30 Min set - Feedback Appreciated

tewky1

Well-Known Member
VIP Junglist
Joined
Oct 16, 2012
Hi Guys

Just joined up, early 30's guy, had decks as a young un, stopped at about age 24 and turned to playing guitar. Been living with a Bristolian room mate for a while so been getting my fair share of DnB!!! Got me looking around on my mac book and found the Free Virtual DJ software, which for a freebie is pretty good. Lack of a monitoring system(or not finding out how it works yet :) ) has just made me really sit down and plan things out a lot more, always used to just wing it, but have been charting stuff in excel and working on forging decent sets. Put this together, think it is pretty good, wondered if I got enough skills to start putting some things out to try and get an hour somewhere. Pretty big party scene where I am, and it is begging for some DnB. I was fairly decent playing parties when I was younger, altough I was playing House/Prog House back in the 90's.

Appreciate if people listen, and would welcome any comments on whether this particular 30 mins works?

Setlist

BCee - Is anybody out there?
BCee - Generations
Dabs and Safire - Back & Forth
Need for Mirrors - Greazy (Feat Stapleton)
Xtrah - Set the levels (Feat Codebreaker)
Benny Page - Crying out (Serial Killaz mix)
Benny Page - Dubroom (Rythm Beater Mix)

http://www.mixcloud.com/tewky1/snakes-and-dagger-underage-blagger/

Enjoy!
 
That bad? :(

Heres another little longer mix.

http://www.mixcloud.com/tewky1/a-monday-montage/

Track List

Lenzman and Riya - Bitter Sweet (Part 2)
Friction and KTee - Overtime (Spectrasoul Mix)
Marcus Intalex - The Sentry
Nymfo - Conscious Minds
Icicle feat SP:MC - Dreadnaught
Fierce and Vicious Circle - Spectre
Vicious Circle - Instinct
Spectrasoul (Feat Tamara Blessa) - Away with me (Calibre Mix)
Alex Clare - Treading Water
Kasra and Enei - So Real
Sabre and Riya - Injustice

Enjoy, feedback appreaciated
 
Welcome tewky1!

That bad? :(

They weren't that bad, they were alright with no tweaks right the way through, but you need to give people a chance to listen. Yeah, I know a day should be enough, but people on here have other things going on in their life . Also, post some feedback & thoughts on other peoples mixes in this section & they should hopefully return the gesture.

Personally, I think mixcloud is inferior to soundcloud as mixcloud takes longer to load a mix & doesn't give you the option to download it. Also, using a 'Free Virtual DJ' to mix with, is it really the same as turntables, cdj's, tracktor ect? Probably not, when you have the option to hit a 'sync' button. Does it take some of the fun out of mixing? A bit, I would have to say.

Plus, I would work on bringing in tunes sooner in the mix. Seems like the majority of the tune played through before the mix came in for both mixes. 7 tunes in 30 mins is on the minor side. A bit better radio in the second mix. Try aiming for 3 tunes in each 10 mins. Waited for the second section of Bitter Sweet to bring Overtime in, almost the outro. Should try to keep the energy of the set flowing from one mix to the next if possible. Spectre came in after a 16 bar section in Dreadnaught (in time, but out of structure to the mix). Most tunes have loops 32 bar sections, unless they have a dodgy 16 bars in there somewhere to listen out for. Try to keep your mixes in with these 32. Might be worth persevering with keeping tunes in for a mix, rather than switching tunes at the drop. I know the majority of top dj's switch at the drop, but it makes you listen to the elements of both tunes more. Injustice came in to So Real a bit quicker than the other mixes, but would have liked it to be another 32 bars beforehand.
 
Welcome tewky1!



They weren't that bad, they were alright with no tweaks right the way through, but you need to give people a chance to listen. Yeah, I know a day should be enough, but people on here have other things going on in their life . Also, post some feedback & thoughts on other peoples mixes in this section & they should hopefully return the gesture.

Personally, I think mixcloud is inferior to soundcloud as mixcloud takes longer to load a mix & doesn't give you the option to download it. Also, using a 'Free Virtual DJ' to mix with, is it really the same as turntables, cdj's, tracktor ect? Probably not, when you have the option to hit a 'sync' button. Does it take some of the fun out of mixing? A bit, I would have to say.

Plus, I would work on bringing in tunes sooner in the mix. Seems like the majority of the tune played through before the mix came in for both mixes. 7 tunes in 30 mins is on the minor side. A bit better radio in the second mix. Try aiming for 3 tunes in each 10 mins. Waited for the second section of Bitter Sweet to bring Overtime in, almost the outro. Should try to keep the energy of the set flowing from one mix to the next if possible. Spectre came in after a 16 bar section in Dreadnaught (in time, but out of structure to the mix). Most tunes have loops 32 bar sections, unless they have a dodgy 16 bars in there somewhere to listen out for. Try to keep your mixes in with these 32. Might be worth persevering with keeping tunes in for a mix, rather than switching tunes at the drop. I know the majority of top dj's switch at the drop, but it makes you listen to the elements of both tunes more. Injustice came in to So Real a bit quicker than the other mixes, but would have liked it to be another 32 bars beforehand.

Point taken about taking other stuff in, am doing that now, trawling through will start soon :) I plan on trying to give something to the forum, with my input and what not.

Will look at soundcloud, sounds better from your description.

With the Virtual DJ, all is well to hit sync to match the bpms, but especially for Dnb, you cannot mix on auto pilot on the thing. But it is a means to an end, and I am looking into external hardware options, to perhaps enhance Virtual DJ, or to use some other solution, some research to be done. Agree is fun on the decks more, but although competent, I can create better pieces with the software, which for me is what I want.

I have only been back playing around for a month or so, messing about on the macbook with my new found fondness for DnB, so the constructive criticism is much appreciated.

The comments on structure are food for thought, and nice guideline of 3 tunes for 10 mins, will look into that a bit more. I guess just my being hasty with my limited time, I basically charted the intro's and outro timings and worked the mixes around that. Given me thoughts of looking at charting more places on songs, trying to focus more on finding the structures, and there points in the songs.

Just looking at the ways I can smooth the mixes, and the drop switch is the obvious goto, but once I get some hardware and a bit more flexibility instead of fumbling with the mouse pad on the laptop, I can start to get more use out of the EQ section to enhance things.

Thanks for taking the time out to listen and comment!
 
Okay, so took some of your advice, looked over some stuff I had done before, see how I could change and improve the flow. Here is one mix I have knocked up, 8 tunes at around 25 mins. Some mixes still hit on the drop, but others I have tried to get them done earlier and not leave the listener hanging, whilst also giving the chance for the tunes to actually mix, rather than just the switch on the drop every time. Interested to see if anyone thinks they sound tighter or not than the early mixes, and whether I achieved what I was looking at. Top advice the watcher(cheers mate), they sound better to my ears.

Heres the first I did, another one just uploading will post it up in a while. Now on Soundcloud :)

http://soundcloud.com/jukemaluke/jukemaluke-001

Enjoy!
 
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http://soundcloud.com/jukemaluke/jukemalue-002

Heres the other mix I threw together tonight, again focusing on your tips. Used a nice little sample of a speech that I sorted at the start, the intro to that Spy tune sounded good for a bit of seriousness over it :)

Tracks

SPY - What the future holds (Feat Ian Shaw)
Eisenhower - Sample of Speech
Implex & Enei - Behind the law
Enei - Forgive Me
Sabre - Halo Danger
Alix Perez - Myriads
Alix Perez - Fade Away
BCee - Generations

Enjoy!, Thoughts comments appreciated :)
 
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jukemaluke-001
Wasn't keen on the intro, but thats just personal preference. Nice to hear Take Ma Away again + mixed with Too Late was pretty cool, but would have liked Take Me Away to stay in the mix for another 32 bars. Run Em Out came in well & the vocal sat nice on the top of Too Late. Never Let You Go slipped into the mix like a peach. Was quality hearing Far Too Close mixed with Underprint. Far Too Close has to be in my top 3 favourite tunes atm after finding out the name the other week. Relentless bass :) + the bass in Behind time was very complimentary with the bass in Far Too Close

Also, it is advisable on here to put a tracklist with all of your members mixes, as people like to know what they will be listening to & can use it as a quick reference to see if they want to listen or not.

jukemaluke-002
I enjoyed the section:- Forgive Me, Halo Danger, Myriads, Fade Away. Halo Danger sounded a little muffled when it was playing on its own. Possibly a level on the mixer somewhere. Myriads rolled nicely onto the end of Halo Danger, but would have liked it to come in a bit earlier & stay in the mix a bit more. Same with Fade Away. All mixed well though.

Oh, and the BPM on the soundcloud pages should be in the 170's. Only a small thing man.
 
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