Listening to awesome tracks and thinking of ways to mash them up means you are ready to practice smooth transitions between two or more tracks. Most DJs mix two tracks while, at the same time, adequately making use of effects and, sometimes, samples to give the transition that extra suspense. This, in turn, ensures that the crowd is introduced to and resonates with the story that your music tells.

Planning sets is fine and dandy, but choosing to feel what the crowd needs is essential. Before a party try making as many playlists with as many songs as you can muster. Color mark each song that you think might turn the crowd over. Red for ‘must-play’ tracks, green for ‘booty shakers’ and yellow for oldies or any other color for any category you see as relevant. This will also help to remind you of what possibilities you have at any given moment.

If the crowd looks bored, try changing genres. 7/10 times it will work.

As always, try mixing tunes that are close in BPM range and preview that mix. Mixing without previewing in your headphones may be successful, especially in steady beat music (electro, house, tech, etc.) but every once in a while, you might just get it wrong. I know I do when I neglect practicing or, at the very least, previewing the mix. Monitoring the session is the guarantee we all need when we play music in front of any number of people.

We want to surprise them, not us.

Using a controller gives you the Sync button making it easy to skip bringing the tracks to the same pitch (speed) and  automatically synchronizing the beatgrids for you. However, to grow fast into the DJ you want, relying on manual mixing is the long-term ‘Level Up’ in a DJs routine. Pitch bending, either through buttons, vinyl or jogwheel, gives that human touch to an all digital soundscape.