Preparing my first big gig

Introduction:

Sup folks of GHF, I'm Güd. As the title says, I'm creating this thread, since I got a 300 person gig coming up in a week. I'll describe the preparation-work, setup, the crowd&avenue (expectations vs. reality), tune selection, my experience and the overall outcome.

Previous Experience:

I've Dj'ed for a crowd 5 times so far, 80% at friends' b-days (gave me the basics of analyzing the crowds mood based on what tunes were played), and 20% at a cocktail-bar, warming up for a big local D&B-crew. That last time was a complete disaster though - involving too much alchohol, weed and a dramatic friend, resulting in me leaving the decks 15 minutes early. I prefer not to delve any further into that, I'd rather take it as a lesson:

*No more than five bears (yes, bears.), before or during my sets.

UPDATE:

So it's the day after the day before yesterday, and I'm starting to respawn. I was asked to play at the high schools biggest party in a kick-ass location, surrounded by friends - And open bar to boot. The party was a blast. The stage was ours from 21:00-23:00, followed by a live band, an hour or two of grooveshark playlisting before returning to us. I Guess I'll add a little bit to each of the categories, depending on how much that night taught me.

Preparation Work:

I've run my entire collection through PlatinumNotes and MixedInKey (first software I've bought for the past eight years, WORTH THE DOUGH!), having all my tunes processed, and organized into:

*.Wav-format
*1411kb/s
*-6dB output
*(track number) - (Artist) - (Title) - (BPM) - (Key)

This way I can spend time preparing, my set powerlevel-wise and focus more on following the crowd and playing with effects and being relaxed. I've broken my three main sets into chunks, starting out with Samples' "When I'm Rolling", built into some Caravan Palace, some Daft Punk, and Picco, to start the blaze. Then I can either build to 90 bpm glitch or 140bpm dubstep, depending on how the crowd's reacting. From that point onwards, it's just about selecting the right chunks, play around, do mashups and having a blast in general.

UPDATE:

I may have to prepare more chunks in the next few days, as I'd simply run out of tunes. Bear in mind though, that this was a school party, and thus required a ton of mainstream, whether it be danish grime, synth pop, deep house or disco. Therefore i stayed away from anything too grimey and/or heavy. This leads me to believe, that I'll have more than enough tunes to choose from on the 6th, but I'll prepare a few more, just to make sure. After updating this post, I'll scour the dubs-section and check out what GHF has had to offer lately - Any recommendations?

More on that in the tune-selection section.

Setup:

*Laptop:
Running Traktor 2 & storing my collection of tunes.

*A BCD3000 midi controller:
An old piece of plastic i bought used, and fixed up. It's not what I'll stick with in the future, but it does what it's supposed to, and I'm used to playing on it.

*Soundcard:
I'll be borrowing this one from my mate's studio in the following week.

UPDATE:

Aye, so I've had some problems while practicing at home, with both the internal soundcard of my laptop, and the one built into my BCD3000. Whenever I drop a second heavy track, the master output starts chipping like mad, and I end up with a buttload of random static and noise. It's not the sound output that's going over it's threshold, since I set all my tracks at -6dB, and keep my volume sliders around 70% up. I'm assuming this has something to do with the fact that they aren't fast enough to cope with two 1411kbps-tracks running simultaneously. I think that with a proper sound-card, this shouldn't happen anymore, or am I way off?

the soundcard I will be borrowing is a Digidesign Mbox 2 mini:



As for the routing, would i just plug this and my controller into seperate usb-ports, set Traktors 'Audio Device' to BCD3000, and the 'Built-in Soundcard' to Mbox - Problem Solved?

*Whatever sound system the avenue has

UPDATE:

*A Bamboo Pen&Touch-pad from WaCom, I like using this over a mouse or laptop mousepad - Since I find it hard to be rockin' when I look like, I'm checking my facebook. I prefer using the keyboard over mouse pointers, and I've learned most of the shortcuts of traktor, but I'd rather not spend a lot of time behind the monitor. I prefer to place the computer to one of my sides, so I can focus on the controller and the crowd.

*A SHURE-microphone for callouts, announcements and whenever we need it. Will NOT be sharing this with anyone, other than mates.

The Crowd & The Avenue:

The new 'Ungdomshuset' (The House of Youth) on Dorthea-street, here in Copenhagen is a house for alternative subcultures. I used to hang out in the old one on Jagtvej 69, but when that got torn down, I marched in the streets for a new one. Only set my foot in the new one a handful of times though. Anyway, the new one is hilariously anti-facism, -sexism and -racism. I can't play tunes that contain degrading synonyms for females, any sort of command or racial slurs - Even when they're in a whole other context ("Feels like Ted O'Reilly up in this bitch, Yo EdIT - Take it to the bridge!"). They'll cut the lights, cut the sound and most likely crucify you.



The crowd will be different this time around though. I'm in charge of the dancefloor for my mates' Deathmetalcore EP-release afterparty. There will be 4 big underground metalbands playing their stuff, as heavy moshing and headbanging ensues. After that the stage will be rigged up for me and two mates for the rest of the night.
Since the crows will be part metalheads, I assume they'll be digging some of the harder stuff, and I'm also thinking about mashing up with some deathcore/my mates EP release. Definetly going to be a blast!

UPDATE:

I had two issues with the crowd on the New Years Eve - First off, the fact that I do not own enough mainstream music (although this is easily fixed ).

The second one was two guys from my parallel/twin-class (the english translation escapes me), who wanted to give a rap performance. I figured, that since I've heard them releasin' something, I supposed they had at least a moderate grasp of what they were doing. What followed was nothing short of disastrous.

*I had to keep one of the dudes away from the master mixer while i set up the mics
*The other one kept shouting about "Hookin' up this mp3 beat from my iPhone", which I had no interest in.
*Both of them failing miserably at whatever beats I put on for them
*Trippin over cables 2 times, shutting off the power
*3rd time I cut the mics and threw them off stage, since the crowd was getting pissed and just wanted something to dance to.

Well, it gave me some experience regarding crowd interaction, keeping your calm as well as learning me a lesson which will be summed up in the Concluding Lessons-Section.

Tune selection:

I've split my tune selection into 3 playlists as follows:

Ungeren House (120-130bpm):

8 house tracks mixed in key so the leads etc. overlap, deliberately stayed away from filth as much as possible, although I couldn't resist adding a Skrillex track (yeeeeeeah I know ). The powerlevel should peak around Shpongle/Chromeo/Crunk De Gaulle, which can ultimately be built either up or down in tempo, depending on the crowds mood.



UPDATE:

I learned tonight, that Dragons, Daft Punk and Venga was waay too strong to start out with. People would start dancing, and I'd have a hard time building up, or down without losing the powerlevel. I'm thinking I'll need to drop some more chilly tunes, like Audio Alkemy, Dope Creature and Inaudible, earlier on. Like prepare a 30 minute chill mix, jumping between deep house, laid back glitch-hop and deep step-tunes, that keeps the audience guessing, and gives me an overview of which tunes they're feeling/not feeling. Any thoughts on this?

Ungeren Hop (90-110bpm):



A pretty heavy glitch-hop set, generally staying away from anything too filthy, looking forward to how people react to glitch-hop here in Denmark

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be scouring through the Dubs-section of the forum, to see what GHF has been up to lately. I've been mainly focused on practicing old tunes, setting cue-points etc. and , as well as producing my own beats lately. So I assume there's a virtual treasure-trove piling up in there, over the course of the last two months

Ungeren Step (70/140bpm):



If people are into the heavier stuff, I'll build down the powerlevel with 16bit's Shallow and go gradually into heavier stuff, again staying away from anything too filthy and machinelike - 'Thresholded' at 16bit and Chase & Status.

UPDATE:

I have not updated the dubstep set, since we only played a few of the tunes the other day, though I've made a few alterations to cue-points overlapping and such.

I'll be mashing up tracks, beatmashing, filtersweeping and beatslicing, as well as a wee bit of flanger. Any other effects that work well for you?

This following week:

I'll update this part throughout the week, based upon what I find out, and whatever ideas, advice and input you guys feel like givin'.

UPDATE:

Oh right, I had made this section. I totally forgot. Well... The things I've learned have been pretty much summed up in the other sections, this space will be reserved for an unnecessarily large crowd of smileys:



The Overall Outcome:

To be written when the show is over

Concluding Lessons:

To be written, describing whatever lessons I may have picked up here or at the show.

UPDATE:

Lesson I: No more than five bears (yes, bears.), before or during my sets.

Lesson II: Keep the stage closed, and only invite serious mates up there, having to deal with drunk strangers jizzing all over your sound-setup, takes a lot of energy.

I'm looking forward to hearing your cents, criticism, and questions, I feel like I (and you) can learn alot from this.

-When one teaches, two learn. Peace out

-GüD

good luck!

interesting analysis. like your scientific approach. will be interested to see the results!

this is very interesting thanks for postin it!

Updated the original post with what New Years Eve taught me, gonna go listen through a bunch of new tunes now.

Peace out, GüD

Updated the 'Setup'-section, would love an answer to that question

Peace out, GüD