This is my first post on this forum, tried searching for something similar but got nothing.
Anyway,I’m trying to get around this issue where some songs I play have these “dead zones” with basically no sound/energy and no beat to keep the crowd in the groove. I’m experimenting with lots of things but I got something on my mind I wanna try and I need someone’s help. I wanna find,or buy,or even build a remix set with a few basic elements like a simple 4 to the floor kick, some snares and rhythmic elements,some sidechained white noise I can fit into most songs’ dead zones. Now obviously I can’t get a one-for-all remix set but I could maybe get a few arranged by key or something similar. Also keep in mind I’m currently using an s4 with one remix deck set up,so that is only 4 slots without some extra mapping (Looking to upgrade my setup with an f1,but I got a feeling mk2 is gonna be coming out). So, any suggestions, should I just throw something together from a few songs and make white noise in a DAW? There must be simple remix sets out there that fit my purpose,I just suck at finding them.
You want to learn about phrasing. Its one of the very basics of DJing. Learning what parts of two tracks go together so that when a dead spot happens on one track, the other track already is carrying the groove with its beat.
That doesn’t always work, but…yeah…that’d be my suggestion.
I’ve used remix decks and Maschine (not at the same time) to do it, but it’s often more successful to just loop a minimal-ish section of the next or previous track.
To the OP…if you have access to a DAW, just make them. 808 and 909 kits fit in with a LOT of stuff. If you want it to fit better, don’t have too much bass in the kick(s). Don’t be afraid of snare/hat grooves (e.g., not completely straight) but be careful with them.
And don’t do sidechained white noise. Apart from it being one of the most annoying sounds in modern music, if it’s sidechained to something that’s not actually playing, it’ll just sound wrong.
There are a lot of tracks that fade almost to silence in an early breakdown after significant melodic content. If you want to avoid that, there are a lot of things you can do: doubles, hot cues, loops, remix decks, drum machines, teasing in another track…literally anything.
But starting a song 4 minutes early and forcing it there is not one of them, both tracks will have thick sections playing over each other, which almost always sounds bad. Or you wind up with those stupid “intro-drop-intro-drop-intro-drop-intro-ginally let a song play to the breakdown-glitch it out-new DJ” sets that drive people like me to sneak backstage and start unplugging things.
Add drums from basically anywhere or just don’t play that track. Songs will tell you how they want to be mixed…you can adjust it for a lot of reasons…but pushing it that far is a mistake.
If you’ve got S4 the easiest way to eliminate dead zones in a track is to skip over them with cues. If it’s an important part, it’s usually repeated later on with full rhythmic accompaniment. Drop a cue there and hit that when the dead part starts, then go back to the earlier part of the track (once again with a cue). Make sure your grid is accurate. Record your edit in S4 and use that during the night. As a working club DJ I’ve got literally hundreds of these little quick edits - which along with my own remixes comprise most of my night.
There is no need for a DAW. Traktor makes this whole process super easy right in S4.
The other way (and I use this too during the night) is to run beat loops in decks 3&4 synced to the live track. I bring them in and out as needed - often as transitions between tracks. Traktor provides a bunch of these to choose from right in S4, but the ones I use most are recorded and looped from existing tracks.
Most of the time, I want to keep those in - they tend to build to a nice peak… the crowds seem to dig them just fine, but maybe it depends on the style.
^^ I do this live but it’s the same idea. If you don’t care for the pacing of a track, just prepare it with a ton of cue points and jump around between them when you play it!
That really depends on the track…it’s super-easy for it to just sound wrong.
It’s over pretty quick, so people likely don’t notice…but if I’m familiar with the song, it bugs me.
I’d rather run some drums under it or just not play that track.
If you’re wondering why I keep bemoaning modern techniques and questioning why I ever stopped playing vinyl…apart from keylock and sync (so I can be lazy), so am I.
I hear you dude, im never happy with either side of the digital / analog divide.
On a side note, I bought a very cheap toolroom EDM comp, which was about 100 tracks for I think ten bucks. Its not my style by any means, but I was just interested in how its mixed. Only 5 tracks actually made it into my library though.
Oh my god, EDM is DJing on easy mode. The buildups, drops, sweeps and drama in the track give you nearly unlimited transition spots, every track is the same tempo with very little swing.
The fact that EDM DJs cant even mix this simple music without sync and quantise is mindblowing.
Im pretty confident I could teach a complete beginner using these tools to fool an EDM crowd within a day if they were already a fan of the music.
Im not sure this is any worse than the candy raver stuff back in the day tbh.
Yeah…there’s a reason their sets are all the same. There’s no soul in any of the tracks and the only thing that matters is that “sick drop, bro” moment every 4 minutes or so.
It’s everything that went wrong with epic trance on stupid pills.
As for the analog/digital divide…I’m firmly on the side that digital is technically and mathematically superior. Not equal, superior. But either done well can sound amazing. As for what I want to play on…I think I’ve changed my mind 4 times in the last week as to whether I want to build a console for my 1200s and buy an A10 or sell them. And, I keep wanting to plug my Maschine in and play with it when I DJ, but I just keep having too much fun without it.
This was taught to me by a pro many years ago…Tips for good mixing.
-Use songs with drum machines that work with eachother.
-Try to use the key as a guideline for your mixing.
-Use loops to make your transitions longer (not applicable if you are making cuts)
