Blending tracks when djing

[Ohhulme]

Just a bit of a general question on djing.

Ive been giving djing a go for a about a year, and I've been mainly mixing sort of dubstep and housey kind of things and have found that with practise the beat matching has started to eventual after many frustrating hours come together
-the bit, however, that I'm still a bit curious about is with the actual blending of two tracks and how to combine the use of the faders and eq to mix two tracks together well, and things such as how much should I be cutting the bass on incoming tracks, and how can I maybe start using the mid and high frequencies knobs more since they seem quite neglected at the moment. Sorry bit of a general question but if anybody has any tips or tracks they could share that would be brilliant, and much appriciated!

Thanks

[wub]

Get yourself a copy of this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-DJ-Properly ... 0593049667


It'll answer all your questions about DJing far more effectively than anyone of this forum, trust

[1point5]

yeah, perhaps surprisingly, beatmatching is one of the easiest things about DJing. Try and use the EQs to mix more than the faders, experiment with what sounds good. As a general rule when learning, never have both channels' bass turned up at the same time and dont turn any of the EQ knobs past 12 o'clock. Also, mixing in key and good phrase matching has a huge effect on your mixes and will make EQing and balancing much easier when you master them.

[FuzionDubstep]

yeah, perhaps surprisingly, beatmatching is one of the easiest things about DJing. Try and use the EQs to mix more than the faders, experiment with what sounds good. As a general rule when learning, never have both channels' bass turned up at the same time and dont turn any of the EQ knobs past 12 o'clock. Also, mixing in key and good phrase matching has a huge effect on your mixes and will make EQing and balancing much easier when you master them.

pretty much what I was going to say and the part about not having the bass on both tracks playing at once is a very good tip but not a lot of people do it, it just stops things sounding messy and I nearly always switch tracks by cutting the eq out slowly or sometimes if you smash in a track right on the build up say an 8 bar drum build then when it finishes and it might have a vocal before the drop you can pull up the track playing to make the backspin effect which sounds pretty cool!

[hutyluty]

i only mix using the eqs, ist that allowed, or are you supposed to use the crossfaders etc?

[Mehlovich]

yeah, perhaps surprisingly, beatmatching is one of the easiest things about DJing. Try and use the EQs to mix more than the faders, experiment with what sounds good. As a general rule when learning, never have both channels' bass turned up at the same time and dont turn any of the EQ knobs past 12 o'clock. Also, mixing in key and good phrase matching has a huge effect on your mixes and will make EQing and balancing much easier when you master them.

yeah, don't have two basslines sounding at once.

I don't agree with keeping the EQs at 12 o'clock at maximum though - i like to boost the mid EQ on one of the tracks a bit - if you turn down the other channels mid EQ accordingly you emphazise the mids on the track without overdoing it. If for example you want to highlight some vocals in a track playing, this is a good way to do it. - or at least on my shit mixer with badly balanced EQs...
It does, however, work best if you do the mid boost on a channel with the low EQ turned all the way down.


Actually I've never thought of mixing with the EQs only... gonna give it a try when I get home.

[Teknicyde]

yeah, perhaps surprisingly, beatmatching is one of the easiest things about DJing.

Blah.

I challenge anyone with that attitude to lock two non-quantized or non-electronic records.

[1point5]

yeah, perhaps surprisingly, beatmatching is one of the easiest things about DJing.

Blah.

I challenge anyone with that attitude to lock two non-quantized or non-electronic records.

Haha yeah I didn't mean that beatmatching is easy... far from it! I just think learning the other aspects of DJing takes longer and more experience.

[Fused Productions]

I find this subject interesting.
What is even more intersting (imo) is how to learn how to detect BPM without any counters!

[Genevieve]

I'm far from a star DJ, only started doing it like 3 months ago but... EQ'ing.. dunno.. just do what sounds right? I don't boost anything past 1 o clock'ish, that'll mess up the sound, but other than that, I just cut out stuff I don't want and use the EQ to build up and transition.

DJ'ing got far easier when I stopped thinking about what I'm doing and just did it.

[1point5]

DJ'ing got far easier when I stopped thinking about what I'm doing and just did it.

I would imagine you stopped thinking about it because you got better at it, not got better because you stopped thinking about it

[Genevieve]

DJ'ing got far easier when I stopped thinking about what I'm doing and just did it.

I would imagine you stopped thinking about it because you got better at it, not got better because you stopped thinking about it

Naww, I've had problems with analysis paralysis. I mean, it's as simple as 'want vocals of song X in song Y? Then just sliightly boost the mids of song X, and slightly cut them in Y, while slightly cutting the highs and low in song X'. Doing it well is another story, but that's what practicing is for and you really only practice by doing it a lot and getting your ears in tune with what's going on and what you want to achieve.

[FuzionDubstep]

I find this subject interesting.
What is even more intersting (imo) is how to learn how to detect BPM without any counters!

its not exactly hard plus a good thing is to practise your set as much as possible and make sure all the tunes are basically the same BPM and mix into each other.. of course if someone just pitched up at a gig with loads of random tunes and just mixed them in a random order its gunna be hard getting them in beat

[Ohhulme]

Cheers for the replies guys! the book on djing looks good I will give it a read. But yeah, as people have said, no replacement for practise.

What is even more intersting (imo) is how to learn how to detect BPM without any counters!

Also on this topic, its a bit sad, but me and my friend did this thing where we would play a song and each guess the bpm and see who was closest. After having done this a bit we definitly started to get quite accurate with out guesses.

[Fused Productions]

I find this subject interesting.
What is even more intersting (imo) is how to learn how to detect BPM without any counters!

its not exactly hard plus a good thing is to practise your set as much as possible and make sure all the tunes are basically the same BPM and mix into each other.. of course if someone just pitched up at a gig with loads of random tunes and just mixed them in a random order its gunna be hard getting them in beat

Cheers man.
I've had my cdjs since yesterday and I've been busy tryin to mix since I got them, but I've only managed to get some smoothe transitions a couple of times. I've only tried mixing with tunes I've been listening to for a while, but some of them seem to be very hard to detect the BPM from, like one Benga track. I don't think that track is quantized though.

[1point5]

yeah the bpm counters on CDJs are not very accurate, and often only really work well with house music (or music with similar 4 to the floor drums)

Just use them as a rough guide if you need to, or better yet ignore them completely

[vries]

I find this subject interesting.
What is even more intersting (imo) is how to learn how to detect BPM without any counters!

its not exactly hard plus a good thing is to practise your set as much as possible and make sure all the tunes are basically the same BPM and mix into each other.. of course if someone just pitched up at a gig with loads of random tunes and just mixed them in a random order its gunna be hard getting them in beat

Problem with practicing a set though is I regularly see young guys playing out like they're still in their bedroom. Each mix is tight and the tunes work together pretty well, but they're not building up a vibe at all. There's no suspense, nothing to keep the crowd guessing where he's gonna take them next, no build up to really draw them into the story he's telling. And so for the first 4 tunes people party pretty hard, but then slowly they start to fall flat because pretty much it just becomes more of the same after a while.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned on crowd psychology is that you'll never draw the most energy out of a crowd if you just head to the finish in a straight line. Quite frankly, when people know what to expect 3 tunes from now already, shit gets boring. But when you've blended your last two dub vibed tunes so nobody knew which tune was playing when anymore, and then just at the break you drop in that haunting chord progression from say a DMZ or Kryptic Minds tune, you just can feel the anticipation building in the room. To me, those moments are what playing out is all about, the moment when you're taking them off their feet and into the deep end, and they end up losing themselves in the music.

But yeah, that's slightly off topic and I'm definitely no legend behind the decks myself, so I don't know if that helps anyone out.

[Ldizzy]

here's some quick tips that helped me improve the quality of my rather shitty mixes...

TRACK A : the track that was already playing
TRACK B : the track ur trying to bring in

- when fading track A out with gain (if u do so) try to increase track A's frequencies on one of the upper eq knobs (mids or highs) and see if that makes the fade a little more smooth... makes it last longer sometimes and might blend in better...

- u can cut / boost bass on a beat basis (on the first beat of a 4 bar)

- u can blend tracks by slowly blending their basses in and out like track A bass out against track B bass in... all at the same time... the way i do it is boost/cut slight amounts, on the start of a bar.. and once im close to full for B and none for A but not quite there, i start blending them smoothly...

- u can actually BOOST mids if the vocal is the part of the blend ur interested in yet other parts are kinda clashing...... and cut the rest a little... swear it works.

- if nothing works, no blend no nothing but two tracks could play one after the other and still manage to keep the energy going, just turn off one of the tables and let it pitch down... people usually love that... u dont have to make long blends all the time..

i mix with a dude who is CRAZY good (used to scratch with him)... he mixes something like 5 h a day at least... ever since hes stopped scratching.. (that was like 4 years ago).. really thats all he does.. most of these tips come from his tutoring..

what ive understood from mixing in clubs tho.. is that a bass cut in ur room might sound rather idle but could really change a lot in the club... get urself a proper playback system if u want to practice ur mixes for club purposes.. i always jump when im in the club and realize i cut too much of that bass...

[Ldizzy]

^this post might stand for a facepalm from true mix scientists

im a noob at mixing...

[Fused Productions]

^this post might stand for a facepalm from true mix scientists

im a noob at mixing...

I actually found it helpful.