I visit this site all the time and it has helped me immensely with my skills and confidence as a DJ. This being my first post, I wanted to discuss something that I feel is an important observation that myself and other DJ friends have made throughout numerous gigs.
I have read threads on this website regarding issues of transitioning seamlessly from say a 90 BPM song to a 125 BPM song. To this day, I still have trouble conquering such a mix and feel discouraged when I cannot do so. However, the one thing that eases my pain is seeing the crowd continue to dance because the 125 BPM song is FILTHY HOT! I then began to notice at certain gigs, that the crowd didn’t seem to care if the mix was perfect, all they were concerned about was if the song was hot and kept them dancing. The other night I was having a pretty solid session going at around 100-110 BPM when a lady came up to the booth and requested “Suavemente” by Elvis Crespo. I began desperately searching my hard drive for a “Suavemente” remix of some sort that was around 100-110 BPM but could only find the original (which runs about 124 BPM). Reluctantly, I made a pretty standard crossfade transition and was shocked to see the dancefloor BUM RUSHED. This kind of thing continued all night with pretty weak transitions from BPM’s all over the board, but the dancefloor was completely out of control. I mixed normally when I could but when a request would throw off my groove, the dancefloor failed to suffer.
In Chicago, where I hail from, there is a place called “Liar’s Club.” The DJ who spins there sometimes does not demonstrate much skill with beat or tonal matching but his song selection is RIDICULOUS. He was simply crossfading into “B’52’s” to “Beastie Boys” to “Cascada” to “Dr. Dre” and the crowd remained EPIC. It seemed like he just read the minds of everyone in the place. Granted the dude spins there all the time and probably knows the crowd but STILL, when I went there for the first time it was unreal. I was dancing up a storm with mad bitties (babes) cause every song just KILLED IT.
Therefore, I think I came to a pretty solid conclusion. If people are coming to see DJ OB (my DJ name by the way) HOUSE AND ELECTRO SET THAT WILL RIP FACES OFF!!!..I’ll 99.9% be beat and tonal matching the entire night because that crowd will (hopefully) appreciate the craft of mixing. However if people are coming to see DJ OB: PLAYING DA HOTTEST JAMS FROM THE 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and TODAY!! DOLLAR FIREHOUSE ENERGY BOMBS!!..I feel like it’s totally acceptable to crossfade a few tempo changing requests in there, as long as the party keeps on hoppin. Granted mixing flawlessly is a HELL of a lot more fun than crossfading (obviously), I still feel a DJ shouldn’t be judged solely on his or her ability to transition. Now maybe I’m just not practicing hard enough or perhaps I’m being lazy, but without great tunes being eatin up a dance hungry crowd, who cares if my mix was ABSURDLY SICK? I don’t see any bodies on the dancefloor.
Hey buddy welcome to the crew. Some interesting thoughts there i actually think you answered your own question in a way. From my crew’s perspective we definitely try and emphasise smooth transitions, demonstrating some real skills behind the decks as well as primo song selection, but then again sometimes the crowd don’t give a shit as long as tunes keep banging! As you say using different tempos/styles can be a bit of a challenge, but i don’t think this can be used as a free pass to “trainwreck” mixing. There are lots of guys on here that experience with this sorta thing that can offer some advice to some degree or other. When i jump out from behind the decks and let the other lads at it i definitely grind my teeth when i hear a shocker of a mix, but i think the general public may not be so critical of this (maybe cos they’re drunk, lol)
We have a young guy with us who spins dubstep, breaks and prog usually in the same set and his transitions aren’t the best, but then again his song pics are usually awesome so we don’t give him too much shit about it.
I think with house/trance etc its pretty much expected that the mixing should be pretty much spot on, especially with dj softwares etc these days, whereas with mixed genres/tempos there maybe a bit more slack given. nice post and have fun round here mate.
In the end, I think, the best transitions, effects and tricks won’t make up for shitty songs, and I think that’s kind of universal. The crowd will dictate the need for those techniques, but if you can’t play songs that hold their asses on that floor then it won’t matter what you do.
I think Jester’s right, though. I think you answered your own question.
I think that if youre going to jump around with genres you should still make an effort to make the transition as enjoyable as possible. Smooth transitions don’t always need to happen (all my hard house DJ’s know about the rapid cuts) This weekend I did an electro house set in NYC and I did nothing but very long and subtle mixes using every trick Ive learned and the crowd loved it! (Im getting seriously addicted to having a night club full of people cheer for me after a set lol). Anyway after that during the same night I did a Hardstyle battle at an outlaw. That was nothing but rapid cuts and scratches and beat juggling. Different techniques for different genres. So I suppose you dont have to bore/limit yourself to generic crossfade action.
I think having a totally seamless transition between radically different bpm’s is always gonna be a challenge..
This thread is similar to one posted a while back, and I have to say here, what I said there… The most important thing you do is choose what record to put on, not how you mix it (hideous trainwrecks aside).
Back on the transitions topic… filters, effects, loops, cuts, scratches, brakes are all your friends when mixing different tempos.. just to name a few!
it’s more about having both and more. you’re not gonna get very far if you can only do one or the other.
not only that, talent and skill behind the decks is only half the battle. work ethic/perseverance, self promotion and networking are also vital to succeed.
Don’t forget about the good old fashioned radio-dj style fade. You don’t have to trainwreck or rely on fx to make two very different tempos transition well - just work your levels and make it quick. Trainwreck= extended period of out of sync tempos. But quickly fading one tempo out (in the right section of the song) while dropping the first beat of the new track with full volume on the beat of the quickly fading track - that’s a tried and true technique that is easy on the ears and can get you rolling onto any number of tempos. The key is the short fade, just think radio edit style.
i think the bulk of importance should be placed on song selection. people come to dance to music, not transitions. the majority of the time they’re dancing because they like the tune, if they preferred the transitions more wouldn’t they only be dancing 30s-2min at a time? just a theory.
that said i am a fan of seamless transitions no matter what you’re playing. there’s always a way to get from one bpm the other. be creative!
well yeah ofcourse the other things do come secondary to good track selection but I don’t think they should be overshadowed by it.
We all know the truth is most the audience is not paying attention to the subtleties of dj technique, they’re paying more attention to themselves and their friends dancing and having a good time to the music.. and that’s cool i love it.
but if you want to be a real competitor I think it’s important to treat the mixing technique with just as much care as you would with your track selection. In this day and age you need as much of a competitive edge a you can get, it as after all an increasingly over-saturated market.
DJs who play for general audiences get jobs, DJs who play for DJs get careers. Noones gonna pay out their butt to see DJ Trainwreck play at a stadium, but you can find him happily rocking crowds at top40 bars. pretty standard.
have to agree with whats been said here, mixing and technique is important but its all about tune selection.
With the whole ressession thing, the club scene here has taken a bit of a beating and the majority of gigs i’ve been playing recently are in what we refer to as Student Clubs, where its just a huge mix of everything that is expected to be played. These days a lot of Hip Hop & R&B along with a good dose of whatever is in the charts, few guitar or indie numbers, couple of house or dance songs again whatever has been in the charts, and a pile of 70/80/90 cheese, so its all different BPS’s, styles and feels throughout the night.
Within the night I always pay attention to the transitions, beatmatching where possible (and you do get some really good and impressed looks when you do some unusual beatmatch from two wildly different genres and pull it off) and using cuts or natural parts of the song to make relitivly smooth changes where possible.
But sometimes you can’t help but just crossfade over and drop in the next tune as the last fades out, but quite often these can be some of the biggest drops. With beatmatching or other fancy mixing, there is a window of maybe 20 or 30 seconds where the song begins to come in and different people recognise it at different points. When you just fade over and drop something in that has an instantly recognisable first note and beat everyone clicks at once, there’s kind of a reinforcing thing where their excitment infects other people and everyone lifts, and the cheer and bump in atmosphere you get can be huge.
Things like Yeah! by Usher or The Way I Are by Timbaland which are both a bit older now but still drop huge, or maybe Mr Brightside, or Sex on Fire or Fans if you’re into guitar stuff, all have such unique first notes that everyone knows straight away. Or things like Want you back by Jackson 5 etc etc.
(lol yeah i know all you EDM guys will be shaking your heads but thats what i’ve been playing (and making good money! ) recently so its whats in my head just now! I know there are also plenty of house and dance tracks where during the initial beat while your mixing some wee bass line or vocal sample will happen that has the same effect and everyone will click to the song at once and have a similar reaction )
One thing that I think is really key is your energy level as the DJ. When you think about it the DJ completely changes the atmosphere of the place. Just by a DJ’s presence people feel like this is going to be a unique party. It’s that difference between just having an iPod to play music. Your presence as the DJ instantly elevates the status of a place/ or setting.
Lots of good insight here. Something else to keep in mind is that it’s quite possible to have a clean mix between two tracks of entirely different tempos…and you don’t always need to match the tempos of the two songs. You can find a break in a song without a clear beat and loop that, you can make a quick cut with a backspin or baby scratch, etc.
For example, say I’m playing “Make Her Say” by Kid Cudi, a hip hop track at like 90 bpm, and I want to bring in “Hot 'N Cold” by Katy Perry, which sits at 132 bpm. I might loop the first word of “Hot 'N Cold” (“you”), filter it, and bring it in at 90 bpm during the break after one of the verses in Make Her Say, slowly speeding both tracks up simultaneously while slowly unfiltering Hot N Cold. If I time it right, when the break of Make Her Say ends, I will have sped up the track to Hot N Cold’s tempo and pretty much completely unfiltered it. Then I can end the loop and quickly cut over to Make Her Say, maybe with a scratch or backspin or something if it feels right. All with the VCI-100 by the way.
That technique has the advantage of creating a clean mix and capitalizing on the crowd’s epic reaction to that first word, “you”, which is very recognizable! I’ve used this with Hot N Cold before and it works wonders. People go crazy! And you can do similar things with pretty much any track the crowd knows really well.
So you see, you don’t have to sacrifice clean mixes for playing tracks the crowd wants to hear!
The point the OP was making here, was how tune selection kept his crowd up, with other things coming secondary.
) while dropping the first beat of the new track with full volume on the beat of the quickly fading track - that’s a tried and true technique that is easy on the ears and can get you rolling onto any number of tempos. The key is the short fade, just think radio edit style.
) recently so its whats in my head just now! I know there are also plenty of house and dance tracks where during the initial beat while your mixing some wee bass line or vocal sample will happen that has the same effect and everyone will click to the song at once and have a similar reaction