Having been a vinyl house /garage DJ back in the 90’s, I had never experienced the ability to use hot cues / memory cues until a couple of years ago. Very powerful tools.
Having tried swapping systems a few times, Djuced → VDJ → Rekordbox → Engine. I have successfully moved and more recently very unsuccessfully move cue points.
Tonight after having spent an hour adding cues at 8/16 bar intervals for mixing in an out to about 30 tracks (out of c.500) I thought to myself ‘what am I doing?’ I should be enjoying mixing, recording a mix, or having fun, not spending the next 2-3 weeks adding cue points.
Needle drop works on all systems. The one big thing is that I can jump from any system to another and no longer worry (currently use the Mixstream and DDJ400). If anything the best tool in my opinion is looping to help get in and out of a track.
This will clearly not work for all, maybe no one , but for me this is the way forward. Enjoying the music and mixing again.
@SS-FF like you have been DJing since the 90s and was using 1210s, getting all those white label garage tunes. Yes no cue points etc back in the day and I too got to the point where I felt I was spending too much time prepping cue points, loops etc whereas now I don’t and DJ like I used to by just knowing where certain parts of a track are anyway and just needle dropping on the fly or setting a cue point on the fly while mixing. I just want to get on and play as opposed to sitting and prepping so I get your point!
For the reasons stated above I never really understood why you would prepare a whole lot before a set, or spend several minutes per track preparing grid/cue/loop beforehand. I improvise and set cues and loops along the way as I feel necessary. Sometimes I don’t know a record that well, resulting in inevitable mistakes, but it keeps thing fun and casual: go into a club and have no clue what you will be playing or how you will mix it, and recieve kudos on your set afterwards…
Sure, basic knowledge of your track collection is necessary, and you constantly have to read the crowd. But the few sets I did prepare in detail where pretty much the most lifeless sets I ever played in my life!
I totally understand. I almost never use hotcues except for tracks which are having a intro. For those tracks I set 1 hotcue on the first downbeat. This saves time. I use a lot of loops, but those I set on the fly during the mix.
For perfect dj-ing and beatmatching use your feeling, your skills and the instruments, your equipment will offer to you. Being able to count is of the essence.
One of my experience since 1976 is that no mix / fade is equal to the mix as before, and there are always different ways to mix.
I use lexicon (the new software from rekord.cloud) which allows me to generate cues using my own rules system. This is the best of both worlds, as I can use default cues I configure and apply them to my entire collection (Or just new stuff) as I go, making complex processing a breeze. There are solutions to solve the library management issues (which are very real) and get back to DJ’ing, WITHOUT compromising the usage of the new tools (which are super powerful and a massive part of how I play now)
Also Lexicon. I like to originate cue points in Traktor and Lexicon makes it pretty easy to translate to Engine and Rekordbox when I need to create a USB stick for a set, depending on the playback gear.
But I don’t get too up tight about having cue points anyway. Pretty happy to use tracks without them, but they are handy to get you out of a bind, so gradually my tracks end up having cue points added.
I usually have 2 hotcues per track in general. I don’t go out of my way to set them as they are usually the mix in points of the track. I mostly set them on the fly. Only my battle samples tracks are loaded up with hotcues.
I also don’t see the point in spending huge amounts of time on track prep. Just finding and organising good music is time consuming enogh for most people.
Denon should focus more on optimising the hardware/software for on the fly mixing and live production, it’s way more fun and creative.
, but for me this is the way forward. Enjoying the music and mixing again.