"Can you mix?"

[Nakatomi]

Same reason I have some kit I've bought, and never used yet. The day may come when it's vital to make the event a success. May. If it does, I want to be ready.


I too try very hard to avoid awkward gaps, and it amazes me when people leave silences between music. Filling them with sparkling and witty banter, yes. Silence no.



And that's why I wish to learn something about mixing. There's a big difference between not having gaps, and joining them up properly.


Mind you, I once had a DJ cover a booking for me because I had a timing clash with another one. I arrived soon after he'd started, and he was mixing up a storm, I was impressed beyond belief. The customers weren't. Their bums were glued to the chairs. I took over as planned, he got paid his full fee for half a gig, so he was happy.

I started shoving on all the stuff I usually did, and they all got up and danced. Every aspect of a DJs skill has a time and a place.

I've taught 3 people how to 'mix' (beatmatching mostly), all women btw, and they picked it up surprisingly quickly. (I walked into a bar in Newcastle once & thought I recognised the lady DJ.. she'd got herself a spot in a top bar long after I'd jacked it all in). If you have a reasonable sense of timing it's not necessarily hard, but practice is essential. I practice mixing even now for at least an hour a week generally. Learning to adjust the speed of one tune to match another is the first thing you need to be able to pick up IMHO. Yes our fancy programs all have 'sync' buttons to do this feat by magic but it doesn't always work. I dunno if the program you use automatically lines up a cue point right on the first beat, but I generally bring all my cue points up on the first beat.

A tip I can offer here while you're learning is to have one deck playing a nice long tune, and set the pitch control to somewhere but don't look! Load up the same tune as the one on the first deck. Then try to get the speed of the 2nd track to match the first... it'll be tricky as hell at first but eventually you'll begin to be able to interpret which deck is ahead of the other.. and before you know it you'll be appearing on Brighton Beach in front of a million people Oh yeah, and to start with you'll need to practice with music made on machines

Other techniques like cutting & slam mixing (a cut is a 'chop' directly between 2 tunes & sounds like an abrupt edit).. What I call a 'slam' is where the last beat from deck 1 overlaps the first from deck 2 - a daft example would be say, going from the outro of The Wonderstuff's 'Size of a Cow' into the intro of Elvis' 'Jailhouse Rock'.. may not 'work' in reality but you can maybe see what I'm getting at. I can recommend some of Ellaskins' tutorials on Youtube - when he's not banging on about conspiracy theories he's a good learnin' watch for mixing tricks, especially for sequencing older tracks.

There's also a 'free course' (by which I mean they'll take your email address & try to sell you courses) on how to be a digital DJ which includes mixing tips.. over at digitaldjtips.com.

[dicky]

A few DJs I know don't use headphones or a controller, or even an eternal soundcard.

Is that like an everlasting one?


Interesting chat this, for me at least... there are some things I have been doing as a matter of course without even an inkling they had a definition

cutting (a cut is a 'chop' directly between 2 tunes & sounds like an abrupt edit) - i've pulled this feat off on several occasions on recent 16th/18th birthdays and it worked absolutely superbly if you get the tempo and timing right - So much so that I had a big grin on my face for doing it - I didn't even know the technique even had a name.... but IMHO do it right and as a DJ you'll feel like you are 'on fire'. Certainly I got on a big high from doing it and it's one of the reasons that I love playing Future House & RnB to young audiences

'slam mixing' where the last beat from deck 1 overlaps the first from deck 2 - I'm doing this all the time (on various forms of music) thanks once again for putting a name to this technique

What I find more difficult to make work properly is the longer overlapped mixes...... but someone once told me it's a matter of matcing the tempo and being able to count to 16. Is that about it? Plus some patience and practice?

Regards leaving 'gaps' between records and 'talking on the mic, announcing the next record, etc'................ this technique though it appers to be somewhat dissed on here, works very very well (and is almost expected of a DJ?) on the Northern Soul scene (and possibly other genres). From my personal experience that is....... limited though may well be.

Rich

[Nakatomi]

Longer mixes do need the speed of each track to be matched or it will sound abysmal, also known as a 'train crash'. For this, the ability of DJ gear & software to adjust the playback speed without affecting the musical pitch has been a godsend - not only do you have to watch out for the beats being in sync, but the musical key has to be compatible or it'll sound a mess if you don't restrict yourself to only crossing tracks over during drum breaks.

As Peter said earlier, all kinds of DJ technique have their place. If the style you use isn't compatible with the circumstances where you use it, it's probably not as big a disaster as playing the wrong tune at the wrong time, but it can work against you. An example would be the fast-cut-up style of party mix I used to do every night in a club - were you to do that at a wedding for example, you run more risk of it alienating guests who wanted to hear the whole song all the way through. Though some would consider cutting off 'Come On Eileen' at the break just before the final build-up as just punishment for its fans

You probably shouldn't mix or even segue (pronounced segway if the term is new to you) between tracks during a strict tempo style section or event. BTW a segue is your basic 'playing 2 songs back to back very close together', but not an abrupt change like a chop or cut. As for NS, wasn't that scene where mixing was born? I think I remember reading that somewhere. But then, from what I know of NS, a good few songs have different dance styles associated with them so a pause in the music would be natural to have.

I've found in one place I play that sometimes guests like to give a track (or me? I go with the track) a round of applause so when I sense this is happening I don't just plough straight on into the next song, I announce it first.

I don't think there are many hard & fast rules to apply here except this: Don't put any one technique above the others. Context is absolutely vital.

[Excalibur]

Regards leaving 'gaps' between records and 'talking on the mic, announcing the next record, etc'................ this technique though it appers to be somewhat dissed on here, works very very well (and is almost expected of a DJ?) on the Northern Soul scene (and possibly other genres). From my personal experience that is....... limited though may well be.

Rich

Appearances can be deceptive. While it's generally regarded as perhaps being " out of fashion ", it's widely acknowledged as being one of the important DJ skills to have in your repertoire.

When is it needed? On the store launch in Blaydon, where the manager came out halfway through the day, and said he couldn't understand how I could keep talking for so long, and how well I'd done it. ( And before some smartbottom jumps in, yes I did play music in between my little discourses. ) We'll draw a veil over the very young trainee DJ who gave me the benefit of his many days ( by the looks of things ) experience in Radio, and suggested I chat less. Two days later, we all got memos saying som folk were just putting the music on autopilot, and not speaking to and interacting with the customers. Cue one smug Old Git, and one doubtless equally younger soul residing North of the Border, with whom I'd been having a discussion on this thorny subject.

When is it not needed? When my client asks me to keep it to a minimum, and concentrate on keeping the dance floor full. Her glowing feedback suggests that I must have managed to bite my tongue sufficiently.

It's all a matter of judging the event and the crowd correctly. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

[yourdj]

I have had people that have mentioned mixing, but not many. They are usually bedroom DJ grooms that have no idea at all about formal functions as they have only really imagined themselves in clubs or at friends parties. No bride has every asked and they usually have a better grasp on theses things.

I beat match, merge tracks using loops and in key with a bass/volume drop, usually for about 10-20 seconds of the track, which is a smooth transition, between the music. Works wonders for differing genres etc. I would do it it for 90% of tracks and actively search for the same percentage using the BPM. If there was a dance set, then i would mix a bit more than billie jean into blurred lines (for example).

Being able to mix is one of my/our 10 UPS's. Main thing is "No dance move cheese" or "will you talk over the music" but thats my market. I think I will actually do a little promotional video showing the difference between the two is in order - e.g. gap in the music and blending or "mixing" as people do not really know the difference, which is why they do not ask.

[funkymook]

I think I will actually do a little promotional video showing the difference between the two is in order - e.g. gap in the music and blending or "mixing" as people do not really know the difference, which is why they do not ask.

I think most people know the difference between a gap and no gap between songs to be honest

[Benny Smyth]

Being able to mix is one of my/our 10 UPS's. Main thing is "No dance move cheese" or "will you talk over the music" but thats my market. I think I will actually do a little promotional video showing the difference between the two is in order - e.g. gap in the music and blending or "mixing" as people do not really know the difference, which is why they do not ask.

At the risk of sounding thick, what's UPS? The only UPS I know is uninterruptable power supply, which I suspect is not what you meant here.

Did you mean USP?

[dicky]

As for NS, wasn't that scene where mixing was born? I think I remember reading that somewhere. But then, from what I know of NS, a good few songs have different dance styles associated with them so a pause in the music would be natural to have.

Hey Juski you are not far off there mate - but it was actually the Modern Soul scene initially 'created' at the Blackpool Mecca Highland Room, which in the mid 70s was pretty much the only Modern Soul club in the UK, that spawned 'mixing' in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_soul

It is said that it was the DJ's Colin Curtis & Ian Levine who pioneered the technique, but as I was there in the crowds most weekends at the time I can say it was Colin who did hte mixing, Ian mostly (and still did the last time i heard him play a few years back) like to talk between records

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Curtis_%28DJ%29
In 1973, after the closure of the Golden Torch, Colin began a weekly residency at the Blackpool Mecca’s Highland Room soul nights and was joined by fellow DJ and collector Ian Levine in a partnership which lasted until 1978. Hitherto, the Northern soul scene had been a revivalist movement built around obscure US recordings from the 1960s which conformed to a certain rhythmic and vocal template. However, the Curtis/Levine duo are noted for successfully introducing contemporary styles of African-American music such as Disco, Funk and Jazz Funk onto their Highland Room playlists and, as a result, the creation of a split in the Northern soul movement which led to the parallel Modern soul subgenre.[6] Levine and Curtis are also credited with being amongst the first DJs to introduce mixing to British nightclubs. This technique, which had been pioneered by DJ Francis Grasso in the clubs of New York City, enabled the DJ to create a non-stop sequence of records.


There is an interesting read somewhere by Ian Levine called 'Does The talking Have To Stop' that discusses the origins of mixing but I can't find it.

Also for anyone vaguely interested in the Rise of the Modern Soul and Disco scene in the UK there is another superb article on the net somewhere called 'A Northern Disco' that documents the rise of disco music from the Northern Soul scene via the teaming of Levine/Curtis at Blackpool Mecca and the Highland room. Can't just find that one either , maybe when I have a bit more time lol

One thing I am most proud of in my life, I was part of that scene from my mid teens to early 20s, when most of my mates were listening to Showaddywaddy and Racey, and I was there to experience these events without realising at the time in actual fact they were 'historic' in the development of dance music.

Rich

[Benny Smyth]

Also for anyone vaguely interested in the Rise of the Modern Soul and Disco scene in the UK there is another superb article on the net somewhere called 'A Northern Disco' that documents the rise of disco music from the Northern Soul scene via the teaming of Levine/Curtis at Blackpool Mecca and the Highland room. Can't just find that one either , maybe when I have a bit more time lol

I'd be very interested in that. Since House music became disco's 'replacement' after the disco scene was forced out of the mainstream and back into the underground clubs in New York and Chicago, I would find that very interesting.

[Excalibur]

At the risk of sounding thick, what's UPS? The only UPS I know is uninterruptable power supply, which I suspect is not what you meant here.

Or the nice men in the brown vans.