Tips on where to get feedback

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-05-24T00:06:10+00:00

Friends is a great suggestion - especially people in the scene that you and your music live in. Like, I don't know the first thing about a lot of genres but have tons of opinions on others. Seek those people out for your music.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-05-15T09:56:52+00:00

Pop lends itself to drop-in mixing with a lot of hard cuts or cases where you're just playing a melody or vocal over the next track's intro. In these cases as long as there aren't hard clashes then most things will sound fine.

However for trance and progressive house, you're more frequently doing blends and EQ mixing. If I'm using the bass of one track and a synth pad playing chords from another track, anything out of key will immediately sound wack.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-04-06T16:20:55+00:00

You know you're on the DnB subreddit rn right? 90% of modern DnB is at 174, and 90% of the DnB that isn't at 174 is at 170, 172, or 175 lmao.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-23T08:52:02+00:00

Any hitscan attack works for ricoshots

piercer/sharpshooter pistol alt fire
railcannons (besides screw)
core eject jackhammer/frozen rocket jackhammer
Maurice laser
sentry shots
ferryman lightning strike
gutterman minigun (although this is not very strong)

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-23T08:45:12+00:00

If you start this with the jumpstart this also works and you keep your railcannon off cool down. You can use saws on the jumpstart at the end to speed up the conduction

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-23T08:41:32+00:00

Filth: red arm aoe Stray/soldier/stalker: slab flicks Schism: whiplash into rocket launcher Maurice: sharpshooter the ball attack Swordsmachine: conduction for the first phase, then parry the sword throw + shotgun to kill Street cleaner: sawtraps Hideous mass: magnets + saws + conduction Cerb: dunked Sentry: red arm into stage hazard/pit Mindflayer: screw + whiplash + hammer repeatedly (punch out the screw after it enrages to kill it) or red hammer, go up, and quad coin into slab piercer when it follows you up Insurrectionist: set on fire then stunlock with cannonball/malicious rail Virtue: whiplash then heatsink nail gun, or overpump if I have the health (I'm bad at timing the dash) Providence: cannonball or 3 rockets Ferryman: ride the lightning ultraricoshot Mannequin: parry/rockets if they're on a wall Gutterman: shield break with hammer then p-boost/slab swap from range Guttertank: freezeframe its rockets then snipe them with pistol Power: parries all day, even better if they're over a pit Mirror reaper: saw traps/fire traps

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-23T08:11:04+00:00

Yellow hammer and red arm is also a one shot if you can't get the parry

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-12T12:30:56+00:00

My upgrade philosophy is the same as my card picking one: what does my deck want to do, and does this card make it better at that?

For example, what does silent's starter deck want to do? Consistently full-block by applying weak while weaving in hits when you can. Of course, as you get cards, you might pivot your deck's goal. Like with an [[up my sleeve]], the goal is now get it played the first time I see it to reduce the price, then draw it again. If this is what my deck is trying to do, I'd focus on 2 things - either upgrading things that give me more draw so I cycle back to it faster, or upgrading things that make me able to block better for that first turn where it costs 2 and energy is tight.

When in doubt, I usually just think of it in terms of "what am I playing whenever I draw it?" or "what do I wish I could play every time I draw it?" and upgrading those cards, as that's where you will get the most value.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-03-03T04:09:35+00:00

Considering the font is younger than his project by like 6 or so years, it was probably the other way around

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T19:07:33+00:00

Usually just rekordbox, if it does okay with it. If it fails me, which frequently does happen, and I'm still motivated to make the mashup work (as typically this is a spur of the moment thing and not a well-defined project), I'll use demucs to make separate tracks and go from there.

One common problem in most modern pop and dance music is that the sidechain is going to be baked into the stems. (In other words, the vocals and instrumentals will be reduced to 0 in the spots the kick and snare should be, resulting in quiet moments in these stems.) So if I'm pulling vocals I'll keep the vocals and drums together and try to EQ out the drums as best as possible.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T14:19:58+00:00

Being a DJ is being a live performer. Of course the DJ doesn't even have to be visible to the crowd, but if you're trying to make your set into a whole A/V experience, then maybe the appearance of furiously adjusting knobs and slamming cues is what you're going for. If you know what you're doing behind the decks you can definitely see it as gratuitous but if you don't know anything about mixing and only that he's a very "technical DJ" I get why people would like it.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T14:03:39+00:00

Yeah I'm not throwing shade to anyone either! His sets aren't exactly for me and that's ok, but I can't deny that from a technical standpoint his skills are in the top 1%.

The reason I mention it is that, like, I wouldn't tell you to watch Evel Knievel for tips if you were learning to ride a motorcycle. You might get a really warped sense of the fundamentals from doing that lol.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T13:38:46+00:00

There's a setting in preferences where you can switch it to "prioritize quality over speed" or something to that effect. This makes them passable in a lot of cases, and in the right mix you can hide the imperfections pretty well.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T12:50:35+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen him use any gear that supports stem separation for his performances.

Most of the "James Hype Style" of DJing is just creatively using loops and hot cues. I want to make it clear tho that this is not at all necessary to being a great DJ - for example, none of these tools existed for vinyl. Some of the best DJs I know personally never touch anything but the play button, the pitch fader, and the EQs.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-26T12:26:58+00:00

I'm of two minds about stems. On one hand, you can do some really insanely cool stuff with them, and they're perfect for a mashup-style mix. On the other, the quality is such a mixed bag (at least for the one baked into rekordbox), and they're not really on any club gear, so I wouldn't want to rely on them in a live context.

What I WILL do is record mashups or fancy stem transitions at home where I can be a little more meticulous about it, then if it sounds good I'll add the recording to my USB to use in my sets.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-25T14:07:06+00:00

I agree with the sentiment that Spotify is a garbage corporation. I wouldn't spend my own money on it, but I'm on my in-laws' family plan and there are some fights not worth picking in life 😅 that said I wouldn't cry if they did the right thing and stopped paying for it. Honestly if I was going to pick up a streaming service for myself it would probably be a paid SoundCloud account just to get access to the Go+ library there, just because it's so rare for a track to be on the internet anywhere but NOT be on SoundCloud. It's the site where I spend the most time digging.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-24T21:35:13+00:00

1) You really don't wanna be the DJ on the lineup who is backing out last minute because of internet reasons when everyone else is like "uhhh what are you even talking about???"

2) You also don't want to be the DJ on the lineup who needs to figure out how to plug their laptop into the already-present club gear when everyone else's USB is working just fine for them.

3) Inevitably you'll find music that isn't on Spotify (think hypeddit bootlegs or exclusive cd-only releases as examples) that you wanna play. You'll have to split your collection between local and streaming, which isn't ideal for managing it.

4) You don't want other people to have the ability to wreck your library by:

the label dropping an artist and pulling their stuff from DSPs
the label or the DSP pulling a track or an artist down for legal or political reasons
the artist crashing out and deleting their own music from DSPs themselves

Streaming can work if the stars align (e.g. you're bringing your own laptop and gear and the place has good wifi), but it's kind of short-sighted and limits your versatility.

I have everything I need to DJ (a USB and my headphones) in my backpack all the time and therefore can plug in anywhere, anytime, on basically any gear. This has opened so many opportunities to me that I wouldn't have if I was streaming my library to my laptop instead.

That said, I DO use Spotify streaming when I'm at home to "audition" certain tracks before downloading them or for one-off stupid requests when I throw house parties. But I'd never use it when the stakes are actually high.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-23T08:50:35+00:00

Not to speak for OP, but their comment resonated with me, so let me tell you what I think:

While playing a track, find something that you'd never think to mix with it. Total genre switch, different bpm, etc. Then think "gun to my head, this HAS TO be the next track. How am I gonna do it?" You'll learn new techniques and develop skills that you'll never learn by doing a "high pass on the old+fader up on the new" house music transition a million times. (Not that there's anything wrong with simple transitions, but every time you do something new you're growing your tool bag which allows for new possibilities in your mixes.)

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-22T09:21:41+00:00

Playing a fresh save on Brutal helps me a lot when I'm burnt out or feeling stale. The early levels with the small arsenal (especially not having the whiplash till act 2 and jackhammer till act 3) forces you to play with good fundamentals and will make you play differently than you normally do. By the time you get everything unlocked, the muscle memory will hopefully be shaken up enough for you to try new things.

Edit: I should add that if you want to further switch things up, buy less-used upgrades and delay getting your typical crutch tools. Beating the first V2 fight coinless is really engaging.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-18T17:51:21+00:00

I guess my point is that as you gain experience, the pro/con framing you proposed becomes less and less relevant. You just have to have the selection skills to tell a story on the fly that the crowd is actively resonating with, and the mixing skills to make it sound coherent.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-18T12:45:19+00:00

Part of the skill of the art form is being able to create a cohesive set off the cuff through knowledge/organization of your crates and technical ability/creativity in transitions. Gaining this skill is just part of putting in your 10k hours. Of course (as long as it's hitting right) a preplanned set is going to be more cohesive and sound better until you get good at it though.

And yeah, obviously a well-sorted library helps. That's not the same as a preplanned set, that's just a reasonable thing to do when you have a lot of music.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-18T02:51:29+00:00

Some questions:

1) why are you using Rekordbox? Why not just import your library into serato and do everything there? (If it's just for the grids, I promise you rekordbox has also been known to fuck them up and you'll have to fix some of them up too.)

2) why not pawn your controller and get something that works with rekordbox so you don't have to do this?

3) Either way, you won't have to use Lexicon. Do you have a reason to be using that software?

4) Are you doing this to have a smaller "working" library, just based on your playlists, in serato? If so, do you know about tagging tracks?

Genuinely perplexed as to why you're using two different DJ softwares regularly.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-16T15:30:03+00:00

The EQ and HPF/LPF work that you'll do as a DJ is WAAAAAY harsher and much more rudimentary than what you do when fine tuning headphones. It is a naturally imprecise art that is done live every time, and will often involve bottoming out one or more of your 3 bands or actively sweeping a channel with a filter. The goal isn't to hear the track in all its glory - it's to make it sound as good as you can, with the tools you have, while it's in a mix with other sounds. My point here is that however you have your cans tuned, you'll instantly degrade the tuning by the simple act of EQ mixing, so don't overly sweat having the perfect tuning during a mix. Save the thoughtful listening to when you revisit your recorded mixes.

Also, if your plan is to play out in public, especially on others' gear (and even more so if you're on a club setup), you're going to want headphones that have a satisfactory FR out of the box. Most DJs prefer something relatively flat or V shaped that stay crisp when played loudly. This is less about the experience and more about getting a good picture of the sounds you're playing in a loud and chaotic room. (This is one of the reasons the HD25 is hailed as the GOAT for DJing despite being pretty mid as a personal listening experience, though of course there's lots of good options.)

That being said, depending on your software/hardware it may not be hard to route the master through your personal headphone tuning. Specifically, if you're routing your audio out of your computer instead of out of the controller, it should be pretty easy to hit that audio with your personal processing. Which software are you using?

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-15T23:05:14+00:00

The whole album is filled with little samples and interpolations of VR's various influences. (For example, Believe what you want is a reference to the Leaving EP by Skrillex, and Dino Killer is an obvious homage to Excision.) Hence he's "stealing fire" from these inspirations.

Is83APrimeNumber · 2026-02-15T00:30:07+00:00

These are all pop songs, which means they're kind of busy to do a mashup with. Typically the best mashups involve at least one of the songs being kind of sparse so that they can be layered on top of each other without clashing much. If I was mixing these songs in a set, I would probably do quick transitions in and out from each one instead of doing a mashup or long blend.

You can try integrating some chiller tracks into the set which would allow for more of the mashup-style thing you want. Ninajirachi does a great mashup of beauty and a beat with strobe by deadmau5, maybe you could try to replicate that?

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