Question from a Newb on Mixing technique...

[William Gibson]

Sound, are you saying it might actually sound better by just using a high and low pass filter in ableton instead of the EQs on my mixer?

Another thing im debating is if I should keep using my mixer along with the apc40 to start. Having very little knowlege on mixing and having multiple pieces of hardware seems to just complicate things more. I messed around with mixing last night for about 2 hours and it seems I got no where. Im thinking of scrapping the mixer for a while and possibly just learning how to do everything with ableton and the apc40. Then hopefully after some time when I can actually mix songs I will introduce another hardware mixer.

Thoughts?

It sucks because I have found very little online in regards to tutorials on djing with ableton. Most guides just seem to go over warping. I can warp in my sleep at this point. I practiced the crap out of it. The only other tutorials for ableton I really found just went as far as crossfading from one track to the other. I think that was the ableton life blog youtube channel.

[soundinmotiondj]

Sound, are you saying it might actually sound better by just using a high and low pass filter in ableton instead of the EQs on my mixer?

Probably. It depends on the specifics of the mixer.

The EQ frequency on a mixer is typically fixed. So a "low" EQ knob will typically center on 80Hz (more or less). Suppose that there is something in the song that you need to remove at 180Hz, or 200Hz. Even a full kill EQ knob will leave "some" of that higher frequency content.

A high pass filter can be adjusted in both frequency and slope. This will provide much better remove of the desired content. Any slope that is larger than -24dB/oct will do at least as well as a full kill EQ.

[DJ_JCohh]

Sound, are you saying it might actually sound better by just using a high and low pass filter in ableton instead of the EQs on my mixer?

Another thing im debating is if I should keep using my mixer along with the apc40 to start. Having very little knowlege on mixing and having multiple pieces of hardware seems to just complicate things more. I messed around with mixing last night for about 2 hours and it seems I got no where. Im thinking of scrapping the mixer for a while and possibly just learning how to do everything with ableton and the apc40. Then hopefully after some time when I can actually mix songs I will introduce another hardware mixer.

Thoughts?

It sucks because I have found very little online in regards to tutorials on djing with ableton. Most guides just seem to go over warping. I can warp in my sleep at this point. I practiced the crap out of it. The only other tutorials for ableton I really found just went as far as crossfading from one track to the other. I think that was the ableton life blog youtube channel.

You're only finding tutorials with how to mix utilizing warping in ableton becuase that's how you DJ in ableton. (Correct me if I am wrong here ableton DJ's, I am a traktor guy but I am familar with ableton) From what I understand that's really the way "DJ"ing is done via Ableton. IMO its not that much becuase you warp your songs, figure out what sounds good with harmonically keying your music or just listening, and go from one to the other, because ableton won't allow you to miss a beat (if quant. is on, and your warp's are on point). If I were to switch to ableton I would set up a massive library of loops, one shots, samples, builds, breakdowns, etc. to use while I DJ because DJing the way I just described in ableton is to boring for me.

^^^I believe this exact arguement is a big reason why Deadmau5, among others where called "button pushers" a few months ago(and the sync button)^^^

But to give a little insight on EQing, or how I look at it, you have to imagine your mix as a 3 shelf book case. This sounds odd but bare with me. Your his at the top, mids in the middle, lows at the bottom. And your mix are the "books". So when one song is playing, say on track A, at full volume with no EQ at all, the book shelf is full of books from left to right.

And if your still following me, to mix track B into A here's what I would do in the most basic form.

(insert beat match here)

I would kill the highs and mids on track B, as we bring the song it this will allow track A's "books" to stay unharmed on the shelf. Next I would slowly take out the Lows in track A, and at the same time slowly bring in track B. This would take some of A's low books off the shelf allowing room for track B's to put on the shelf. If everything is going smoothly you can start to switch out your highs and mids from A to B.

Eventually you will just kill A and run with B.

Hopefully this makes some sense to you and can help you in some way. I forget where I saw this "theory" from but I wanna say it was on a forum here or somewhere online, so credit goes out to someone out there.

[sicnarf033]

here is my buddy's tutorial showing you the basics of eqing or as he like to call it phasing.



there are 4 parts. he explains them and then demonstrates them very well. i find it to be helpful for people new to mixing.

part three is where he shows "eqing"..

you're hands might not be used to them at first, but practice makes perfect and soon enough its just second nature to you. some songs will tend to make you eq faster and some you can take your time. it all depends on the songs.

[squidot]

It sucks because I have found very little online in regards to tutorials on djing with ableton. Most guides just seem to go over warping. I can warp in my sleep at this point. I practiced the crap out of it. The only other tutorials for ableton I really found just went as far as crossfading from one track to the other. I think that was the ableton life blog youtube channel.

the generalities of djing in ableton aren't really different from djing in various other formats. warping and basic functions are what you need to learn from the software (ie how to play a track, cue, eq, use effects, volume control, etc). just look up djing videos in general as it's all basically the same principle (sync arguments aside). imo though, it's probably not the best program to learn how to dj on...any other software is more suited to djing really. i tried it for a while after i wanted to get into the digital aspect of djing, but it's lacking in a lot of areas for me and the strengths didn't make up for it, so i moved over to traktor.

[William Gibson]

Great info guys. I really have learned a lot from this thread and the reading I Have done on some of the topics that have been brought up. I believe I fully understand what is going on now with EQing.