Mix Club - The Remedial Class
Yeah. Amp’s got it.
@Amps#96551 What Amps said
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Just caught up on this 446 (replies) thread. Excellent advice! I recently graduated (self-awarded) to a DJM 450 & (2) XDJ1000MK2. Must say there’s a lot of good pointers in here. Played out in front of a group of six core friends this Saturday as it led up to a more talented friend’s boat party. Received several compliments and just did all that I could to not overshadow our upcoming event and play a mix that I practiced four times leading up to my slot.
I’ll say now that breaks tunes are tough. Sometimes they take half the track to have an output to overtake the tech-house playing on Channel 1.
Knowing the library is important but even more-so is knowing your audience. Nice to get the jitters out (not one to blame all things on anxiety but the feeling was there).
What are your opinions of a double loop . . . I try to avoid unless mixing in a loop but running out of track run way?
Removing the tempo decimal on my XDJs to avoid my immediate habit to obsessively fiddle with an exact tempo match? Maybe it will do more for my overall beat matching?
Lastly, I admire a lot of your care for listening to a recorded mix several times before publishing and aim for clean mixes.
Hope to contribute more as am only just into a lazy three years of this hobby!
TL;DR: Aspiring DJ with three years of DJ experience describing a kitchen sink kind of weekend. Minor accomplishment of playing for a handful of drunk guys that enjoy the genre before a real party. Few questions and applause for all the contributions to this thread.
this thread though. It’s like a bunch of teenage girls discussing foreplay.
get a grip of yourselves boys. and post some mixes up.
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I know nothing about audiences having never played to more than about 7 people at a time ! However - yes loop away both in and out.. when it helps - sometimes it is pretty unnecessary as you can see predictable blocks of sound on the waveform - but match the phrasing and know that in a 16 bar loop the producer might well add extra elements in the second 8. By all means align both tracks to the same number of bpm- but then its all about your ears knowing that you will have to make minor adjustments as you hear them going out in the mix when you are cueing number 2 in your headphones. small nudge up or down . you can mix them both in your headphones but its not always the same. breaks take practice as does D n B but in fact after a bit I find them easier for some reason. its all about putting the hours into your lugholes in terms of practice it seems to me . On the beat matching maybe the best way to learn to trust your ears is to go old skool and ignore the bpm numbers and do it all by ear until you get get pretty close or bang on with confidence.
baggers44 Brilliant feedback regarding loops. Agree with your point about practice. Its almost instinctual as far as jog nudges go . . . more confidence as time goes on. Old Skool will be quite the leap as well as a significant confidence derail but a bridge that I would like to cross sooner than later. Appreciate your feedback. HA, I will have a mix up for @C_J sometime “soon” . . .
segwin …I’ve heard folk say they hate hearing loops used in a mix, the trick is use them a seamless way so they don’t sound like loops, knowing when to trigger and exit is absolutely key.
Tbh most wouldn’t notice in a club scenario, but if you scrutinise the some mixes on headphones, you can often hear artefacts in the loop, like the tail of some reverb or a crash or something… if you can trigger a clean loop at the right moment, switch the bass and know when to exit the incoming loop, you can extend a mix really cleanly. Diggers is a boss at this (helps that he was a quality mixer before looping was ever a thing!).
I actually think having the ‘visual’ experience of using Traktor helps understand how best to use loops on a CDJ.
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Unbroken1 Agree with that. Oftentimes I toss in a loop before an impending drop or change in tone of track which is playing out on CH1. You’re right, sometimes 8 bars isn’t enough or you do tend to catch a tail. Plenty of examples on Bunker 46 as you had mentioned; loops leveraged as a tool to trigger a swift swap in bass and bring in next track. Looking forward to being schooled the next chance I can catch the guy playing solo in the states.
I’ve been farting around a lot this evening mixing - who knew how much easier it is to beatmatch with headphones on cue rather than mixing / master and using one ear versus the other on the monitors?
Fuck me.
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Used to practice late at night just through my headphones so I wouldn’t disturb anyone.
It’s also good for getting the levels the same.
Dubman I mean the opposite - using mix on the headphones makes it harder