The Official Mix Techniques Thread!

[decon]

With techno, tech/prog house I find the format filter + gater effect chain to be awesome. When track A breakdown, cut out the low, play track B (easier if the breakdowns are the same length). As the the breakdown ends, have a loop ready on track A (or set it on-the-fly) of 4-8 bars. As with BradCees technique, you loop the track that you'll be fading out (track A) and play around with the the gater effect and format filter. You get the pleasurekraft robot vocal hehe Few videos to illustrate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4TrDCW583I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUWDggQ3k4M

[antexxx]

very interesting thread

[Jack H]

@Decon. I'm a totall noob, but what is the breakdown of a song?

[racoon]

since i play really, really INTENSE psychedelic dance music, i can't EFX the shit out of it and also can't make transistions in which they leads are layered because its just TOO MUCH.

so i EQ the shit out of it, try to not let it get too much and don't use more than the EQ and one or two (A&H)filters.

i just enjoy it more to play with more than 2 decks so i can prepare cue points and beatmatches with decks which are not "in use for the mix right now" and with this preparations which i make when i have time, i can act with "more pressure" and with a greater "slection-accuracy" because you can prepare 2 or 3 options and take the prepared track that you think will fit the most, or mix a track into it just to have a "bridge" to mix further to the third deck 32beats afterwards. (too fast you would make it with only 2 players incl. cuepoint setting and beatmatching ;D)

MY TIPP FOR EQ MIXING: don't ever have the same EQ from different channels on the exact same level, let them have a slight volume difference.

LET YOU GUIDE your EQ-Poti-Movements by the music:
So you move the EQ from the track you are fading in in a pattern from the running track and move the EQ of the track you want to mix out in a pattern from the incoming track and they will merging even more. Their are always enough rhythmic-patterns existing in the music you can take, you don't need to make your own ones.

PS: Mixing too perfect tends to lead to an dancefloor which can't respect what you're doing because they cannot recognize what you're doing. if you need a positive response from the dancefloor it could be that it's the better way to mix a bit "raw" so that the untrained dancefloor-people can recognize your actions. (because some people love the feeling of recognizing the dj-actions on the dancefloor, it makes feel them special ;D)

[mostapha]

I know this is going to sound like trolling. It's not.

My favorite mixing technique is to press play.

I'm really not kidding. Most tracks will mix themselves if you let them. IMHO, volume controls are for the times when the next track isn't perfect and everything else is sugar.

Please take that with a grain of salt…i'm intentionally exaggerating…of course I use volume controls most of the time…though a lot of modern DJs who like slamming faders might as well just use mute buttons.

Anyway, the technique:

1. All EQs at unity
2. all effects off
3. all channels wide open
4. set the sound system for a very small amount of gain reduction either from:
   
   1. natural poweramp saturation (just barely nonlinear responses from maybe a couple dB gain overlap…works better with tube amps)
   2. a compressor set to never get more than about 1-2dB of gain reduction.
5. A few things to pay attention to:
   
   • It is important that if you're going the gain overlap route that the overdrive has to happen in the analog domain, preferably with tube saturation as opposed to transiters clipping. You're going for light, smooth compression, not amp and speaker distortion.
   • If you do it by overdriving a DAC, it'll sound like shit.
   • If you do it with a compressor (the easiest way), it needs to not suck and have accurate metering, so Traktor's limiter is out. Ableton's Limiter is about the worst I'd use. I'd really like to try it with one of the SSL 4000G bus compressor emulators.

After the setup…just find the right track, the right place, the right time…and press play.

Example: http://www.mixcloud.com/josephsimoneau/breaks-2007/

The mix is early psy/nu skool breaks with a bit of a funky feel to the early vocals. It was done in Ableton. I know I couldn't have done it on tables, and it would have been really hard with CDJs. It'd be easier to re-create it with Traktor Pro than it was with Live because of Auto Gain, but Traktor doesn't have the effects necessary to record it by itself without further processing.

No effects, EQs, or volume adjustments. Just gain staging and phrase matching. And a 3-song mashup that you might not notice if you don't look at the track list.

A lot of the techniques in this thread seem really fun and all, and I like looking like I'm doing something too. But, I've spent a lot more time cultivating my taste in music than my taste in effects. I'd rather show that off at a DJ gig and let the music speak for itself. But, that's just my preference.

[racoon]

I've spent a lot more time cultivating my taste in music than my taste in effects. I'd rather show that off at a DJ gig and let the music speak for itself. But, that's just my preference.

^pretty much this

as you can see in my post, this is also my approach of the thing

[tricks]

Found this thread using the search function and had to bump it up because it's gold! Think this should be stickied... can't wait to get home and try some of these! Hopefully if anyone has any of their own they'll post more

[Ruben_Williams]

Echo Spin Back on DJM 800 & CDJ

Basically set your echo to the channel you want to do the spin back and asign it to 1/4 beats. . . Do you spin back, Hit Echo and then Hit pause on the CDJ and the spin back will echo out, it all has to be done within basically one second though.

There's aslo another one you can do that's similar but you hit the loop and then loop adjust twice and spin back hit echo and pause and the track with buzz out.

[jmastio]

Hello everybody
I'm new on the forum and I'm only mixing since 1 year but not so often.
I have purchased the traktor S4.
I try to increase my level by mixing more often and reading forums and watching Ean's tutorials but I have some questions concerning transitions :
When you start song B at the begin of song A's breakdown, which song do you EQ to make room for the new song, in order that song B can be heard over the song A ?
I would say song A but decreasing EQ of song A will be heard because the output level is lower no ?
Thank you for your help and sorry for my little knowledge ;-)
Nice evening
Jérôme

[QUANCE]

Can you all start posting video links that show how to do what you're talking about so we can try to emulate your techniques and practice them?

Or maybe even just recommend a couple songs that you would suggest using to practice these mixing types on?