The best DJ playlist – Part 1. How to buy good tracks?

The best DJ playlist is the most challenging DJ work of all, and it starts with shopping. Buying tracks is the most complicated action in DJ’s life. It goes along with making the organised database or order in vinyl collections. One is impossible without another. If you can control it without making an order, then you probably have some superhero ability to coexist with chaos.

Buying the new tracks to create the best DJ playlist

Shopping is the first step in a long process from acquiring new track to perform it on some event or party. Before you start to mosquitoing your budget (or vampirising it if you are a vinyl lover), you really need to know yourself. What are your intentions to do with the track you intend to purchase? Usually, there are 3 reasons to buy a music file.

The first reason is you love it, and you are buying for yourself and the fans. Fits with both.

The second is you love the track, but it doesn’t fit with anything you are performing. This reason is worse. It can create a stock of files that never found the way to your playlist. Sure, just buy it, but don’t you dare to put this anywhere near to your DJ collection. It is essential to divide these two things.

You bought it for the set, to connect the same style with the same good stuff. Usually, these are not your essential tracks, but it fits amazingly with your collection and the style you are presenting.

You probably ask yourself why you would buy and play stuff you don’t like? Well, it is a part of being just a DJ, and not a producer also. Most of us are doing this for the money, not (only) for the pleasure. The pure joy of DJing is usually connected with playing in your bedroom. Or just a for friends. Then you are probably not living from your gigs. It is more like a hobby with an occasional live picnics for a pocket fee. Playing for fans demands knowledge of making the best DJ playlist, the one adapted to the market.

When you are a DJ, the fun base is asking you to make a show, but when you are a producer DJ, then they ask you to show your product assembled with whatever you choose to mix with.

That is why every DJ is tempted to become a music producer too.

Special tip for the Vinyl users

If you are planning to be an ingrain Vinyl DJ, there is one little advice I’ll give you to protect your budget or to make it efficiently exploited. Buy every record with two hands. This is essential. I wish someone told me this when I started to buy Vinyls.

Stick to one style. Don’t explore other genres unless you are one hundred per cent sure you’re gonna play this record one some event. Also, buying records is a costly hobby. Make sure you can regularly refresh your set.

Otherwise, you are buying records for your collection, not for your DJ playlist. And these two ways of multiplying your archive are much different.

Before you buy the vinyl, check the digital version of the sound sample. Analyse track with tools like Mixed in Key. Get the Key, BPM and energy level and think carefully about is this stuff your DJ expression and do you have the place for it? Are you gonna use it only once, ar you see the potential to use this track for years? What is the level of adaptiveness of the record? Can you shuffle this tune through many genres or just one?

Be cautious, don’t rush.