Hardest genre's to mix...Your thoughts?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Hardest genre’s to mix…Your thoughts?

I got my roots DJ’ing progressive house at a time when CDJ’s had just been introduced, but Vinyl was still the industry standard, so beatmatching and riding the pitch were essential.

At the time, I used to think any kind of electronic music was the hardest to mix. With progressive it was usually about having the most subtle, cleanest sounding mixes which usually meant you were riding the pitch fader for a long time.

One day I met a guy who DJ’ed hip hop and R&B and he told me that Urban music was the hardest since you usually don’t get a predictable 4/4 time signature. Even urban songs with similar BPM’s have different types of breakbeats, or half beats, etc. The other factor was that you often don’t get a 8 bar intro with just the beat as you would in a lot of progressive songs. While I could relate to what he was saying, I really didn’t think it was that hard until I successfully made the switch from “electronic” music to “commercial” music.

These days, we might have the “sync” in Traktor, but I still think it’s harder because you still don’t get the intro (although I subscribe to an MP3 pool that creates songs with intros) and there’s a lot of overlapping melodies, so it really helps to be familiar with the music or even the key.

A lot of electronic music with 4/4 time signatures tend to be very minimal, or “rhythmic” rather, so it’s easy to cross-genre mix between progressive, techno, tech-house, funky house etc. I remember going to friends places and having them pull out record crates saying “this is the techno, and this is the house” and even though I wasn’t familiar with the tracks, I could throw them all together. The more minimal, the better. For eg 4 deck mixing is a lot easier with minimal electronic genre’s then hip hop, where I think it’s virtually impossible. The first time I DJ’d drum n bass at a friends place, I was amazed with how easy it was, especially once I got the counts down.

With popular music, it was like I had to learn to DJ all over again.

Anyone have a similar experience?

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Hip-hop is definitely the hardest for me to mix. I haven’t practiced much with it but I am starting to and it can be difficult. I don’t sync with hip hop because the phase meter doesn’t tell you shit even when you try and grid properly. Usually I just do it all by ear. I definitely need to increase my library and practice mixing hip hop more.

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I think that regardless of genre, if you’ve been DJing for a bit and know your stuff when it comes to mixing, it isn’t terribly hard to mix pretty much any genre mediocrely… However it takes a lot of dedication, practice and knowledge of the genre and your music to mix it really well.

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^^^^ I make him right…

Said similar loads of times when mates ask me to do a set out of my chosen genre.. it will sound ok and half competent but it wont be outstanding

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Then again lots would argue that when i mix my chosen genre it aint outstanding and far from competent :eek:

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I think hip-hop and r-n-b are pretty hard to mix well, especially not being able to scratch at all.:wink:

scamo

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Think thats hard,… try Funk..

Listen to this… but to really appreciate how hard he is workin’ this, you need to ID and go and listen to the unadulterated un mixed choons, and ill guarantee you’ll be blown away
http://www.thewordisbond.com/archives/9875

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I forgot about that. Funk, Disco, or any genre that’s not quantized is really hard, because you can’t rely on sync’ing, at even beatmatching is harder because it’s usually a real drummer playing the beat.

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Anything with live drummers where the DJ does any blending at all. So…funk, soul, r&b, some 80s, etc..

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Disco edits where they loop a rhythm part can be maddening. They give you the illusion that there is a steady tempo and you can beat match, then the loop ends with a fill or something and comes back a fraction of a second off throwing off the whole mix. At least with a pure live drummer funk track, you know its going to be drifting all over the place and you’re either going to get in and out quick or do juggling/cuepoint stuff.

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grindcore, hardcore… only because its so hard to listen to a whole track cause that music is disgusting LOL. everything is pretty easy after a little practice, but it is always easier if you love what your playing.

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yup… anything with a live drummer is a bitch to mix. Also some tracks where the backing track is an actual dj rocking doubles… that can be a bitch too.

anything with a 4/4 beat is retarded easy to beatmatch even without headphone and on a traditional vinyl setup with no dvs

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I’ve only had problems with disco/funk, when it was my first time. All you have to do is ride the pitch. This might be a generational gap thing though. For guys who came up on turntables (like myself), that was a normal every gig thing. Hell… anyone who remembers EDM from the late 80’s to early 90’s knows that analogue drum machines even had a little drift to the sequencing. I can see how if your not used to it, it can seem to be out of left field… especially if you heavily use sync.

What I REALLY find challenging to mix is rock. I just have NO clue how to do it, or how you can make it sound good. That being said, I would never WANT to do it either. lol.

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  • R&B, ‘Urban’ and hiphop HAS got a predictable 4/4 structure (normal caveats apply)
  • to answer the question;
  1. live drummers playing breakbeats
  2. live drummers playing 4 on the floor
  3. quantised breakbeats
  4. everything else
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Anything with more than 12% kittens and I’m hopeless. It’s becoming more of a problem as pretty much everything has kittens in it thes days.

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ambient, alot of electronica and anything not in 4/4 time

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And that is what separates the expert from the novice DJ.

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Jazz

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Touche

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That was the first thing I thought.