Hey there, Teamliquid. I'm a novice house DJ who got into the scene a few months ago, when my friend (a much more experienced DJ) offered me the chance to do an introductory set for him during one of our school's dances. He taught me all the basics, so I know how to beatmatch & mix and all, and the set went great.
But now he's presented me with a challenge: He's hosting a music festival for our town and he'd like me to do a two hour long set at the beginning. I'm kind of freaking out at the moment, because while I have a rather large library of music, I'm not sure if I can fill two hours, and if I'm able to, I'm not sure that all of the songs will be up to standards, so to say. So I need your help, TL. I've perused through all of the music threads here, and from what I've seen, everyone here has some good taste in music. I've managed to compile a somewhat sizeable setlist based on these music threads and outside knowledge, but I'd like your opinions on the house setlist that I've put together so far. Feel free to suggest any additional tracks that you think fit the mood (which is electro / house / trance ish)
Here's what I have so far.
For the house segment (~128 BPM):
1) Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix) - Deadmau5 2) All I Ask of You (feat Penny) - Skrillex 3) Teenage Crime (Axwell & Henrik B. remix) - Adrian Lux 4) Drowning (feat. Laura V) (Avicii Remix) - Armin Van Buuren 5) Replica - Afrojack 6) Strobe - Deadmau5 7) Call My Name (feat. Nadia Ali) (Spencer & Hill Remix) - Ned Shephard 8) Just The Way You Are (Skrillex & Batboi Remix) - Bruno Mars 9) Moar Ghosts N Whatever - Deadmau5 10) Kids (Robokids Remix) - MGMT 11) Party Rock ANthem (Audiobot Remix)
And for the trance segment (~134 BPM):
12) Bright Morningstar - Tiesto 13) Ecstasy - ATB 14) Escape Me (feat. CC Sheffield) - Tiesto 15) C'mon (feat. Diplo) - Tiesto (yeah, I have a lot of tracks from the same artists, haha. I definitely pick my favorites.)
16) Hold You (Club Mix) - ATB 17) The Wave - Cosmic Gate 18) Humanity - ATB 19) Metropolis - Gareth Emery 20) Sanctuary - Gareth Emery 21) Dirty Talk (Laidback Luke remix) - Wynter Gordon 22) Lonely Girl (Gareth Emery Remix) - Oceanlab 23) Adagio For Strings - Tiesto 24) Son of Flynn (Nonplus Remix) - Daft Punk
And here are tracks that I'm considering adding, somewhere or another.
1) I Gotta Feeling (Sant Remix) - Black Eyed Peas 2) How Does It Feel - Michael Mind Project 3) Hide And Seek (Tiesto Remix) - Imogen Heap 4) Feel Alive - Benassi Bros 5) Twisted Love - ATB 6) More Than Everything - Gareth Emery 7) Bulletproof (Hyper Crush Remix) - La Roux 8) Rock N' Roll - Skrillex 9) Not The Same Citadel (Gareth Emery vs Markus Shulz) - Armin Van Buuren 10) Hot (Radio Mix) - Inna 11) Amazing - Inna 12) Sun and Moon - Above and Beyond 13) Synapse Dynamics (Arty Remix) - Mat Zo
Damn, how did I miss that? I'll definitely have to look into the tracks on there. That should help immensely with finding artists that I like, which should in turn help me add 1-2 tracks without feeling like they're simply filler or anything like that. Thanks a ton.
Use Kill Everybody by Skrillex. Also, you use alot of extremely known songs. You could diversify a bit. Tiefschwarz - Issst (Nathan Fake Mix), Ellen Allien & Apparat - Turbo Dreams, Till West - Same Man, Vitalic - Soulshaker, Cirez D - Rematch. All these are for the electro set. (Just recommendations, they're great tracks imo)
Some Armin Van Buuren for the trance set is always necessary.
Check out Miami Horror. It's definitely a bit different than what you've got listed here, but I like it all the same. It may be what you're looking for, or it may be something completely different. May as well give them a listen.
Take this with a grain of salt, but if you have the apm for it ( ) consider throwing in snippets of 2-3 even cheesy famous tracks, if only for 30 secs (especially if u can keep it on key).
A rough example (depends on your audience) - house song -> can't touch this chorus - party rock anthem remix.
Sometimes it works wonders, but obviously not if you overdo it or pick wrong "classics"
A 2 hour set and you've only been DJing for a few months? That sounds very risky. You better know all of your stuff. I DJ'd for over a year (no gigs though) and at the end of that, I STILL didn't feel like I was ready for a 2 hour gig. When I first started DJing however I wanted a gig in the first 2 weeks lol.
If you really have to do it you better pre-plan your set and practice it a lot, don't do things on the go. Make sure you know all your equipment too and what to do if the sound cuts etc..
I'm a deep house / prog house dj myself but I haven't been following the scene in like a month so I'm a little out of the big picture at the moment :D Here is however something that could work wonders
also, I guess these sites will help you in the future for trackhunting:
1001tracklists.com - hundreds of DJ tracklists from recent gigs. beatport.com - and other digishops aswell, boomkat.com, djdownload.com etc etc residentadvisor.net - dj charts, top charts, reviews etc tranceaddict.com/forum - reviews, tracklists, music discussion factmag.com soundcloud.com/r_co, new dj sets daily, and tracklists are usually found from the user comments
enjoy
edit: also also that tracklist of yours looks so entrylevel trance and house to me, cratediggin is the way to go man!
edit edit: I'm also a '88-'2004 trancemusic fanatic, been collecting that shit for like 9 years now, so feel free to ask me for any recommendations from the golden era
Yeah, the stuff I've chosen is definitely very entry - level and well known. Like I said, I was just a casual listener to house / trance before my friend got me into DJing (and I still am ) I'm not too worried about the tracks being well-known, because the house scene around my town is minimal at best, but it still would definitely be nice to add some variety.
On June 06 2011 16:06 Zapdos_Smithh wrote: A 2 hour set and you've only been DJing for a few months? That sounds very risky. You better know all of your stuff. I DJ'd for over a year (no gigs though) and at the end of that, I STILL didn't feel like I was ready for a 2 hour gig. When I first started DJing however I wanted a gig in the first 2 weeks lol.
If you really have to do it you better pre-plan your set and practice it a lot, don't do things on the go. Make sure you know all your equipment too and what to do if the sound cuts etc..
It is extremely risky - I'm pretty nervous. But I'm not too worried about trainwrecks. Since this is just a local music festival, the standards aren't going to be terribly high to begin with. As long as I keep the set and the transitions nice and simple, it should hopefully go well enough.
Thanks for all of the music recommendations, everyone. I'll look into them and hopefully post an update later tonight.
On June 06 2011 21:57 infinity2k9 wrote: Is it possible you can choose any house besides the most pop-friendly cheesy awful crap possible? That would be a good start.
Good to hear. It's nice to know that my tastes in music are being insulted.
Like I said, I'm an ENTRY LEVEL DJ. If you read my posts above, you'd see that I basically began DJing with a rudimentary grasp on the house scene, so I just chose my favorite songs from that area and went with it. Yes, I do recognize that these are entry-level tunes, but a) that's my taste in house at the moment (and therefore, a large amount of my songs will be "pop-friendly cheesy awful crap") and b) I understand that diversity is necessary, which is why I created this blog - for HELP on finding more tracks, many of which are likely buried at a level that I haven't even touched yet.
So thanks for your contribution.
I've been really liking the songs that everyone else has suggested so far. An update to my setlist is coming along well, and I should have it posted at the end of the night. Thanks again, all.
All right, after some careful consideration and listening to tons of tunes (I'm so glad - regardless of whether they help my setlist or not, my music library grew by about 30 songs over the past night,) I have an update on the list.
Here are the tracks I'm likely going to add (I'll sort them into the list to create a more finalized product closer to Friday) :
Kill Everybody (Bare Noize Remix) - Skrillex Turbo Dreams - Ellen Allien & Apparat Cirez D - Rematch Make You Mine (Death Metal Scene Remix) - Miami Horror Symphony - Adam Port Yours Tonight (Terabyte Frenzy Remix) - Barnett Lobel Feat. Sue Cho Call Your Girlfriend (Feed Me Remix) - Robyn Party Days (Utku S. Remix) - Pulseless Techno Fan (Afrojack Remix) - The Wombats Running - Fedde le Grand, Sultan & Ned Shepard ft. Mitch Crown Blessed (Avicii Remix) - Tom Hangs Eurodans - Todd Terje Jack It Up - David Tort Ready To Go (Hardwell Club Mix) - Martin Solveig Aurora - Sander Van Dien
I'll probably get these sorted into the playlist and put everything in order by tomorrow. In the mean time, I'll keep looking for some tracks, so keep your suggestions, opinions, and criticisms coming. Thanks, everyone!
I think you definitely need some classic shit to that Trance Section, I'm too lazy now to post any names but I have a 4 pieced blog called Essential Trance, scroll those through if you like
EPT
) I'm not too worried about the tracks being well-known, because the house scene around my town is minimal at best, but it still would definitely be nice to add some variety.
