How To Mix Like Armin Van Buure.....?

[DJHike]

Hello everyone and Happy New Year !



This year I am focusing on a new style of mixing and since I'm a Trance DJ I wanted to break down and analyze exactly how Armin mixes and does his ASOT shows. I have done a lot of research yesterday and can now confirm that Armin uses Hot Cues for tracks. But... What's interesting is you don't see him going crazy pressing Hot Cue buttons on the CDJs. Which means all the tracks that he uses are predited in some way or another. Even then I am very curious how he does this. To mix 30 tracks just about every week in 2 hours is no easy task. So I wanted to ask people where exactly do you set your Hot Cue points? Many have commented and sated 3 points are key

1. Intro
2. Right before breakdown
3. Outro

So I took few tracks and used Rekordbox to set this up. But, mixing on the fly manually with Hot Cue points is well... close to impossible. Even with everything being in quantized, in key, and same beat you have to time your cue jumps like a robot in order not to hear any difference in the mix.


I was hoping people can help me with this and help me understand how this is done? How can hot cue points be set so precisely that it sounds fluid? If this is indeed set ahead of time then what parts of the track can be cut so that it sounds perfect?


Thank you all in advance !

[antifmradio]

uhh i dont think you got it exactly Hike
the way he mixes live is different then the way he does is radio show

the radio show has a TON of post editing that has taken place.
Theres probably a good 7 minutes of music missing from the finale cut of each broadcast where the music has been clipped to match the POST of his talking about something.

Heres my thought. Please dont mix like Armin.
Find your own style and really break that down, then... beef it up

[DJHike]

uhh i dont think you got it exactly Hike
the way he mixes live is different then the way he does is radio show

the radio show has a TON of post editing that has taken place.
Theres probably a good 7 minutes of music missing from the finale cut of each broadcast where the music has been clipped to match the POST of his talking about something.

Heres my thought. Please dont mix like Armin.
Find your own style and really break that down, then... beef it up

Thanks for the reply Antifmradio. I wasn't really trying to copy Armin I was just more interested how he skips through tracks so quickly. But, the more I discuss this with other DJs it's obvious he uses software to do this. Although I seen and heard him live many times too and he went in and out of songs real quick without doing much manual hands on mixing. Perhaps everything is predited..? I guess I was hoping for of a nice technical answer.

Bottom line is I refuse to use software or premade edits while mixing. I started on vinyl and still enjoy doing things the real way. So though I could actually perform some of this manually. It's just seems very complicated to hot cue every tracks and press buttons left and right just to fit 30 songs in 2 hours.

If there is a technique you guys that actually like hardware know that works best please let me know. I have no problem beat matching or creating sets. My goal is to try to fit more songs in my mixes.

[LoopCat]

[DJHike]

Awesome video and I seen it many times =) But no way you can do that for a whole entire 2 hour set few tracks maybe. Like I wrote previously you have to be dead on when jumping from hot cue points quantised or not you have to be right on or else you can hear the slight change which will be noticeable to picky people like me.


There is a old school way of mixing multiple tracks that I use. That is to drop the 2nd track intro as soon as the build up finishes of the 1st. If EQed perfectly it sounds good and you can create a great set. If anyone knows another way without using software please let me know.