Mix Club - The Remedial Class

Mad_Cyril
You are starting it on the first beat of a bar.

Mad_Cyril for years i mixed in the new track on the EQ in the order of bass - mid- treble i got much better when someone pointed out to me that i was doing it in the wrong order!

Mixing in the cans is a dead end by the way. Ultimately you are trying to teach your ears to work independently and then make sense of what they are both hearing, in can mixing just makes this harder and will ultimately hinder your progress. It’s really hard to get over this fact, as in can mixing is something of a comfort when you start out, but it’s not the way to progress. Learnt this the hard way myself.

Plus, if you ever play anywhere other than outside your four walls, the mixer might not do ‘in can’ and you will look like Judge Jules rather than Sashweed.

Getting the volume just right between the headphones & your speakers/monitors is also important. To loud on the headphones and it’ll be much harder to beat match the monitor tune

Dubman this is a good bit of advice. set your monitor volume bottom up so it’s not too loud, then match the volume of your headphones accordingly. this will help your mixing and save your ears.

Dubman Once worked with Sander just as the draconian sound laws came into effect at festivals in the UK, maybe mid to late 2000s. He was irked by the low volume of the sound system, so he just cranked the monitors up and aimed them at the crowd… fuck knows how loud his cans must have been. Also, apropos to nothing, he did the set with a miners lamp on his head.

Been mixing for hours today with the ‘new’ XZ - beat matching is getting quicker and tighter, but since losing the crossfader and using channelfaders and EQs it sounds like I’m losing energy through the mix. Don’t get that with the crossfader, so I know I’m got the phrasing right. Any further tips?

Along_the_Wire I’ve experienced this kind of thing before aswell. In my case I think it might be down to a combination of having the EQ’s dialled quite far back and the volume fader too low as the outgoing track begins to drop out. I’d imagine there are quite a few things that can cause it.

Along_the_Wire Crossfaders will regularly have a ‘sharp’ or ‘quick’ volume transition, so even if you are super slow / careful with it, it will still bring in a fair bit of volume from the new track, that might be where your mix is getting it’s ‘energy’. Just be a bit more boisterous with your channel faders and you should get the same effect. As mentioned, I could be barking up the wrong tree though.

I put my hand across the channel then wack it up so as to not bring it in to loud,

Amps I’ve got both channel faders
up and using the EQs to bring the punch

303abuser That’s what I’m doing. I meant both channel faders are up when I start farting around with the EQs. I’m beatmatching, then turn the mid and bass down, bring up the channel fader and then start the fiddle.

Along_the_Wire ah ok, i thought you meant you were using the eqs to bring the levels up. it’s a smooth way to mix, but won’t necessarily create energy. if your mixing techniques doesn’t seem to be the issue, really look at phrasing. mixing in earlier could help and look at key jumps (if you use the camelot system, moving up in numbers translates to increasing energy iirc).

303abuser I spent a lot of time today working on two loops - pretty sure the phrasing was bang on - crossfader mixing didn’t lose any energy. I’ll work it out - was fun today - the actual beatmatching improved a lot. The jog wheels are so, so good compared to what they were originally.

that’s good, making progress at the beginning is really rewarding. it all comes down to practice, which is pretty easy if you enjoy doing it. how long are your average mixes between two records? 30 seconds? 2 minutes?

303abuser I’m giving myself around
two minutes - I need to experiment with the timing on the EQs I suppose. Today was brilliant though, love it.