mentioned, the Mobile Beat Top 200 list is a great place to start in order to see what has been popular through the past year. I personally use Promo Only and subscribe to their Chart Radio series which gives me 2 discs a month with all the latest and greatest.

I basically have 2 different collections. The latest and greatest from Promo Only and my Core collection which are my tunes gathered from 30 years of DJing. Not that I take every single one to a gig, but you soon get to know what works and what does not. Further, my Core group of tunes is what I use to fill in when perhaps the Top 40 is not appropriate, such as a retirement party or a family wedding with all ages present.

I think you are on the right track though in asking what others play and where they get it from. There are many places on the internet to look. Have fun.

-DGee
 
you could start collecting best of a particular year and party albums to quickly boost your tunes library either in audio or video, i would opt for video where possible and if finances allow, a little bit more expensive but you can guarantee somewhere down the line you will want to get into video.
 
 
Perfect. Now I have been mainly downloading from itunes (as that is the fastest way for requests) but I have been told that there is a certain bitrate at which I should probably get songs at? What would you guys download them as?
 
320 kbps is the perfect quality no loss in quality higher than cd or dvd quality...and you can tell when mixing from a 128, 192 to a 320 kbps they sound foggy though they sound good enough on your mp3 player but not on pro sound this is the quality ladder 128 kbps acceptable, 160 kbps standard, 192 kbps high, 224 kbps very high and 320 kbps perfect, the higher the kbps the larger the file will be, standard 3-4 minute song is about 8-10 megs on a 320 kbps give or take.
 
As we speak I am searching right now but are the 320 kbps songs going to be naturally a lot harder to find than normal 128 or 192?
 
not if you get them from dj pools but if you download from ares limewire and crap like that then yes its gonna be hard to get good quality kbps music.djtunes.com is a good place to buy music though its only club, trance electro house, hardstyle no hip hop.
 
Promo Only is a life savor. I've been with them for 6months, subscribed to 3 different genres and I have never had to turn a request down (except for some country lol.) :P
 
Promo Only is a life savor. I've been with them for 6months, subscribed to 3 different genres and I have never had to turn a request down (except for some country lol.) :P

I am having a problem with country music. I bought a lot of my music from an ex-bar owner and I don't have ENOUGH country. Every time I drop a good beat I get the "LOOK" and I quickly look for a country song I can attempt to beat match in and fade the other out fast... before beer bottle start flying lol. I just subcribe the the one disk a week job from one of those places yesterday. Can't wait till they start coming. Most of the DJ subcriptions I've found so far contain a very small amount of country music.
 
I have bought a ton of country videos from Itunes. You need to make sure they are Itunes plus videos and you have a legal version of VDJ 6 to allow them to play, but they do play. I buy more and more vids from them every week. Also the Hot Video series is awesome to build ur collection as well as the "Best Ofs" year wise. Our video collection is growing and growing. I am personally lookin to get more latin videos myself.
 
192 bit rate is fine and sounds great. If you want to listen to your music using martin Logan speakers & sipping on some wine hearing Liberace.....then get 320.. You be the judge and and listen to both 192 & 320. Most of my music is on 192
 
The difference is minimum perhaps you or a pro audio engineer could notice the diference, but the crowd.... i dont think so... there is no need for 320kbps... 192kbps is ok.

Best regards

;-)
 


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