By NaJade · DJ in Bangkok · Published October 20, 2026
This guide is part of how to learn to DJ: the complete guide.
Playing one genre well is a skill. Playing six in one night and making it feel like a single set is a different skill entirely — and it’s the one that gets you booked in the real world.
Most DJs learn inside one genre. You pick house, or hip hop, or drum and bass, and everything you practise sits within ten BPM of everything else. Then you get booked for a birthday, a corporate party or a mixed-age wedding, and you discover that the room wants Thai rock at 9pm, 2010s pop at 11pm and progressive house at 1am — and that the hard part isn’t knowing the songs, it’s getting from one world to the next without the floor emptying. That’s open format, and it’s a genuinely separate craft.
Open format means playing across genres and tempos in a single set. The technical core is handling wide BPM ranges — halftime and double-time relationships, accurate beat grids, and transitions that use an acapella, a loop or an effect as a bridge. The creative core is energy: the crowd doesn’t hear genre changes, they hear whether the energy kept rising.
The Tempo Map
Before anything else, learn where genres sit and where they secretly connect:
| Genre | Typical BPM | Connects to |
|---|---|---|
| Hip hop / R&B | ~70–100 | House at double-time (85 ≈ 170, 64 ≈ 128) |
| Reggaeton / Afrobeats | ~90–105 | Sits between hip hop and pop |
| Pop | ~100–125 | The universal bridge — pop connects to everything |
| House / Progressive | ~120–128 | Hip hop at halftime |
| Tech house / Techno | ~125–135 | Trance, harder house |
| Drum and bass | ~170–175 | Hip hop at double-time |
The halftime/double-time relationship is the single most useful thing in open format. A 128 BPM house record and a 64 BPM hip hop record share the same pulse — one just has twice as many beats in it. Once you hear that, whole sections of your library connect that didn’t before. More in how to mix different BPMs.
The Techniques That Matter
1. Accurate beat grids, including elastic ones
Open format means playing older records, live-drummed records and tracks that drift in tempo. Standard gridding won’t hold on those — you need elastic or warped grids that follow the track. This is unglamorous preparation work and it’s the difference between a transition that lands and one that slides apart in front of a room. See organising your library.
2. Sync is genuinely useful here
Moving between drastically different tempos is one of the clearest legitimate uses for sync — it handles the tempo jump instantly so your hands are free for EQ and effects. That said, it’s only as good as the grid underneath it, which is why point one comes first. See should DJs use sync.
3. Switch the beat under an acapella
The cleanest genre change in DJing. Bring the vocal of the outgoing track up on its own, drop the instrumental away, and start the new track underneath it. The vocal carries the listener across the gap and the tempo change happens while their attention is elsewhere. Stems make this possible with any track — see how to DJ with stems.
4. Loops and hot cues as bridges
A four-bar loop of a drum break sits between two worlds and belongs to neither. Loop it, let it establish, bring the new track in over it. See how to use loops.
5. Wordplay and thematic links
The technique most open-format specialists rate highest and most beginners never try: connect two tracks by a lyric or theme rather than by sound. A line about fire into a track called Firestone. A “put your hands up” into an entirely different genre. The crowd hears a joke, not a tempo change.
6. Key mixing across genres
Harmonic mixing matters more, not less, when genres change — a clashing key is what makes a genre jump sound amateur rather than intentional. See how to mix in key.
Thinking in Energy, Not Genre
Here’s the mental shift that makes open format click. Crowds don’t experience your set as a sequence of genres. They experience it as an energy curve. A room will follow you from Thai rock to house without blinking if the energy keeps climbing — and will not follow you between two house records if the energy drops.
- Tag your library by energy level, 1 to 5, alongside genre. That’s the field you’ll actually sort by mid-set.
- Change one thing at a time. Big genre jump? Keep the energy steady. Big energy jump? Stay in genre.
- Use pop as the airlock. Pop sits at a tempo and familiarity level that connects to everything.
- Group by era for mixed-age rooms. Give each generation a run where the music is theirs — see how to read a crowd.
A Note From NaJade
I’m a progressive house DJ by taste, and open format is the skill that pays for it. A three-hour booking in Bangkok will have people in their fifties and people in their twenties in the same room, and nobody there cares what I’d play at 2am on a rooftop. What I’ve learned is that open format isn’t about knowing more songs — it’s about being willing to serve the room instead of your own taste. That’s a harder adjustment than any transition technique. The DJs who struggle with it are usually the ones treating the pop and the old Thai rock as something to get through before the “real” music starts, and crowds feel that instantly. Play the cheesy record like you mean it. Then, when you’ve earned the room, take them somewhere they didn’t expect. That’s the actual job.
Related: how to mix different BPMs, how to DJ with stems, how to read a crowd, and how to DJ a wedding.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is open format DJing?
How do you mix between different genres?
What BPM ranges do different genres use?
Do you need sync for open format DJing?
How do you keep a mixed-age crowd dancing?
How should I organise my library for open format?
About the Author
NaJade is a Bangkok-based DJ playing progressive house, melodic EDM, pop, and Thai music across clubs, rooftops, and weddings in Thailand. He teaches beatmatching and mixing to beginners both in person in Bangkok and online over Zoom. When he’s not behind the decks, he’s documenting the journey on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.