Mixing help!!
hey guys,
ive started to dj for about 2 months now, been into the remix decks and all that, only thing is.
when i’m not playing with my s4 or s8 which dont belong to me personally, but when i use my 2 deck mixer
everytime i take a track out, it sounds so pale when theres just the 1 track playing. how do you guys fix this? do i
take it out too quickly or should i EQ it out? greetings
It is good to use EQ’s, but be warned, don’t over do your EQ’s by throwing in effects every second just so that you feel like your doing something. If you want your mixes to feel more alive then transitioning songs more often would be a good way to go, also changing the drop of a song to give the audience a nice surprise is a good way to keep energy in the mix. 
It’s natural if you have two songs playing together for it to sound louder simply because there is more content.
Typically you can smooth things out by removing the bass with EQ on one track, then adding it when you want that track to take over. This is why most controllers will also have a “gain” knob, allowing you to boost your solo track a few dbs to make up for the volume you lost by mixing out of the other track. However, it comes down to practice. It’s not an exact science, many DJs prefer to EQ differently and it becomes part of your sound.. – That said, this is typically how you fix it, just be careful to stay out of the red!
If that still doesn’t fix it, and some tracks sound “dull” to you, most likely it is the track’s quality. A track in 192kbps will lack the detail that a 270, or 320kbps track. When DJing try to ensure you have 320kbps tracks. The last thing you want to do is step into a club with your recent banger only for it to sound terrible coming out of the club system! You can find this info using iTunes or most media players, but be careful to double check for yourself as well – some people tend to re-render or try to make a 320 track from a 192, so you really should listen critically to be sure its truly high quality.. especially if you are downloading from the net!
Sounds like a few things at play here.
Choose better tracks 
Choose better mixpoints, ideally you want to keep the flow going while changing basslines or dropping into a breakdown.
Practice fading in the tracks with the bass down and then swapping the bass lines at the drop while fading the old tracks fader or gains down a few notches at the same time. This will keep the volumes at minimal differences during the mix and you will lose less perceived energy and loudness between tracks.
Practice makes perfect, and being able to confidently control 2 decks properly can be much harder than controlling 5/6/7 loop decks where you can pull elements out whenever it suits - you really need to know every track well enough to pop things in and out at the right time.
[QUOTE]It’s natural if you have two songs playing together for it to sound louder simply because there is more content.
[/QUOTE]
Not necessarily louder, but certainly more “complex”
beside the good advices above my comment , i would suggest you to :
1- Choose the perfect track that can fit together , How can you do that? Simply use your ears and mix harmonically , using whatever your music knowledge or a software ( mixed in key for example) to set Keys for each of your songs , but don’t trust it , it can be wrong..
2- Cue points are mostly the important things here , so you can have a cue point on each variation of the track ( Hi-hat in , claps out , Breakdown , Etc…) and use it to make a transition between the 2 tracks , you can have an idea by watching this video by ean Golden.
3- Your tracks SHOULD be at 320kbps.
4- Don’t over use Effects. 
stay away from mixed in key or even worrying about what key the music is in…
hate that advice for new DJs…
Depends on the style you’re going for, but the guy who helped me learn how to mix techno and house really well told me to never be afraid to ride one track out while the other is playing.
A new DJ shouldn’t be worrying about bitrates, harmonic mixing, key, etc.
This seems to be an issue of how basic transitions work, to answer this query, I would say, choose your genre, play with tracks in this genre. There isn’t a one size fits all response to this. The DJ who plays it, will have an idea of how it sounds, and what it needs! Understand your equipment, play with the eq, play with different mix patterns, crossfader, see how different volumes, and EQ’s make tracks sound, especially when mixing in and out, when you know these things, then you will be able to figure out why a mix out sounds ‘pale’.
Harmonic mixing is a pretty advanced technique, which really should only be considered by DJ’s who want to push their mix further, who are already competent in mixing, use of EQ, and also competent overall DJ’s. Bitrates, as much as they may be important in a ‘live’ setting, aren’t worth worrying about at this stage unless you play digital media already to a live audience. Think what you need to concentrate on is getting your timing, EQ, and crossfading sorted, (not even selection is important at this stage) and that’s not something that can be told, and I applaud the efforts made on this thread.
You really need to mess around, find your sound, and practice like a mad thing. 2 months is infancy in the DJ world, and if you are trying to run before you are crawling, you will put yourself off the idea before you even start. Look at the simple stuff, beatmatching, basic EQ, pitch, timing, filters, (all mixer specific stuff) see how the sound reacts, then progress.
Because of the change in mixer, an apples-to-apples comparison may prove difficult.
What is the 2 deck mixer? How do you connect to that mixer from the laptop? With such a stark difference, it is likely that the combined output from the S4/S8 is significantly higher than the two deck mixer.
While mp3 bitrate can have some effect on the final perception of loudness and content…at bitrates above 192kbps there is not enough difference to account for what the OP is describing.
Pay attention to the master channel level. Try to keep that consistent as you are mixing multiple tracks together at the same time. The Ean Golden video covering 5 transitions is a reasonable place to start.
Truth.
I’ve got mad flack for that over the years…
I think the “key” thing really depends on the new DJ. I had been composing and producing for 25 years before I started DJing, so harmonic mixing was a natural for me - and any DJ who has a Music Theory foundation has the knowledge to worry about it early. However, a good DJ doesn’t have to have any kind of music background, and when starting out, harmonic mixing is just one more thing that is on the long list of things to learn - and it’s one of the things that I agree, is less important than knowing how to identify the beat, phrases, etc.
You never know until you mix the two songs together. I think people that use the MIK mindset are limiting themselves and you miss out on probably some good combinations of tracks you would never try because your software told you they weren’t compatible. Your ears will tell you what’s good and what’s bad.
this is just like my opinion, man… (but I stand by it…waaaaaaaaaaay too much reliance on software instead of just playing the goddamn tracks!)
personally , i use MIK but i don’t trust it or respect the camelot system , i just want to have an idea in which key the track is on.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t mention software, I was just talking about harmonic mixing. Harmonic mixing, if you understand the theory, is brilliant stuff.
there would only be a few people that cared about mixing in key if it wasn’t for the software.
(as someone that was in concert band, jazz band and marching band for the better part of tens years (plus DJing for the last 25) I completely understand the theory. I wouldn’t call it “brilliant” I would call it a natural progression for some.)
I just meant it SOUNDS brilliant (at least to me personally). Some agree, others don’t, that’s the joy of variety.
i have actually been thinking of putting a mix together of songs that are all out of key, just because you can.