LabRat

Happy to help! Yeah send the track over and I'll definitely have a listen

Ah the loudness battle lol yeah it's a tricky one to get clean but once you get your head around it, it becomes much easier. -12db is stacks of room. Usually anywhere below -6 is good but the more the merrier. I've mastered in logic and in ableton and they're both much the same really. All my presets and chains are in logic so I'll jump in there if I feel lazy lol as far as plugins go, I use FabFilter Pro-Q for my eqing, sonalksis cq1, softube trident a-range and just a random bunch of compressors (whichever I feel like at the time), fabfilter saturn… they're the usual suspects but it varies. Free stuff and native plugin will do the same trick. I would suggest to pick out a mastering preset rack and have a look at how that chain is set up. it may or may not sound any good but if you flick through them you'll understand how it works. As far as loudness goes, don't try ram the limiter for the gains. Put the limiter on the end and as you start building your chain you'll hear it get louder and then you can adjust the limiter from there if you want it louder still. Just be careful with that because you can crush the sound so much that it sounds like dirt. When you compress or eq something you'll usually hear the original sound get quieter. To fix that, just adjust the gain to bring the level back to where it was. Don't push it, just use it to bring it back to loudness. A compressor usually is an auto gain function so click that and the adjustments you make will be compensated by the auto gain. Saturators just boost everything really. They drive the volume of the track but you can overdo it if you push it too much. Treat mixing like your adding salt and pepper to your meals. Just enough will make it taste great but if you put in a. It too much salt or pepper it'll start to compensate the flavours.

I know people personally that have bought fans and they're all fake profiles. 12k followers but very little traffic. It's painfully obvious that you've paid for them so it's not worth it. As far as the tunes go, don't make music just to get them signed. You'll only have pressure if you create it and that's what I did when the label told me I needed to release an EP. Keep making tunes, send them to labels and play them out (if you DJ) and see what happens. ultimately, just keep making tunes

My mastering chain changes every time because my tracks get recorded differently. My basic chain will have some compression and eq to balance out the levels. I'll have another eq to clean up nasty little frequencies that pop out and maybe one more to subtly adjust it again. Multiband compression is good and you can also use and expander and saturater. The limiter is at the end of the chain to stop the level from peaking passed 0 but don't push that too much because it'll sound like turd. If the mix is good the master shouldn't take very long and you shouldn't need too many plugins

It's always good to have a few up your sleeve I reckon coz I got caught out that way. I approached a label and they were interested to sign one of my tracks but as a newie to their label they wanted me to release an EP. I didn't have anything else ready and rushed to get some stuff finished. It didn't work out for me in the end because the tunes I submitted were gargabe so I would say it's doesn't hurt to have a few laying around

I started using Hive. Wouldn't say it's underrated coz it's fairly new but it's so good

Welcome mate

Yeah I'd stay away from that now just based on how technology has advanced. Do you perfer not using a laptop?

Ableton made the push 2, akai made the first push. As far as quality goes they're both pretty good but the push 2 offers up a whole host of more functions and easier navigation with the screens, a bit like maschine studio. It comes down with what you're planning to achieve really. You can trigger samples using ableton assisted by a push or launch pad, or you can do the same thing with an mpc without the need of a computer. If you're looking to use effects (and you're using ableton already) I would suggest getting a launch pad and a novation launch control to utilise the knobs when controlling the parameters of the effects. This is probably the simplest option to begin with. Otherwise you can achieve the same thing using traktor. It might come across as a bit "dumbed down" compared to what live can do but it's an under-utilised tool and linked with maschine it can be quite powerful

I'm don't really remember much from my PA days - i was more on the lighting team anyways. i think the idea of those is so they're secure and you can't just kick them out. If it's for a house party then anything should be fine. pretty sure those patch cables are still stereo leads anyway so should be fine

Happy to help

DJing 101 lol good to hear it went well

Yes you did

Yeah mate. Do whatever will make your workflow easy. Don't be surprised if you change it a million times either lol

This is a personal thing I would say. I have mine sorted by genre but some people like to organise by different times of the night or by how busy the night is. for example, Brooklyn has her USB's organised by venue size, the amount of people are in the and what time she's playing. It's fucking weird but whatever makes your job easier

They're gonna give the DJ more functions to do more things. I think it's pretty stupid tbh. Let the video guy do his thing and the DJ do his

This is a bit mental

I think it might be worth sharing some of our old shit lol I'm willing to cop some heat if others wanna do the same?

Yeah I get that but I would say go in earlier than later. You can have a chat with the DJ and if he or she feels like your a dick or being there they should get another job

Do you get all Liam Neeson when you physically take over? lol I would suggest to just make your presence felt about 10/15mins before you get on. You gotta load up your USB's anyway

depends what the dj is playing. if you're playing the same tempo just lead on from his last track. if not, maybe some fancy fx or something to transition nicely. if you're doing that, i would start your track at the breakdown so you can build into the new tempo / genre nicely.

Yeah the first few are always nerve racking but they're always learning experiences. Even if you've been djing as long as some of us we still find ourselves in situations where we have to think quickly. We're just experienced enough to deal with it in a certain way and that all stems from doing these parties like you're doing now so it'll be good to get right in there and just enjoy it

I think you're overthinking it too much. We've all been in this situation so I won't take it away from you but a lot of that is out of your control. Firstly, don't do the maths of how many songs per hour you'll play because it never works out that way. Like we said earlier just keep collecting tunes. You may never play any of it but one day you'll need one of them. You obviously don't wanna play all your bangers straight away so you can do what Andy suggested and throw on a chill mix for an hour or just play chilled stuff. You need to build up to it. Use the time only as a reference. Don't switch styles completely because you assume by 9pm it's time to go harder. Keep the time in mind and look at everyone around you. Experiment with a few different tunes to test the vibe and go from there. Some nights I was playing bangers by 10 and other nights I couldn't get people going until midnight. Different crowds will react differently so that's something you need to see at the time. You'll know if you play a song no one likes because they'll let you know. Usually, everyone will stop dancing and stare at you. It's really awkward but that's usually the indicator. Don't feel disheartened by that because it happens to all of us. Like I said, different crowds react differently. Don't just cut that track into a new one. Try mix it out so it doesn't come across like you've made a mistake, because you definitely haven't. It just looks better when you mix the tunes and you look like you're in control of your crowd. I guess to summerise, don't freak out and don't overthink it. What you portray in you head usually never happens and you freak out for nothing lol I don't know what you could do to calm down but I use to chew gum.

i do guess this and it's always good i can spark your interest. cheers buddy

Came across this in my travels. Enjoy the watch