Set craft
Set prep
Set prep is everything done before the gig — choosing candidate records, checking cues and grids, building crates, and exporting a stick. It is preparation for decisions rather than a script for them.
In practice
Prepare the pool, not the running order. A fixed tracklist stops matching the room about twenty minutes in.
Work in one pass: pick the candidates for the specific night, listen to anything unfamiliar all the way through, fix grids and set cues on the ones you might actually reach for, group them into two or three crates by role rather than genre, and export two sticks. Then test one stick in a real player. The whole thing is about an hour for a two-hour set and it removes almost every avoidable problem before you leave the house.
The pool
What to prepare
By role
How to group crates
2 sticks
What to export
Where these come from: Standard preparation workflow, not a catalog figure. For what we can measure, see the stick half of it.
Why it matters
The useful distinction is between preparing material and planning a running order. A fixed tracklist stops matching the room within twenty minutes; a well-prepared crate of the right records for that night keeps working for the whole set. Prepare the pool, not the sequence.
It is also where every technical problem gets solved cheaply. A grid you fix at home takes thirty seconds; the same grid discovered at peak time costs a transition. Everything that can fail in a booth can be checked on a sofa.
Frequently asked
Should I plan the whole set in advance?+
Prepare the records, not the order. A fixed tracklist stops matching the room quickly, while a well-chosen pool keeps working for the whole night.
How long does set prep take?+
About an hour for a two-hour set if you do it in one pass — candidates, listening, grids and cues, crates, two sticks, and a test in a real player.
How should I group the crates?+
By role rather than genre — openers, peak, exits. Genre is something the software can already filter on; role is the decision you actually need at speed.
Related terms
USB prep
USB prep is exporting the tracks, grids, cue points and playlists you need onto a drive a club player can read. What is not exported does not exist once you are behind the decks.
Track selection
Track selection is choosing what to play and in what order — the decisions rather than the mixing. It is what separates two DJs with identical technical ability and identical libraries.
Two USB sticks
Bringing two identical prepared USB sticks is the standard club precaution. Sticks fail, get left in players and get taken by mistake, and the second one turns any of those from a disaster into a pause.
Crate
A crate is a folder of tracks inside your DJ software, named after the boxes vinyl DJs carried. A track can sit in as many crates as you like without being copied, because a crate holds references rather than files.
Explore: Rekordbox USB checker · Crate to tracklist · USB prep · All DJ terms