Anyone mixing 4 decks but NOT minimal or tech?

[BradCee]

that would just sound awful though

[sarasin]

hey....that was HIS question!



That's most probably why he is asking.....

[Hippie]

All this nitpicking is making me scratch arf arf

Fast cuts, melody cossovers, using cue points and triggers like a sampler, beat juggling and scratching over the top are probly the way to go for the hipety hopety styley.

[dodge]

I'm not saying no sequenced beats. I'm saying anything that doesn't have a straight 4/4 kick drum. But besides that I'm saying more anything that has definite melodies or vox. You could have a straight 4/4 beat but if you got 4 tunes with vocals you're not going to play them all at the same time cos that'll be a mess. That's kinda why I said not tech or minimal, as those styles generally don't have big rememberable melodies or vocal lines so you can get away with playing all 4 at once and play with different elements from each track with FX, essentially making a new track out of 2-4 separate tracks.
All the other genres mentioned you gotta think about it a lot more as there's a lot more elements to bare in mind; vox (chorus, verse, bridge), melodies, busier instrumentals etc. You can't really drag out long mixes with hiphop or DnB and whack loads of FX on them for too long or play any more than maybe 3 tracks all at once. So your mixes have to be shorter and choppier, there's a lot more cue'ing and fader work as opposed to FX and EQ work.
So basically I was trying to see if anyone is working in the former style as opposed to the latter.

[sarasin]

I suppose it is possible Dodge....but it will take a lot of planning and doing homework etc.

On the fly.....i very much doubt it will work bud.

[dodge]

I suppose it is possible Dodge....but it will take a lot of planning and doing homework etc.

This is why I am asking. I'd expect anyone to have that shit down before playing to a crowd. I think it's something I (or anyone with a bit of practice and planning) could do. There'd be a lot of cue point preparation involved and I think my problem is I got so many tracks it's a bit daunting on where to begin. I guess it's a case of starting with like 5 or 6 tracks and working out a cue point formula I guess. Once I got that sorted it's a case of sitting down one day and getting all my cues the same so it can be done on the fly in what ever order.

[sarasin]

yeah, i understood why you asked etc.

I guess you would need to take a couple of your fav's and really work em till you have a mini set and work it up to a bigger one.

I try not overplay the tracks i REALLY like.....cuz i get sick of them...and then have no drive to play them anymore.



But yeah....you right....its all Cue Points.

[Abyrne7]

Too much work for something that a crowd probally wouldn't notice anywas haha.

[dodge]

Too much work for something that a crowd probally wouldn't notice anywas haha.

I don't think that's true personally. If you're letting whole tracks play and you're doing standard mixing with 4 decks for the sake of using 4 decks, yes no one is going to really notice and it's also kinda pointless. But the whole point of using 4 (or 3) decks is to be able to do things you can't do with just 2, therefore doing things the crowd will notice.

[sine143]

Too much work for something that a crowd probally wouldn't notice anywas haha.

I think it really depends what kind of dj you are. People dont really *listen* to the opening dj, so spinning 4 decks as the opener would kind of be a lot of effort for little pay off. If you are spinning at some outdoor doof party, with a couple hundred or thousand people, I think you could dominate the crowd with skillfull 4 deck mixing.