Organising records at home and in your bag

[vrejulf]

i have to think of some structural tracks at first otherwise i sound like britney spears playing the flute (she sucks).
between those tracks (no matter what order or position) i sneak in little jewels .

[Michael^Heaven]

I read an interview about Tiesto who apparently takes a long time preparing and packing his bag.. so it made me wonder, what great secret he has and if I could do this to improve my performances.

Everyone is different in their preparations. Whether it's a musician prior to gig or an athlete before a game/contest/match. What works for one might not for the other.

Secondly, this weekend I took a too broad selection of music house/mnml/tech and I actually panicked for a second halfway the mix while looking for the right record :-)

This can be avoided by knowing your bag. You might pack it, similarly, like you have tracks arranged at home.

[vrejulf]

intresting ideea.. taking the home arangement with you ...

[Celltek]

It makes perfect sense..

[Red Kite]

I keep my records is buckets but I think I may need to buy this Ikea shelf, and then do I sort according to label or "sound/genre".

What works for you??

Think about your favourite record store, think about how they organize their records and if you think it's easy to find them, and then try to adopt this at home. For me that means: Alphabetically by labels, and that's it. Maybe an extra place for the new stuff, temporarely.

To me sorting by genre won't work, cause there always seems to be some exception or stuff that's difficult to decide.

As for the sets: I go to my record collection, pick the ones I'd like to play, according to location, time-table etc. Then I do some test mixing at home, put the ones together that work well mixed. Then in the front the records I think might work good starting with, after that the records I feel like absolutely playing, then some fill-ins and tools and in the end the loop records. When I played something I put in in the back so I don't have to flip over it everytime I'm looking for a record.

I believe a DJ set should be at least partly prepared so you know your records, you know which of them work well mixed together, you know where your set can be going and how you can build up tension in the set. Usually sets from DJs who don't plan their sets at all and just work themselves from one record to the next one seem to me to lack focus and tension, there's some bad mixes because the DJs don't know what they are playing and never thought about how they should play it etc.

Reaction to the crowd, so far so good. But you have to give them something to react to! They're waiting for you to do something, not the other way around!

[Rochey]

I have this for storing my records at home




as far as in box/ bag

I 7" & 10"s at the front LPs at the back

all the rest arranged by style but I keep labels together....

need to sort out my mp3s now though

[pre-amp tango]

basically my records (about 1800 altogether) are sorted like this:
7"es, 10"es, metal, indie, idm, downbeat, oldish minimal techno, detroit stuff, oldschool house, labels i have quite a few records of, the rest. there's also the big heap of newer records.
i have no particular order within the genres, i just happen to know where each record is. at least that was the case before i moved three months ago, now i'm just settling in again...

packing for gigs: i go through my case and kick out records/put new records in depending on the location. i don't pre-program anything, don't put together any records that mix well (i know that beforehand anyway), it's all completely unsorted (apart from the bunch of new records at the front of the case) - so basically it's all kind of a surprise when i open the box at the venue. in 9 out of 10 gigs this works well

[Celltek]

packing for gigs: i go through my case and kick out records/put new records in depending on the location. i don't pre-program anything, don't put together any records that mix well (i know that beforehand anyway), it's all completely unsorted (apart from the bunch of new records at the front of the case) - so basically it's all kind of a surprise when i open the box at the venue. in 9 out of 10 gigs this works well

Alright then, thanks for the tip!