Preface: Yes I searched and got no results, if there is something on this, please direct me there and delete this thread.
So I got a private event coming up and I got a request sheet with some 81 requests. Most are hip hop/top 40. You all know the deal.
So how do you mix hip hop and stuff? Is it phrasable? I know I can just slam most into a drop but I wanted to know if there are other methods I can use. I think the main issue will be the large variation in temp.
Hip Hop transitions happen much faster on most songs. If you can find songs on a DJ pool that have been edited with intro’s than you have no issues. To really nail Hip Hop transitions you need to count beats, mostly during the hook/chorus. Count your beats so you know how many beats happen during the hook. Cue your next song with an 8 bar intro. When you have 8 beats left in the chorus, lower the EQ on the playing track, hit play and slowy lower the volume so that when the 8 beats are up. Then 9th beat is actually the first beat of the next song.
Now not all songs you have will have 8 beat loops. So this may happen in 4 beats. You may need to sample a portion of the incoming track. I sometimes kill the low of the playing track and start hotcueing the first beat of the next track on cue and then slam it in after the hook is over.
To switch things up throughout the night. You can delay – freeze; back spins; you can use a vocal loop or sample and bring that in and keep it playing as just a vocal and then bring a new song in; use the turntable effect like you powered down at turntable; you can loop a word in the playing track then bring in a track; etc.
There’s a few ways to switch it up through out the night….but the standard way to mix hip hop is to count beats and blend 4-8 beats during a chorus and lead right into the next song. I normally count during the first hook, and then transition during the second hook.
I’m from the old school hip hop vinyl ways, hopefully I can help.
The first simple rule is start the night off with the slower bpm and build up the speed through out the night. A trick I like to do is when you wanna change energy is to throw a dubstep tune over a 70 bpm hip hop or drum and bass over 85 to 90 bpm hip hop. The fact you use software/Traktor is a massive bonus with hip hop, key lock lets you get away with huge tempo difference’s and using Ean’s echo freeze effect for easy transition from slow to fast really helps.
I don’t follow modern Hip Hop any more, but I’d guess most of the new stuff still follows the same structure. Usually 8, 16 or 32 beats before the vocal drops. Again using software will really help, as you can set up cue’s to mark out where there is or isn’t vocals and where the chorus or verse’s start or finish.
Most of the time I mix hip hop out of the chorus, for instance, deck a the chorus has just started, so at that point I start the intro of the next tune on deck b, most chorus’s are two loops, on the second loop of the chorus start to eq the tune on deck a out, done properly using the bass and mid eq you should just have the vocal of that tune left. Timed correctly at the end of the chorus of the tune on deck a, the first vocal of the tune on deck b should now start. Yet another bonus about software is the fact you can set up loops!
Personally with hip hop I don’t get to caught up with key mixing, clever eq work will help smooth over some key clash’s.
Check out my mix below where I start off from 70 bpm and finish round 130bpm, a few of the mix’s near the start are a good example of what I tried to explain above, plus there’s many other different types of transitions you might wanna try.
I find looping very useful in mixing in and out of hip songs, usually 4 or 8 bar loops of the chorus that everyone in the crowd knows. Typically in hop top most people know the intro first chorus and first verse, so that’s about 1 - 1:45 ish, of each song.
I like to mash songs that are 65-75 bpm with electro and baltimore club tracks that you can bump up to 132bpm it can be a nice transition to get the crowd going.
check out mix crate.com people post all kinds of mixes up there.
it’s not so different from mixing dance music. most hiphop tunes tend to have the last couple bars where the vocal cuts out and it’s just the beat so you can transition out similar to how you would a dance tune.
one main difference is that fast cut transitions that utilize scratching,delay or reverb are more prevalent in hiphop mixing compared to dance mixes which tend to emphasize the longer transitions that utilize eqing and filters for extended blends.
Exactly! There’s obviously types of transitions that suit Hip Hop well, but at the end of the day mixing is just mixing. A good friend of mine is a brilliant Tech house dj who wants me to show him how to mix Hip Hop. Considering what he can already do with other genre’s I think he should be able to jump straight on it? but I guess it’s a comfort zone thing. Which why I’ve always believed that playing/messing around with many types of genres will really help broaden a dj’s mixing skills.
I guess I’m lucky as I’m very passionate about most types of music
mixing hip-hop is a lot harder than mixing house/techno just for the fact that a lot of it isnt as dj friendly, so your transitions a lot of times are very short or non-existant.
I havent recorded a mix in a while, but here’s an older one