So I’ve been hitting a brick wall lately (always) with my practicing and wanted to reach out to see if anyone would have helpful tips / perspective.
Goals for my mixing usually entails getting in an hour’s mix and/or coming out with a good idea for a future podcast.
Usually I sit down, find a song I want to start with, and then start shuffling through my library and try to find something that mixes well with that song. I REALLY try to make my first mix strong (by my standards) and find myself never really finding that perfect that to mix in! I’ll try 10 songs, which I usually have to stop and grid, and then get frustrated and quit.
So I’m wondering what you guys will typically do when you sit down to make a mix…any helpful ideas would be great.
If I 'm having trouble with a mix, I’ll usually head over to beatport and listen to a couple tunes (maybe 20-30). If a good one hits me, well… we are back in the mood again!
Don’t be so tough on yourself. Just go with the flow and remember that no mix is ever perfect. If you waste all of your time trying to perfect it, you’ll never get in the groove. Work flow example: Pick 10 tracks you like. I try to go from lower energy ones to banging. Throw a weird (not sure where to mix it in) one around 6 or 7 then play the (I love it but not sure if the whole world does) at the end #10. Good luck.
I listen to music wayyy too much, so if I’m at the computer and think to myself “hmm song a would probably sound cool with song b” I make a note of it and leave it on my desktop, if not I just make a mental note and hope I remember…
Either way I try it out the next time I mix and sometimes I find some really cool stuff, other times… complete shite.
If I’m sitting down with the intent of making a mix (which hasn’t happened often), I just make a list of current favourite tracks, listen to em all a few times and try to put them into some sort of order then go from there, tweaking as necessary.
plus - if you try and perfect a mix too much you lose the essence of what mixing is about - spontaneity.
i prepare a mix in a similar fashion to what these guys described: build a playlist of songs i dig, then go in a build a little “story” or whatnot with the songs. if i’m planning on recording it to release it, i’ll go ahead and set cue points of in/out spots.
i know what you mean about making that first transition something special though. you have a lot of time to mix in the second track in a mix, get creative with it. i usually try and find a sample or something from the second track and mix it throughout most of the first, so the listener thinks it’s part of the first track, and then by the time the second track is halfway in they’re like “wait what is this one song or two?”
I do not grid on the fly very often, I analyse and grid tracks when i add them to my collection. Doing this leaves me with a massive pool of tunes ready to mix and for me i basically sort by BPM then decide how fast i want to start, pick something i recognise or have a listen to some tracks to pick one then go from there (or search for intro )
For me mixing trance and progressive this works really well well as i will decide to start from 127BPM up to 140BPM. I basically make my way down my collection slowly raising the BPM as necessary (or back track through the tunes ive gone through and see if something that didn’t suit earlier might suit now)
but basically if you know your sound/genre/artists fairly well and you dont usually go out of that comfort zone selecting tunes by BPM as an initial starting point works well.
A couple things i do when practicing-
1st - pick a bunch of tracks that you like. (30 or so)
2nd- Play a set without programming it and go in and out of tracks as fast as possible. This will get you a general feel for all of the tracks
3rd- play a new set with the same tracks, this time actually listening to the music and going for a ride. This will take significantly longer than your first playthrough. Record this session. If you start trainwrecking, deal with it in the moment and do not backspin out. This teaches you perseverance.
4th- listen to the session. Ask yourself what instruments or sounds are dominant in the mix. Make a list of the 3 most dominant sounds you can hear excluding drums. I’m talking saxes, vocals (specific ranges. ie tenor, soprano, etc). Don’t do anything with the list, but the act of making the list will keep you aware of the sounds when they pop up.
5th- play a new session with the same 30 tracks. this time, keep your crate open incase inspiration hits you and you want to add tracks. record this and listen to it when done.
6th- repeat 4th and 5th steps until you are happy with results.
7th- When playing out, prepare an opening 3 tracks from the sessions you’ve been practicing, but keep your crate open and adapt to the crowd.
8th- remember- Drugs and/or alcohol do not make you a better DJ
9th- The prospect of sex, however, does.
I buy tracks do mix, and this is the gods honest truth but nearly all my mixes are not prepared i don’t built tracklists before mixes on top of that when that mix is done and released that will have been the first time those tracks have been mixed by me
that’s just me, a few pointers I find is chuck together the tracks you want first mix, then i find listening to it in the car at home wherever and just see if you can shuffle those tracks around for a better flowing feeling, I did this recently with a Deep Mix i was working on I can’t quite get it right so scrapped it and did a Tech one instead, give it a week I will be back doing that, shuffling the tracks working out what fits best.
one rune I do apply my mixes are usual an hour + or right length for a CD and I try to avoid mistakes in that hour, make sure it’s EQ’d properly rarely peaking and never play tracks to fast past where they were released, aka Deep around 125-126 and Tech 128 that’s how it works for me.
Also try to use breakdowns or lifts to bring in new tracks, and maybe while track A is playing listen to track B in the headphones EQ it and run it for say 30 secs a minute just to see how well it really fits, sometimes I have found as much as I think a track fits are running them together in the headphones for 1 minute they don’t due to excessive percussion or bass or you know what
well, my first question is, are you practicing or preparing mixsets/podcasts. you will need to come at them from different angles…
just practicing, just play stuff, mess around, just go from track to track with no agenda, strive to improve your technique and learn what sounds good together. learn how to build or release energy during a mix and different ways actually mixing the tracks.
if you are preparing a mixset or podcast… before you start, you need to have an end goal (if you are making a demo for a promoter, you may need to demonstrate that you can restrain yourself for an opening slot…), what sound do you want, what big tracks do i want to play. think about what you want it to be before you make it, make sure you are giving a good mix of older and brand spankin new tracks (or even promos/unreleased stuff, although be careful what you put into the public. i have some friends that send me new and unreleased stuff and i never put them on a downloadable mixset. save them for the club)
the biggest tip is to record everything and listen to it. be super critical, take notes and send it to some people who are better djs then you are. i still send all my mixsets and demos to a dj friend of mine for him to listen to before i post them, i know that im not the greatest thing since sliced bread and hes been djing since i was in primary school.
That’s a very good pointer from Alex send it to someone you know is critical but also a friend who will be critical in a positive way, on soundcloud depending on the style of music that i am mixing i pick a select 4-6 friends to take a listen before I publish anything just to make sure they like it.
if i plan on recording a mix i hit juno for 10 tracks that make a feasible playlist, grid em, have a tinker. go back the next day and throw down with them and whatever takes my mood at the time to pad it out to the 20 or so i like to hit in an hour.
pretty much most of mp3 shopping is done like that actually, buy tracks that make sense together, not just because i like them. have mini playlists within playlists then. i don’t bother reordering my playlists just leave them as i drop them in. organisational nightmare, but i’m never more than 3 or 4 tracks away from the ‘perfect’ track.
I find that over-preparing never works for me, kills the spontaneity & tension.
I try to build a set of stuff I think will work but then I just wing it.
You gotta be on the edge to get good results. If you’re just going through a preplanned list list it just kills it, in my experience.
you know what i have discovered is that there are many styles/ways of mixing. first you need a style and then you find the tracks. and the way you can go about this mate, is first, find your favorite dj’s, someone you like, and watch a 1 hour video of them mixing on dancetrippin. and i promise that every time you watch the video over and over, you will always learn something. and then once you see a style that they use and you like it, then integrate it with your own songs. for example, there are 2 dj’s i rly like and i’m going to combine both of their styles into one with my favorite tracks. you will also learn things like, how long should you turn off the lows for and give the people a break, and when is the right time to turn of the lows. because you don’t want the base running 24/7 then people will get tired eventually. idk man this is so complicated and so complex to explain. like i would have to write an essay. the best solution is just watch one of your favorite dj’s spin for an hour. and then repeat the video 3-4 times through out the whole week. and i promise that you will always learn something every time you watch it.
one of the best ways i learned most of what i know is by hanging out with other djs and playing together. not like in a club, just in your house or whatever. just watch how other people do things. when i was first starting, i was chatting with a friend on the phone and he was giving me some feedback on a mix i had sent him. he was describing a way of eq mixing so that you can barely tell where the new track is… for some reason i could not get it to work properly until i was hanging out with him a couple months later and i saw him do it.
there are a couple key things to learn though
learn to beatmatch (even though you are using a digital rig). this is super key, if your grids are off, you need to be able to adjust it properly.
learn to control your volume, VU meters arent enough, learn to do it the old fashion way with your ears.
learn to read a crowd. this comes from playing out, start with house parties. they are more forgiving. there are a couple things to look for when you are learning. 1 is to look for what element in a track is causing people to dance. you will sometimes see like no one is dancing until a particular element comes in. look for that element and play more of it. keep an eye on peoples faces. huge key there. on the inverse, what made people stop dancing? house parties are great because they are a bit more forgiving and generally you know at least some of the people there.
Haven’t read all the responses as there’s far too much to read just to put in my advice, which is this; you said in the title you have problems practicing, then you went on to say you have problems lining up your shit for potential mix tapes. So which is it you’re having problems with? Practicing or putting together mix tapes?
Anyway, putting that aside, I would say try learning new shit, try learning to scratch or drum rhythms with a controller. Basically practice something that will separate you from the other DJ’s. Any fucker out there can mix now so you need to be doing something the others aint. Scratch, juggle, drum, mix super super quick, 4 deck mixing, what ever. But just practicing mixing is kinda lame in my opinion, you gotta take it to the next level. And try this… do something you don’t require speakers for, something you can do in the headphones. This way you have no restraints on sound levels and it’s something you can potentially do anywhere. On an aeroplane? Fine, plug your VCI into your laptop and practice scratching. On a bus? Fine, plug your midifighter into your laptop and practice drumming. In a cab? Fine, write beats. The way I see it is if you can’t practice unless you got speakers (which also means you’re restrained to one place) you’re only half the DJ you can be.
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