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.
Mix Club - The Remedial Class
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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
Along_the_Wire
I see. It’s good to get used to separating what you’re ears are listening to. Getting the volume just right is the key. To loud on the monitor and it will drown out the sound on the headphones.
Dubman roger that
My first two mixers didn’t have an option to have two channels/ master in the headphones, so always played with just channel cued in the mixer, rest is the master. Imagine how fucked I was at my first gig without a monitor. They had a Pioneer DJM 600 and said “Just play on your headphones!”
That was a fun skill to learn live in front of a full dancefloor.
Unbroken1 I’ve done that with another DJ and won by a mile!
Along_the_Wire
Split cue, when you join the cool kids on rotaries, will blow your mind
Mad_Cyril don’t know what that means.
Headphones on cue only works so much better.
Along_the_Wire …what’s ‘winning’ in this context? 
As I think I have already stated in this thread… If anyone has any interest in ever playing in a club or at a festival etc, don’t use the in headphones method. It’s a false dawn that will ultimately hold you back.
Unbroken1 Everyone dancing to my tunes and not the other fella
Along_the_Wire How do you know?
vinnyt77 Everyone going bananas at the breakdowns etc and the other guy acknowledging it
Along_the_Wire Oh. Thought there might have been some kinda cool ’Battle of the DJs video infographic behind the decks for the crowd to see.
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I think there is a lot to be said for having an overall idea in your mind about what you want to do in a given set. It also takes away much of the requirement to plan. You might select the the tracks you want to play but having something in mind will tell you how to get there.
At the micro level, you need to understand how to get from track A to track B and the skills that are required to do that but the overarching thing to aim for is what you want to do with the entire mix, or at least what kind of sound/vibe/direction/theme you want to take the mix in because that will ultimately inform how you put the tracks together.
When I first started playing in clubs/bars/parties, you would frequently come across DJs who would be completely focused on beatmatching. That is important, of course, but it can blind you to how you structure what you are playing and to develop subtleties that a better DJ needs. You could play alongside someone that plays at one level and was unwilling to vary it or have any regard to what the people before or after them would play. It would become fairly obvious they didn’t care about structure and the approach was “bang bang listen to this, bang bang listen to this”.
You can learn a lot by playing different styles/genres within a mix because it teaches you to look for the elements that link tracks together. It can sound really bad when you get it wrong but when you get it right, you will begin to note what made something work. It is much easier to play within a certain genre and will sound better on a more consistent basis but it can also limit your progress if you are not able to move outside of your comfort zone.
Another way to develop is to play old house records that don’t have a steady tempo and aren’t as polished with respect to the way they are produced because you really have to look for the patterns that link the tunes together and you can get punished badly if the key/vocals./percussion/energy of the track clash. Playing digitally, being able to warp tracks and sync take the majority of that away but having that other dimension helps to prevent you from getting lazy or falling into a siloed way of playing.
Someone else mentioned about playing across a range of BPMs, which is also a good tool for getting from slower tracks to more energetic tracks and then maybe back again because each tier of what you play will have its own style that requires you to link to the next tier.
