Realistically, Consistently Mixing Songs of Differing BPMs?
Hey guys, quick question.
Does anyone have any resources on how to mix songs of different BPMs? I’ve seen this video:
and this video:
And while both are good, none of these techniques really seem realistic. If I’m playing live, the crowd is going to get really, really tired of these transitions after the 3rd time you use the echo freeze effect, or the “start-stop” idea in the first video. I’ve played a few highschool dances (sounds lame I know), and it’s really fun when you mix in trap/bigroom stuff with pop, however all three of these styles rarely have similar BPMs, so it’s not really possible to do a “normal” crossfade technique, which resulted in a show of almost nothing but “start-stop” and drop-switching. It was horrible
So, how does one smoothly transition between two differing BPMs, in a way that doesn’t irritate the crowd?
Honestly the second video has helped me a lot when I’m mixing through genres and different BPMs. Typically I start at low BPM like 80 or perhaps at 120 and just build from there. When I get to about 150-160 BPM I mix songs with 75-80 BPM and start all over again, but obviously this takes hours and not done in 20 minutes. I do this with tons of genres like for example merengue is around the same BPM as some trap/rap songs, then some hip hop songs mix well with cumbia and vice versa. I’m currently working on dropping songs in on the one and cut mixing but that takes more practice and can be used when you are making a bigger jump in BPM quickly.
My issue is, first, I don’t even use traktor, and also that video is basically “How to change BPMs by using the Echo Freeze effect”. I mean, one part it talks about halving the BPMs, which is neat I guess, but it doesn’t talk about how to go from 80BPM, to 140BPM.
some examples i use: You can mix a 120 bpm song with a 60 bpm song (etc).
Become a member of a dj pool and get some transitions edits.
other method is using the sync button with dj software and use a loop from the song your mixing in and loop the other song and slowly (or sometimes fast) increase or decrease the loops in bpm.
Get two of the same songs one slow version and the other a fast version easiest way to use a loop again with the incoming song and decrease or increase the bpm. easiest way is to use the sync.
But most i use is slowly increase and decrease bpm speed 80 to 90, 90 to 100 etc during the song increase or decrease the tempo. Using loops is the easiest way, and Keep the echo freeze as a last resort for fuck ups.
Or trick your software when a song is actually 75 bpm reanalyze the bpm with traktor for example with the 78 - 155 bpm range now it will double your speed to 150 and you can mix it easy with a faster song.
All by all its trial and error see what works for you.
Depends on experience. This would be considered quite an advanced trick as far as mixing is concerned, and depending on the tracks, there may be different ways to do this. The loop is handy, mix into a loop, then reduce/increase the pitch of the loop, play the crowd with it, when you get it to the pitch you want, loop out to 1st verse/hook.
Practice is good too. And then practice more, and when yer done, practice again.
This. Provided the tempo is within 4% or so, this is my go to technique. It can be tricky, but it is remarkably effective. Any tempo changes made after the mix are best done quickly - over 16 beats or less.
Seriouly…I must laugh when I read all the Posts and comments about Beatmatching and Sync-Buttons.
99% of the crowd not even got it when you beatmatch, you get them with the Track-Selection not with beatmatching.
To be honnest mostly we beatmatch and make proper mixes for yourself 'cause it is more than orgasmic when we made a perfect transition between an AC/DC Song and the newest #1 House Track… The most we can expect from some People in the crowd is that they positively minded think “Wow this guy is crazy mixing those different Music Styles” but what it means and which skills are behind, is something they haven’t a clue.
I allready had “Lazy-Gigs” where I thought “Tonight no mixing just playing 1 song after the other like DJs did back in the 60’s/70’s” Believe me or not, the athmosphere and the crowd were not worse than when I do a hell of a work mixing like crazy.
Realistically: like tempos should be grouped and large jumps should not be coming one track after another. If you absolutely need to mix, anyway.
I argue that if every single track in your programming is wildly different in tempo, trying to transition and mix them to begin with is not very smart. Let them play to fade out at the end of the file and start the next track from the intro. Bad, forced transitions sound a lot worse than no transition at all.
There are some interesting ways to do this: program your set in key, start the next track’s drum intro during the sustain tail from the last note of the track, fade out in places where there are no percussion, and so forth. Trying to force an on-tempo beatmixed transition in these situations will just frustrate you and sound amateur.
