Planning a Set

June 08, 2024 | Work: 2024-02

Updated 13 Jun

A few weeks ago, I was contacted on instagram with an inquiry about playing an event at a local art space. The venue is one I had been to several times as an attendee but never performed at.

Interested? DEFINITELY.

The theme of the event is “mind blown”, and they are specifically looking for a “journey”-type set (as in, a set with a loose aural narrative). On the surface, this is super exciting – these are my favorite types of sets to do, but I rarely get to do them because most audiences in this region prefer more superficial content with quick changeovers. “Journeys” tend to fare better with the psychadelic crossover crowd – the name of the event promoters gave me a good hint that this might be that kind of crowd.

The event is scheduled for 21 June 2024, less than a week after the Middlelakes Festival on 15 June. There’s two more events (back-to-back!) on 6 and 7 July, but I can plan those later.

This post is about my process of how I prepare and plan for a set. In the previous post I touched on this a bit – though that more focused on “general practice” and not “planning practice.” This will be more about the latter.

This process can take days or weeks, depending on how much depth I need.

A “journey” type set will be highly curated and I will figure out my cue points and mix timings. A “casual” type set will have the first 2 or 3 records sorted and then various possible lines of play from a selection of records.

My process here is by no means a universal thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if other DJs have a similar process, but this is definitely intended to be descriptive and not prescriptive. It does, however, require a pretty intimate knowledge of your music collection, and so the practices I mentioned in my previous post would be considered prescriptive, for this case.

Preliminary

Some things I like to figure out up front:

Duration & Timeslot

This is usually specified up front by the person making the booking. Sets are usually an hour, but can be shorter (30-45 mins) or longer (90-120 mins). Rarely they are even longer (2.5 - 3 hrs).

This requires no decisions from me at this point, but will inform later decisions about what to play.

Middlelakes Festival will be 60 minutes; slot is 10pm-11pm. MIND BLOWN will be 90 minutes and I’m the closing act, 10:30 pm - Midnight.

Prospective audience

Bo Burnham, in Make Happy, describes in his closing segment how the existence of the audience creates a dichotomy of pressure for him, as a performer – he wants to be true to himself and his artistic expression, but also recognizes that people are paying money to see him and probably expect to be entertained. He feels that he must always straddle this line and both be entertaining but also not sacrifice his artistic integrity.

I’m not Burnham, but I find this sentiment very relatable.

Often times the stuff I would like to play may not be what is appropriate for the given audience. If this is a casual bar or club crowd, particularly if they skew younger, then the heavier niche dance tracks might be too heavy. People tend to find straightbeat music easier to dance to, so I typically won’t play breakbeat / drum & bass unless I know it’s either a bass music crowd (who will appreciate it on subsonic frequencies alone) or a more traditional rave crowd.

The timeslot also affects these choices: an earlier timeslot means superficial / casual sets are going to likely land better; people need to get warmed up and into a dancing mood before you start throwing the heavier dance stuff at them.

The irony here is that if I don’t play the stuff suitable for a later slot, promoters / attendees won’t know that can / would play that kind of material, but if I choose to play it at the wrong time, then I seem like I’m not straddling the balance from earlier correctly. It’s a decision to make – how forgiving will this crowd be, either way?

MIND BLOWN

This was pretty easy. They are specifically expecting to dance; they want electronic music; they want a journey.

Middlelakes Festival

It’s a little different. This is a local dance crowd and the crew throwing this event have been gaining traction locally. They tend to skew younger and favor bass music, but also the event will be all-ages and there’s likely to be more variety. Also – my kids will be in attendance, which is a factor (this was my request to them for Father’s day, which is the day after).

Mood

Once I’ve considered who my audience will be – is the evening going to be lighter? Who is opening for me? Who plays after me?

As a dancer, I always disliked it when the vibe would change jarringly. Not to say everyone has to play the same stuff, or anything, but having the energy level go HIGH to low to HIGH again can be a bit annoying. I don’t want to bring it down after I’ve gotten amped up. Promoters usually sequence their evenings with this in mind, but I also have to be mindful of it, when I am making these decisions.

It may seem kind of silly, but I do also consider: will the audience be under the influence, and if so, what are they likely taking? People on downers don’t want high-energy stuff. People on uppers don’t want chilled-out vibes. People who are drinking (usually) or on uppers (usually) don’t want hard-introspective music, etc.

Music and altered-states of mind have gone hand in hand for centuries.

MIND BLOWN

I feel like it’s pretty reasonable to think that at least some of the attendees will be on psychadelics of some kind. The promoter asked me for a journey. I’ll be playing last, so people will likely be at peak energy levels for dancing, and will be OK with introspective content.

Middlelakes Festival

This is going to be a more diverse crowd. I should probably do something a bit more casual. However, it’s also an indoor/outdoor event (I’m indoors). I am tentatively planning two possible lines of play: a higher energy set (“Dusk”), or a more mellow summertime set (“Sunset”).

Tempo

The slowest material I play is around 125 BPM. The fastest is either ~90 BPM/~180 BPM (drum & bass, which is either depending on how you choose to hear it) or ~155 BPM (hard acid straightbeat; no ambiguity here).

Knowing the audience’s proclivity towards dancing, as well as the mood I want to set affects tempo range a lot.

Faster stuff is going to be more niche. It’s harder to dance to and unless the audience is hyperactive or on uppers, it can be tough to keep up with. Slower stuff tends to be more broadly acceptable, but has less dynamism and less excitement.

Both events

For both events, I’m looking at around 135 BPM. The audiences and venues will bear this out regardless. The Middlelakes Festival event could be a bit slower (closer to 130 BPM) if I go for the “sunset” set instead.

Paul Oakenfold and Paul van Dyk both used to center their live sets at around 138 BPM. This was a pretty standard “trance” tempo for a very long time. I listened to one of my practice sets while walking in the park the other day, and it was challenging to keep a fast walk consistently on-beat at 138 BPM, but I think 135 will be OK.

Genre

Within a given mood & tempo range, the available genres get narrowed down considerably.

Most House music tends to be in the 120s – 120-125 typically. Tech House will be in the 130s, and Hard House in the 140s.

Trance will usually be in the 130s at the low end and get into the 140s for higher energy stuff, and even into the 150+ range for Hard Trance, particularly Hard Acid.

Techno (as the rhythm-forward genre, not as the broad descriptor for “electronic music”) is usually in the upper 120s to lower 140s, with a lot of it in the low 130s.

MIND BLOWN

This is going to be a Progressive House / Progressive Trance set, along the lines of Sasha & Digweed, Paul Oakenfold. These genres lend themselves best to the brief.

Middlelakes Festival

I’m not sure. If I go the “sunset” route, then that will likely be House / Progressive House (Nalin & Kane, Chicane, Ibiza-style stuff). The “dusk” route would be higher energy Progressive Trance (Kimball Collins, Paul van Dyk) or Tech-house (Carl Cox).

UPDATE: For Middlelakes, I am strongly considering doing a hard trance/acid set (VCF, Choci’s Chewns, Commamnder Tom, etc). The main consideration against that would be I haven’t studied a lot of these records quite enough.

Approach

“Approach” might not be the right word but I couldn’t think of a better one.

What I mean is how invested do I expect my audience to be in this? How much can I reasonably expect them to commit to the groove? Higher commitment means I can go deeper, play longer tracks that have slower builds and bigger payoffs. Lower commitment means I should stick with tracks that are more superficial and just “fun” and don’t have as much dynamism.

This matters a lot for song selection and also for estimating roughly how many records I need to have available for a set.

MIND BLOWN

This is going to be a high-investment type situation. I am expecting, and have been practicing, sets where the songs are typically 5-7 mins each. For a 90 minute slot, this has been averaging 15 tracks (~6 minutes per song). The songs themselves are actually typically 6-10 minutes each, but I run my mixes long, so each song typically has a minute at its beginning and a minute at the end where it’s playing simultaneously with another song.

Middlelakes Festival

This will be a lower-investment set, possibly more in the middle. This will depend a LOT on what slot I end up getting, but it will likely be more like 2-4 minutes per song (roughly 15 - 20 tracks altogether).

I’ve got a prime slot. At this point in the evening and indoors, I can safely play higher energy stuff. The “Dusk” set (or possible hard acid set) seem to be the most viable here. I’m playing right after someone who I’m pretty sure will play 125bpm (he typically does), and before someone who is playing upbeat PsyTrance / D&B most likely, so that’s a safe bet.

Developing the set

Once I’ve made some commitments to these, I’ll start crafting the set. This involves:

In particular, I have to remember something I learned in a Creative Non-fiction class in college: “Murder your darlings.” Every choice in a creative work should be serving the creative vision, and nothing gets a free pass.

If I feel overly committed to a particular song choice or its inclusion, I will often try removing it and see how it sounds afterwards. Sometimes the song can be like the stone in Stone Soup – adding it helps everything come together, but ultimately it needs to not be in the final sequence because it just doesn’t fit.

Starting

I usually like to begin with a song that feels like an intro song. It might have a beatless intro, a slow fade-in, or something that feels “open”. A good intro song is a bit like an overture in a musical – it sets the tone for the rest of the set, and helps the audience calibrate their dancing pace.

MIND BLOWN

So far, I have considered:

I am currently leaning towards “Winds of Change (Part 1)”, but haven’t fully settled there, yet. It has a soft opening, brings the beat in quickly, and ends on a “let’s get to it” kind of feeling. “Healing Dream” is definitely a “darling” track for me. I have fond memories of dancing to that when I was younger, and I definitely feel a desire to want to share that with others. I’ve used it in previous sets, before – it has similar qualities to the other track.

“Perception” is a beautiful song, and the vocal mix doubly so. The intro is 16 bars before the beat comes in. There’s no tonal shift in it like with the Sunday Club songs, but it would still hold the right feeling on its way out. “Rabbitweed” is similar to this, though the intro is far longer – I want to say it’s a full 64 bars before the beat comes in. This song is also a breakbeat, rather than straightbeat, song. Between that and the fact that it has more mid-to-late set feels behind it,

Middlelakes Festival

I am still on the fence about this. I’ve considered:

The first two would be “dusk” (higher energy) and the latter two would be “sunset” (mellow energy). The last track is one line of play I’ve considered that would be breaks-heavy, even.

Starting with “Imagination” would lead in the direction of playing other similar upbeat songs with a driving bassline, lots of big room synths, and high energy.

“Emmalisha” would be higher energy but more introspective; and also open the door for going in the direction of doing hard trance / acid. Unshifted, it sits at about 152 BPM – pretty fast! This might be a harder sell, but would probably be a lot of fun to play.

“Cafe Del Mar” is a really great chilled-out summertime tune. It’s one of the most “Ibiza” sounding trance tracks I’ve ever heard. This remix in particular is very chilled out, and would lead towards other similar contented, relaxed, but percussion-heavy tracks.

“Angel” is a fun one because the entire song sounds like it’s one long intro. I have a bunch of breakbeat tracks at similar tempos and with similar vibes (Paul van Dyk, BT, Slacker, others) that would blend well with this.

I really don’t know which direction I want to go, and this might be somethign I decide on the day-of.

UPDATE: It’s going to be either the first or second track. (Cores or Jtd/OJ)

Ending

Much like writing a paper, a good ending is something that provides a sense of finality and closure to the experience. It’s hard to describe with this means, practically, but you know it when you hear it. I’m sure a Music Major could have a more exacting description of what’s going on these tracks, but I’ve not learned it yet – but I definitely know it by sound.

MIND BLOWN

Some that I have considered:

I’m leaning heavily towards the “Empire”, just because in practice sessions it already feels like the right fit, and feels like a natural finisher for the tone of the rest of the set.

“Pistolwhip” is a song that I’ve used on other sets, as a finisher. It pretty much always gets a dancefloor moving – the peak hits hard. The problem, as a friend pointed out, is all the bloops in the first half – they almost seem…. silly. In the company of other songs, this can be find, but in this particular set that I’m planning out, it feels out of place.

“Enervate” would fit right in, and is still a contender. Oakenfold used it as the closer on “Tranceport” (vol 1), and I have at least one, maybe two, mixtapes from the 90s where the DJ used it as a late-set choice. It has a solid intensity and sense of finality.

“Forbidden Fruit” is another darling of mine. This might be one of my favorite trance songs ever, in fact. The same friend who commented on Pistolwhip also pointed out that this song seems too “happy” to fit with the rest of the songs. As the final song, it might not matter? It doesn’t begin sounding too happy, at least, and the booming bass of the intro is a lot of fun to tease in. This one is still a maybe, and I will very likely keep it at the back of my crate just in case.

Middlelakes Festival

Honestly, I don’t know yet. Pistolwhip (see above) is a possibility, just because it typically lands well. It really depends on where I start. I will revisit this later once I’ve thought it over some more.

I haven’t decided on a closer yet. If I go with the “Dusk” set, there’s a bunch of good closers that I know well (including Pistolwhip and others).

Inflection point

When planning out a set, I usually like to pick a point roughly halfway or just past halfway through that I can build up to and then launch from. A longtime DJ friend referred to this as the “mid-set peak.” This song should escalate the energy level and make it clear that the set is pushing to completion.

The tracks leading up to this song would then feel like a steady build, and the songs after it should feel like a sustained energy or even pushing it further. If “energy level” was on a scale of 1-10, this song would be an 8 or 9, and then the rest of the set pushes to 10 or even 11.

MIND BLOWN

The initial idea I had was for this song to be Tekara - “Breathe in You (Tekara’s M & M Dub)”. This song may still get an inclusion. I had to accept the fact that it might be a darling. I did like the feeling it produced, and tried to make it into a Stone Soup situation – removing the track did improve the remaining sequence significantly. I really do love the song, but it’s also long and is a heavy commitment track. This one may also be a back-of-crate inclusion that I call in as an audible, but it would probably be a late-set choice instead of mid-set.

Most likely, the inflection point will be Breeder - “The Chain (Babealicious Mix)” (or thereabouts). It begins innocently and builds steadily.

Middlelakes Festival

Same as above. It’s tough to have an inflection point from A to B when you aren’t sure where A is, let alone B.

Now that I know the slot, though, I can figure something out.

Sequencing & blends

Like discussed earlier in “Approach”, how I plan this depends on the depth of the sets.

Heavy-handed

For a journey set, I will go through and have a pretty heavy-handed approach to set-planning. Tracks will be sequenced based on the “feeling” (vibe?) they have and I will exercise a lot of discretion over the pacing and maintenance of that feeling.

The goal is to have the set feel like one really long track, where the track transitions are barely noticeable.

During practice, I will record a full set run of a possible sequence and then listen to it a few times. I am looking for any blends that feel noisy / busy / muddy. I also want to notice any tracks that feel like a regression / reversion, or that feel out of place.

Once I’m more or less happy with the sequencing, I practice the cue point timing. With vinyl, you can usually identify the cue points / phrase beginnings because they are often at the end of a break or cut. But sometimes the track you’re bringing in has an irregular intro, or maybe the track going out has a weird change in the outro. Every now and then I’ll have to count bars from a reference point and then make a mental note to cue in at that count.

While practicing the blends, otherwise, I try to focus on where my instinct says to mix, and then if that turns out to be correct, then I don’t worry about it. The only time I take note or commit anything to memory is if it isn’t intutiive.

The end result is really cool, even though it does take a lot of planning to get it just right.

Flexible

For a casual set, the energy levels of the beginning end tend to be closer together, so the sequencing is less important. I still try to avoid jarring changes in tonality, but these sets tend to be a bit more improvisational, so I just want to have a crate full of records that I know will work with the vibe I’m trying to create.

With this approach, I am trying to maintain audience interest through novelty and unpredictability. This means quick track changes, fast mixes, and a lot of crate churn.

When practicing, I am going to not do any sequencing at all, and will instead just hear a song, find another song that I immediately think of, and then mix it in. Eventually this will coalesce around a single collection of songs, with some fuzziness around it. I can pack a crate with those records, decide on the day of where I want to begin, and then figure out my sequence on the fly.

For the blends, these tend to be more straightforward because the tracks are simpler and usually don’t compete as much. The things to note on these are the cases where the tracks are more complicated or compete more, usually those with vocals.

It’s a lot of fun to do this, actually, and a lot less stressful.