James Haidak: How To Improve Live Sets?

 

Deciding to become a DJ is one thing, but continuously dedicating time to learn how to set a venue’s mood with your sound and programming is something else. Although there are no strict DJing rules, some helpful tips and tricks can improve your live sets. In this post, James Haidak shares tips to improve your live sets!

1. Practice. Like in other things, James Haidak believes that practice is also a vital task in DJing. It helps you enhance your skills and make much better DJ sets than a free-form approach to the craft. Your music will seem halfhearted when you only have a vague idea of what you want to play on a live set. As you develop your skills further, you will discover that accomplished groove-riders and turntablists spend countless hours perfecting their sets. Although James Haidak does not recommend pre-planning an entire live set, you should at least know your options well before you show up to perform at the venue. Prepare tracks that mix well and make different playlists of those tunes for future use.

2. Plan sets of three. When planning live sets, you may sometimes feel overwhelmed because you have a wide variety of options to play for only a limited time. James Haidak discovered this tip from other accomplished DJs and found it to be helpful in planning sets. First, find three tracks that mix well at a time. These three records should sound good when you play them at once, or they can at least transition well into one another. Next, find other sets of three until you eventually have a collection. Organize them into a flow of slow to fast or mellow to banging, so you can easily plan them for your sets.

3. Play different styles. Although professional DJs do not necessarily have to take requests from the audience, James Haidak believes being able to play more than one specific music style can help gain more performance opportunities. Try to find tracks from your collection that will suit different types of clubs, events, and crowds.

You do not necessarily have to divide your collection by genre. But James Haidak believes it is best if you can categorize them by mood and energy. If you practice enough, organizing your music and playing different styles will help you find selections more quickly and perform sets with a more natural flow.

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