The energy curve in a DJ set: what it is, how to read it, how to fix it

A set's energy curve is the line you get when you write down, in play order, how much energy each track has. One number per track, joined in the order they will be played. Nothing more than that — and it is the one thing that shows the shape of a night before the night happens.

Two things get confused all the time and are worth separating. A track's energy describes a file: how hard that particular track pushes. The curve describes an order: what happens when those files play one after another. Two DJs with exactly the same twenty tracks can play two completely different nights, and the whole difference is in the curve.

This is the commonest shape for a long set: one long climb with a breather in the middle. Notice it is not a straight line — the breather is part of the design, not a mistake.

Every track has an energy on a scale from 1 to 10. That number can come from three places: a tag already in your file (Mixed In Key, Lexicon and others write one; here is where each program keeps it), a value you typed by hand, or an estimate EnergyCurve makes from the BPM and whatever else the file carries when there is no tag.

The three are not worth the same. A tag you set while listening to the track is the best; an estimate from BPM is the worst, and the app tells you which of the two it is using rather than blending them. What matters for this guide is that the number exists and that the scale is always the same, so two tracks can be compared.

The table below is that scale. The bands and their BPM ranges are read from the analysis engine's own constants — they are not written here by hand — and the words describing each band are only that, words.

There is no correct curve. There is a correct curve for a slot, which is why the first thing worth knowing about a gig is not which tracks to bring but what time you are on. Three slots, three shapes.

The [warm-up](/glossary/warm-up). Starts low and climbs slowly, and ends with headroom: whoever comes next needs somewhere to go. The classic warm-up mistake is the peak — playing at eleven the track that belonged at one.

[Peak time](/glossary/peak-time). High for most of it, but not flat: the short dips are what make the peak feel like a peak. A whole set at 10 does not feel intense, it feels the same.

The [closing set](/glossary/closing-set). Comes down, but on purpose and with a lift before the end. Coming down is not fading out; the last track is a decision, not what was left.

Everything above can be done with a pencil. It can also be done in a minute, and the difference is not speed: a drawn curve shows you things a list of tracks does not.

Some structural mistakes are invisible in a list and obvious in a drawing. These are the ones that come up most.

The early peak. The best track goes in too soon, because it is the best track and you want to play it. Everything after it is a comedown you did not plan.

The plateau. Six tracks in a row at the same energy. Each one is fine; together they are a flat line, and a flat line is the shape of a floor losing interest. It is the commonest mistake, and this is what it looks like:

The sawtooth. Up, down, up, down — almost always the result of ordering by what mixes rather than by where the set is going. Every transition is clean and the set goes nowhere.

The cliff. A drop of several points in one step, almost always a track that belongs to a different set.

None of these are fixed by picking different tracks. All of them are fixed by moving the ones you have — which is the part the tool does well, and the part worth doing before you play, not after.