In a way I feel like its our responsibility to step it up since we own some amazing equipment that allows us to spend less time dicking around and more time expressing musical creativity. But only in a way. Are we putting too much pressure on ourselves to be better than non digital DJ’s? Sometimes I feel like I am, but Im a very ambitious person. And it doesnt help that DvlsAdvct is raising the bar in my scene.
So the question is. What techniques are you digital DJ’s employing to help take advantage of our potential and help make yourself standout from the non digital crowd? What are you doing to help build energy and make dynamic sets?
I will answer my own question, since we should be sharing info, yeah?
I definately try and take advantage of Traktors ability to show the audio in a visual wavelength. It helps to know where cues are and where build ups and breaks occur. I love the various effects traktor has available. My favorite is the transposing time stretch, its great for transitioning from tracks that wouldnt sound right beatmatched and mixed traditionally. I also love the LFO3 effect for the same reason.
Hey Animus, nice post dude. I don’t use sync anymore so i don’t have as mush time in between tracks, but personally i like to show off some of traktors features, such as multiple effects, filters etc. My fav at the moment is using the gater in conjunction with delay. start it off at 0 and bring the level up during a vocal or instrumental breakdown or something. I’ve got my wheels set up now to scratch/search, tempo bend, filters and dry/wet levels on the FX section, so those wheels get a thrashing when we play haha. Don’t go too nuts on the FX tho, time and a place.
I don’t think its necessarily a matter of “standing out from the crowd” tho, as although all of us have experienced a bit of deck envy from the vinyl crew at some stage, for the most part ppl are up for it and are actually more interested in what we are doing (c’mon, i know i’d rather watch someone with 10k of kit sitting on a desk than someone with some second hand decks). I still get the odd “your not a DJ” crap occasionally but ya get used to it. cheers
the techniques question has been asked many times, and i havent seen a whole lot of response. i dont really know how to answer it myself tbh. but id suggest it may be very genre dependant
double drops meaning getting two records to drop at the same time. Different for each track but i found you can usually do it by starting after the first phrase. At which point, you can do all your EQ and Bassline switches. Double drops are just the beginning. Been experimenting with triple and quad drops with some success. Getting things in key is what really seals the deal.
also there are some tracks that have a shortened intro phrase so you can start deck B on the down of the 2nd phrase leading into the build. You can also start where ever you want. Careful not to bottom out tho! The two worst sounding things in a dnb set are out of key double drops and clanging/bottoming out.
The last mix I recorded, Antivirus, was big on this for me. I wasn’t trying to get all three tracks to fully break/drop at once, but I did use a lot of cue jumping to keep things rolling. I ended up with this shifting energy that really made it so you don’t really know what’s going on, which was perfect since the mix was about being sick. A big fan of that.
The biggest thing for me is restructuring songs with the cue points, which was completely new when I jumped to Traktor, as I’d come off of just using vinyl. I think that that’s the biggest possibility, the “live remix.” I’d only heard a few very talented people doing that with CDJs live, and Traktor’s beatgrids and seamless loops make it a LOT easier, therefore freeing up the rest of the brain to be creative.
the loop and cue point features are probably the most important advantages to me. The cue points are invaluable as they can be used for different types of “reminders”, and the loop is important because it allows me to alter the timing and length of a song to create more dynamic/cohesive mixes.
my other favourite feature is the browser which saves lot’s of time to focus on mixing.
Wow double drops sounds very cool, my favorite features are looping and making my mix as tight as possible, adv. delay to frz → next track is high on my list, and the beatmasher is due for a comeback in my sets, 3 deck mixing is tons of fun. Lately I have been watching dancetrippin.tv and learning lots of new ideas from there.
i’m confused with the double drop thing. can you give me an example?
what i meant was using beatjumps and cue points to have 2 records build up at the same time and have their breaks lined up. what i do all the time is having the first build up of a track lined up with the last build up of another track to create a very unique and interesting transition.
Track selection: I have very detailled playlist with everysub genre, which enables me to really find the perfect track to drive the mix where I want it to go
Tools like beatjump: Really great to have your musical phases in sync, so musical events in the tracks always happen when you want them too. By the way I also love having the filters on each channel (traktor is stil cheaper than a DJM-800 !)