Cuing ritual
Hey guys,
I want to know what you guys do under the headphones for each track. With digital djing it’s seems that we have more time to do other things under our headphones than beatmatch. Also does anyone key match their songs, and how do they go about doing that?
Thanks.
I key match but cheat using Rapid Evolution or Mixed in Key and put keycode in the comments for the tracks tag.
In terms of what to do. I barely use my headphones to be honest. I use them for an awkward mix. However, once I got the beats and tempo matched (and I sometimes even use ‘sync’ 
), I tend to use the master output from the speakers to mis as I use a lots of loops, slices, cue juggling and stutters when mixing tracks so find it easier to listen to “the floor” rather than my headphones.
Other than that, I just bop along with everyone else
Do you do anything w/checking levels?
With most songs I use, they’re songs I regularly used as I have a kind of pre-planned setlist so I’m used to where each knob should be for each song, so not really.
I like to listen to the track I’m planning on mixing in’s tonal quality and compare it to the one currently playing. I then adjust the eq’s to get it sounding as much like the Master track as possible. Drop the bass and sometimes the highs on the incoming track and mix it in, eventually returning my eq’s to the setting’s I previously had that matched the master track. It really helps with smoother mixing. I’m still so amazed by how different two “mastered” tracks can sound tonally. True mastering seems to be a lost art and is much more difficult to set a “standard” to now that people don’t Master for vinyl.
this x2
not much now, use tempo sync to sort the bpm, so just use headphones to check everything is in line as fade the next track in.
closest thing i do to checking tracks ‘match’ is seeing how they sound with each other for a few beats shrug
Thanks for all the responses so far. I guess I asked the question because I have had trouble getting the gain levels right on my mixes with big PA systems. I have so much time in between tracks that I feel like I’m missing out on the part of the process. I come from a sound engineering background and it always bugs me whenever I have a track come in and it just doesn’t have the same power that that other one has because the master volume of track is so much lower than the previous one. Here is a set of my processes:
I agree with you SirReal. The rage in tonality for mastered tracks change so much, even if all of the files are of highest quality. 
i mix too quick for that 
on occasion i trim high eq on a mix in, but only if it sounds to ‘harsh’ for that moment when half faded in
i really have no workflow to speak of, just reactionary to what’s happening
Ditto. By the time I’ve finished playing with loops and cue juggling it’s time to drop the next song
Not really, but I do it a lot just to entertain myself
On a side note, I have to remind myself not to mix to fast. Because beatmatching take no time now, I find myself ready for the next track, while the track running is still building up and not even at the best part of the track.
So then I have some spare time, dance, search for one or more songs to play next, check some parameters if everything is still how it should be, clear all drinks gathered near your gear and so on.
Ofcourse this is not all while cueing, but same category.
I know where you’re coming from. That’s why I feel like I’m missing something. Even with f’our channel mixing I have this dilemma. It feels kind of weird standing in front of an audience and having noting to really do in terms of getting the next song prepared. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to practice on PA’s every day at a local DJ equip rental shop down the street. Whenever I see the guys on vinyl or even CDJ’s mix they spend so much time beatmatching and eqing that I feel like there is something to that. They all have developed some sort of rhythm and flow to their mixing because of the time in between tracks. I like your advice about looking for tracks, I think I’m going to do that more.
Not really much to do once you’ve beatmatched, and made sure it’s beatmatched.
I tend to just chat to people while waiting for my mix point, which is usually around the last breakdown or just as it finishes.
I have only DJ’d for friends parties so I find I don’t have to pretend to be doing important “DJ work”. I could play with effects or cue points, but the crowd get bored of that sort of thing very quickly.
when i fade 2 tracks i sometimes lower the bass/treb/mids on the 1st track, and raise them o the second track, maybe using a flanger/delay/echo to fade out the first track.
For example, song playing on one, I slowly kill mid+treb eq, while raising the mid and treb on the second track, echoing the 1st track, slowly fading; killing the bass on one and raising on two.
No shit! :eek:
That’s where I been going wrong
Also, preparing some samples of the song playing now and the next song. (load loops into sample decks). And then as soon as the next song is playing, start loading some parts of the next song.
Haven’t really tried that, but it might be fun to drop a drumbreak or riff from the song you’ll be playing in 2 minutes. Just to warm up the crowd. Maybe a good idea to do this with hits only. so the small snippets are recognizable
Last night I played my 1.5 hour set on a pair of cdj900s+usb and no traktor. Its pretty sweet to be able to have all your music stored on the usb like that.
I usually mix in my headphones because I don’t always have a monitor. I try to be as versatile as possible, the head phones help me with that. I always experience some sort of latency between the booth and the floor. As soon as I think the songs are locked I take em off to make sure the highs don’t slice someones head off.
The hd25’s hardly ever leave my head, they didn’t really either when I was trying to do 3/4 decks with sync, loops, fx etc Hawtin/Liebing style and supposedly had all the time in the world due to no beatmatching.
usage breakdown :
*quickly prelistening a tune (or three)
*Scrubbing through part of the track to make sure how well it fits regardless of key.
*Trying out all the hotcues if I want to plan for some beatjumps or just to remind me of the essential sections. (I use “beats to cue” a LOT).
*Beatmatching/riding the pitch ALL THE TIME (vinyl timecode user) since I typically do long-ass blends, with or without loops.
*Enjoying a cleaner sound than on my monitors.
I use my headphones so much the cue/master level pot on my mixer is more worn out than the main two bass knobs together.
I listen to a few tracks to jog my memory and and a good place to mix in or if I wanna do a mashup. Also one of the things I look for is the rhythm of the next track and if it sounds good Ill mix it in. I dont throw all my music into 1 folder, it’s all separated by when I purchased it which also helps me remember the tracks since I will know exactly where a song that I REALLY wanna use is.
These 2 statements sum it up for me 