Tango DJing

JEIglesias

I am a Tango Dj. The rules for Doing in the milongas are very specific and the way we pass the music have certain rules. Are You familiar with Tango milongas? Do You have any advises or ideas about configuration and uses of Traktor Pro for that porpoise?

LostInFoundation

Not specific about Traktor… but the only suggestion I could give is that the most important thing is to already have songs divided in a way where you know that song x has similar tempo, rhythm and feel to song y, z and so on.

When you think about which songs will compose your Tandas, one of the “rules” is “never too much gap”.

What I mean is that is preferable not to have things that are too different from what’s around them: dancing a slower tempo song and having to immediately after switch to a fast one is not always pleasant, as it’s not moving from a scale to a completely different one (it doesn’t help the “continuity” feeling).

Also trying not too mix up too much tango eras is helping with that feeling. Jumping from a 1940 style tango to a modern one is surely giving a “surprise” effect to the crowd, but surprises can be pleasant…but also not appreciated. Usually human beings feel more comfortable with something predictable coming.

It’s more preferable to have the evening divided in “tranches”: a Tanda where you propose some classics, another one with hidden gems, another one with modern tango,…

Even because it’s easier that tangos from same eras will be more similar within them: the ones from the 40s will have more similar characteristics (due to what was appreciated from the people of that era), while modern electric tangos will sound (of course) very different.

And this matter a lot when dancing.

Therefore… not too much to do on a technical level…most important thing is having well thought playlist prepared beforehand.

Or…even better…knowing the music you want to play very well, so that if you have to change your playlist because the crowd is answering more positively to something in respect to something else (the mood of your audience is always more important than yours, unless you are like me and you want to “teach the youths” ☺️), you’ll be able to know which not programmed song you can insert that will not make that “gap” (musical, rhythmical, or of era and style) too wide to step.

In few words: Gardella is very good, Piazzolla is very good. Gotan Project are very good. They all are very pleasant. Dancing 3 completely different styles within 9 minutes…not so much ☺️

LostInFoundation

One last suggestion (in the direction of “know your music and what fits with what”): if you have the chance, try to make some Milongas where you co-dj.

My Soundsystem has always been composed by multiple Selecta. Of course we took our spaces to propose our selections, but another technique we used a lot was djing together.

Having to “answer” to the track somebody else was playing is quite a good training in understanding which songs, styles and moods fit together well. And forces you to know your catalog very well.

Which doesn’t mean “if you put Bob Marley I will answer with another Bob Marley”, but things like “You put Truth and Rights by Johnny Osbourne? I’ll answer with Revolution by Dennis Brown” ☺️

JEIglesias

Thanks LostInFoundation for the valuable comments 🙏. All your advises are right.
I am already a profesional tango musicalizador with lot of experience. My post was concerning more the configuration of the software. I am new to Traktor Pro, it's thought and designed for a different case of Djing.
I have been working with different softwares but I like always to study and now I am going through Traktor to check pros and cont. It seems to me it's a good program but for TDJ we just need a small part of its posibilities. Lets keep sharing if someone is giving this use setups and more advises.

LostInFoundation

Oh…so I just told you a lot of things that probably you already know better than me ☺️

Therefore I will continue on the same (wrong) path 😂: don’t overthink about the hundreds of functionalities Traktor has. Your style, as a Tango dj, shouldn’t be too much influenced by them.

A single turntable could also be enough 😂. I would also dare to say that the sound of real vinyls would fit a Milonga better (although, having started my career when vinyl was the only choice, I’m not a vinyl fan…too much quality loss during time).

But one time I even had a Tanguero that introduced a special move of his leg to do when the vinyl was doing its classical repetitive noises (I even asked him. “Where you doing that move in time with the wobbles?” “Of course…rhythms must be followed”) ☺️