Juggling Theory / Cue Placement for Traktor
Home :: REMIX section. Mistapes, Podcasts, Breaks, and Soundcloud links :: Juggling Theory / Cue Placement for TraktorReply
Juggling Theory / Cue Placement for Traktor Posted on: 15.09.2010 by Bok Kultgen I'm using an APC40 with Virtual DJ but I'm planning on switching to Traktor Pro shortly. I spin mostly Fidget and Electro.I believe it would be great to discuss peoples theories on placing cues for beat juggles and controllerism. Sometimes I just look at a favorite track and get lost as to where to best place the cues. What goes through your mind when planning the cues for routine? Rage | |
| Bok Kultgen 15.09.2010 | I'm using an APC40 with Virtual DJ but I'm planning on switching to Traktor Pro shortly. I spin mostly Fidget and Electro. I believe it would be great to discuss peoples theories on placing cues for beat juggles and controllerism. Sometimes I just look at a favorite track and get lost as to where to best place the cues. What goes through your mind when planning the cues for routine? Rage |
| Tressa Schemenauer 21.09.2010 | I suppose this depends on weather you pre-plan your sets with routines you always use, or of you need to keep your set flexible in order to respond to the crowd's reactions. For me, I play across a lot of musical genres and almost never play a pre-planned set live. For this use cue points need to be in predictable locations that don't depend on a flawless memory! For example, I always place my first cue points in the intro of the track.. Depending on how the tune is phrased I will place one or two cues at either the 1, 9, 17, 33, or 65th beat grids. (1 & 9, or 1 & 17, or 1, 17, & 33...)(note the numbers are based on a 4/4 time signature.. this is different with music that may be in other time signatures - 6/8 for example). Then, depending on how long the tune is I'll place one or two cues to skip to the hook and course sections... then, one or two near a breakdown, and finally - one or two near the outro. The big difference with this approach as compared to a beat juggling one is that all of these cues are located at the beginning of the phrases (this is what I mean by predictable)... that way I don't need to remember specific phrase jump locations to avoid accidentally screwing up the overall phrasing - something that can really f-up the flow of a multi-genre set. Overall, this setup works great for feeling out the crowd to see what they like since you can quickly drop a track to to feel out the crowd and work out of it just as quickly if its a dud while maintaining proper phrasing (flow). I would believe in your case, as understood by your stated preferred music genres, you might not need as much flexibility as you may be targeting a specific audience. If this is the case, then you've got a opportunity to treat your setup more like a live remix rig. For example, when I work on remixes in my studio using other tracks for source material, I still work around the intro, hook, course, and outro sections as a starting point... but I'm more flexible with where to place cues by not limiting the placement along the phrase structure and place them in locations that allow for jamming out mutated beat / rhythm structures for sampling... If you're doing this live though it would require either a elephant memory to keep track of what each cue sounds like, or a pre-planned set with a small group of tracks, or a combination of the two. Just my 2c based on my limited knowledge brotha! Hope it helps. Cheers. |
<< Back to REMIX section. Mistapes, Podcasts, Breaks, and Soundcloud linksReply