I was reading this article (interview) with Speedy J about DJing “in parts” and it got me thinking. How many of us (you) DJ like this?
How many of you actually make use of the 4 decks and if you use them, how do you use them? (as loop players, playlist queues, effects, samples?)
Im relatively new to the world of Digital DJing and cotrollerism. The more I learn the more I realize the potential for new and amazing things. Not to mention…beginning to realize I can start doing things I’ve wanted to do for years very easily and very controlled.
For instance…if a mix in my head has an uninterrupted kick drum but the music limits me in this area I can always grab a track with a clean isolated kick I can loop (or for that matter create a custom taylored kick loop in Ableton, Reason, etc to import) on a 3rd deck while cutting the bass on deck A, mixing into deck B before that kick drops to create a seamless flow…Im rambling I know but maybe you’ll get the idea.
Back on topic. Im still learning to break bad habits of old limitations. I’ve not really got the point that my whole mixing style can change now. I’ve never really thought of “DJing” with many several part. I mean…I make sounds in my head like this but the physical medium at my disposal never really made it an easy possibility. This will be a learning experience for me. However, I think I will begin to do this much more (DJ in parts). We all have tracks that we’ve thought “mmmmmm…goooood shit…WAIT…FUCK…why did they have to go and screw it up with that vocal/cheesy riff/annoying synth part/long drawn out uneventful part/etc!!!” Now we can usually still use the parts that strike us.
Do many of you DJ mostly in just parts? Any mixes available as a demo of this?
Ha! I read the same article recently and then it hit me! I have gigs of loops that I use for working on tunes and edits so why not just DJ with them in Ableton? It got me all excited about DJing once again.
Just put my order in for an APC40, UC 33e and a BCR2000 and I just can’t wait! I’ll be able to build tracks up as I see fit to fit the night and be able to extend a grove on and just have fun by adding new bass lines and pads and so on.
A lot of pre-production has gone into it, but I think it will be worth it once I get it all up and running.
I always think like I’m playing in parts, layering samples and loops is what I want to be doing, but I always feel I’m missing out in not playing the track itself and letting the Producer’s highs and lows move things along.
Essentially that’s “parts”, just long parts that are never looped. When you’re playing wiht Minimal tracks they can essentially be broken down to a series of loops and layered, fine, but a lush House track with vocals, verses, chorus, hook, dropdown and rebuild, how are you going to present that as a “part”?
This “deconstruct the track” stuff seems to only work if your tracks are shit.
It depends though. A lot of tracks coming out now a days are just tools for the club/dance floor.
Just a nice moving house groove with lots of percussion work, throbbing bassline that moves the crowd, and a lead that just keeps building and building with EFX and so on until the whole track comes to a head and just goes off. In that case why not just use the parts and then you can extend certain parts and tease the crowd.
But you can do this with deep house music, would take more work but you still can. Just all comes down to pre-production. The key is to get all the parts ‘dry’, and then you can set up FX on the returns and send certain channels to them. If you have just a basic pad it’s going to sound dull, but if you double it, pan them hard left/right and send them to a Reverb Return with a soft touch of chorus and a filter on it you’ll have a lush sounding riff that just sounds huge. Just one example.
I tend to think of the full track as the backbone of the performance, definitely letting the producer’s peaks and valleys guide the direction of the flow. But the beauty of digital djing is that when I hear something in the track that starts leading my mind down a tangent, I can just capitalize on it, and shift gears into the parts/layers mentality. Often for me this happens in transitional sections of the main track. A peak finishes and a drum break starts. That break reminds me of some other percussion loop in the library, I pull that in and then grab an acapella line. Take a clean fat kick loop from the next back bone track and use it to build the energy. Bring the new track in fully, fading the drum break, but still teasing out the acapella, then just let the new track take over the flow. Rinse and repeat.
I think the key to using layers of short loops is to stay really conscious of the momentum (or lack therof) as time passes. If you don’t keep up the changes, dropping parts, bringing in new parts, it can get stale fast.
That’s what I do when I play with Traktor, know exactly what you’re talking about. Use loops to compliment the main tracks, not take over the set, and the let the tracks do their thing.
I have thought alot about re-routing ableton into traktor and using midi sync, but frankly I am doing so many other things musically and am so occupied at the minute (producing, getting gigs, full time studying electrical engineering, working a part time job) that I probably won’t implement anything like this for at least a year. Also there is going to be a big learning curve for me with this. I feel like it will take me 2-6 months of solid effort (2 hours daily maybe) to be really tapping the potential of this parts based setup, but yea one day when I have more supportive hardware (xone 1d’s or maybe maschine) I will definitely be upping my setup to this level. Right now next project is incorporating smart mixing into my rig, which makes the dj’ing with parts really on a step or 2 away. However I am going to need a 2nd monitor for this (see portable 8" monitor), so that I have the ability to do this.
As for now when i get really into it I feel like using 4 decks and grabbing samples of music is a good start to that potential, then using fx to bend samples (can’t wait for 4 fx units in traktor).
Not sure if maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I disagree, when using rich and full tracks I like to let my parts (loops) complement the builds and sections. So I am not restructuring the energy of the song, maybe just adding in a twist during a breakdown (we all know of breakdowns and those 7 min tracks that can get boring at points) to keep it interesting. Using pieces to build onto a track gives it a more interesting feeling (live and fresh) and can amplify the energy of the track.
well its just a question of how deep you want to dive in terms of layering. i guess just playing one song after another is 1 layer, mixing 2 tracks is two layers, and DJing from the original parts is yet more layers, FX is another layer etc.
Generally the more layers you add the further you can move away from the original. This of course gives you more expressibility as a musician, but also means the crowd needs to be up for songs that are essentially created on the spot. The danger is to get lost in the music creation and no longer interacting with the crowd. On the plus side if you do keep the crowd in mind, you can interact on a whole new level.
That’s an album, dude, called “The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld”, unless you mean the track from the “huge evergrowing..” CD single on Big Life:
I think you’re onto something crucial here…I’d say “with great power comes great responsibility.” If you’re going to throw out the producer’s original plan for how a track progresses, you should be prepared to add that dynamism in yourself (somehow).
In the mashup space, sometimes you can get away with the “hey I never thought of that” factor, but the really great mashups have buildup, choruses, refrains, breakdows, etc, in their own right. I’m like a fetus when it comes to arranging, so I tend to go with producers’ original intentions for now. YMMV, and that’s what practice is for.
That is the best album I have ever heard, btw, bar none. Beatles, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, whatever. Alex Patterson for eardrum emperor 2009 and beyond, yo.
i have it on dusty old cd somewhere , i know the version you mean but the original is over an hour long. There is a Goldie track as well like that “mother”
The album is called “the orb’s adventures beyond the ultraworld” c. 1991 highly recommended, one of my first cd’s actually Fav track off that is “earth:gaia”
sometimes i’ll use the build up of one track and drop into a different track which can either sound great or terrible depending on the song choice/combination, but it’s cool to experiment with because when it works it works well.
i’ll also loop a section of the track i am mixing out of to extend the length of that track for as long as I want that part to play in the track that I am mixing in. This can be good for keeping just the beat/drums playing from the last track into the new track to create a longer transition.
