So i recently just bought a s2 & macbook pro, some nice headphones 3 days ago.
Been playing around with it i love it, i found two songs both progressive trance songs. I enjoy and start to try and mix them together. It sounds okay, wondering what i need to make it sound excellent.
When mixing two songs, you want the same genre correct? Like two progressive trance songs not 1 song Electro house the other trance.
I match bpms and select the tracks i like. I Start one track, then find a good spot to bring in the other track. Are you suppose to play both tracks at the same time? It sounds pretty bad when two songs playing at the same time, so i play one song for like 8 minutes then slide the slider to the other track. I’m not sure if thats mixing songs. Not the best transitions like I’ve heard in person.
So i download a accapella and decide to play that ontop of the track thats playing. Not sure if I’m mixing correctly. Any tips help, I’ve watched youtube videos but they have a lot of extra midi controllers with they’re s2.
Im just using s2 & downloading songs that are same genre and playing one, then stop it, play the other song. Any guidance helps. Heres my first track, i want it a lot better. I’m not dancing to my song, I’m pretty sure nobody else is either lol.
You need to understand music phrasing also, and how bars/measures work. You always need to start your second track’s first beat on the first beat of the playing track’s measure. You will notice that transitions and new elements happen usually every 32 beats, or little things come in or go out at 16 or 8 beats. So when you have these beats lined up with your 2 tracks things will always drop out/come in together.
when you have 2 tunes playing at same time lower the bass on the one coming in, after 4/8 bars drop the bass from outgoing track and bring in the bass of the previously bass-less track. that can help
for an extra trick drop the bass 1 beat before a down-beat (first beat of a bar) before bringing the next tracks bass in
Alright thank you. Both helpful tips.
My friend was trying to explain the bars also. I guess i need to learn those better. I just bring in the song whenever i feel like. Usually when vocals are in, i bring a nice beat to play ontop of the vocals. Sometimes it sounds okay other times is not good at all. I need to learn those bars you’re talking about.
I just tried to make a better blend of two songs last night i spent an hour trying to learn and make something good . Check my signature listen to Maxwell House if you got time let me know your thoughts on it. If it sucks, if its horrible or what i need to work on. The transitions could be a lot better.
Open up the S2 instructions.
They take you through the act of mixing two songs that are provided with Traktor.
It really helps and acts more like a tutorial. The demo tracks already have a beatgrid created and it will help you get a feel about mixing two songs. I found it helpful for myself because I just made the switch to Traktor software.
Please try to learn to mix and beatmatch WITHOUT sync enabled. You really need to get the feel of nudging a track forward and backwards and riding the pitch fader. It’s honestly more fun, than pushing play and sync
I open my Traktor Kontrol s2 setup guide. Says nothing on how to mix songs.
People keep telling me to stay away from sync. Even when i do push sync my music isn’t sounding the way i want, its still challenging for me to make two songs sound decent.
Ive had my gear since the 19th. And I’ve been teaching myself all these musical terms.
No dj friends to show me examples or give me directions. I read online and try out new things, i went to guitar center today and setup gear and they show me how to use my equipment. They don’t use traktor 2 software, so were all learning the program together. But they showed me some new tricks that i didn’t know before. Add some more flavor to the songs. Now i just need to work on timing correctly i go back monday. He’s going to setup a traktor s2 on the store iMac and plug in some good speakers. Since all i have is headphones no speakers to play out loud. I learn more in person on monday should be exciting though
Alright i will watch those videos later today, I’ve got a math test to do.
Been trying to manage school and practice on my gear at least 2 hours a day.
How many hours a day do you guys practice? Just curious. I try and do 1 hour to 2 hours of learning then my ears get sore from headphones blaring music. I need some good speakers and a desk. I just have my computer on a small stand then my s2 on the bed next to the computer lol.
at the min i get maybe 2 hours a week practice with the s2, but i work full-time, am doing a part-time mechanical engineering degree, teach at a dj society, gig and have a missus to try n keep happy! lol
the technicalities should only take maybe 5/6 hours, the bit that normally needs practice is being able to tell which track is ahead/behind the other, when do move fader/eq from one track to another etc.
also, some people will never learn to dj, these are generally the same people who cant dance in time or even clap in time to a song, these people will never learn to mix even with a sync button!!! (ive tried believe me!)
really get your hear round beats,bars, downbeats (start songs at random points and see how long it takes you to identify the first beat of a bar, and then the first beat of a 4 or 8 bar section. most djs should be able to pick that out in a couple of bars (vocal-only sections aside!) first, unfortunately it’s more math! lol. but they are the building blocks, the dna of a beat-matched dj set!
finally, i find moving in time to the music helps a lot, especially with starting a track (prob more important on cdjs) and picking out downbeats. move your head, foot, finger, ass, whatever, just move! (if the music aint making you move you’re probably playing music you dont like anyway!)
In additions to the normal transitions, you can throw effects on a track to get it to match up to an existing playing track. Gater can be a very handy tool. Last night I took a 1/8 loop of some synth, threw some reverb on it, then gated the hell out of it and brought it in over the drumbeat. It matched up nicely with the drumbeat and as the drums faded out to a closing synth noise, I faded out the filters and released the loop and transitioned into the new song. (I don’t know if that makes any sense or not, but it sounded cool last night.)
Moral of the story, filters can help when songs don’t quite mesh. I’ve been trying to play more Indie Dance type stuff where the beats/drums float a bit, especially when the band has a live drummer. Filters help a lot when I can’t get the transition to work smoothly on its own.
And really, the more you practice, the better you’ll get. If you just started on the 19th, give yourself some time, you’ll get the hang of it. I just started messing around in August…with a full time job, I don’t get much practice time. I’ll never be awesome, but as long as I’m having fun, thats all that matters.
Yeah even when i press sync its still not good transitions as you can tell by the songs in my signature lol.
I just tried last night with the new tricks i learned, didn’t get any great transitions in. But i learned how to save parts of the song and drop them down into the sample deck and play them as samples. Thats very helpful.
I like your indie house song. Open up your mind, thats a good song A+
Goodjob.
Damn i hate math thats my worst subject. I will practice tonight start both songs at random points like you say. I have 4 songs total. I practice on 2 tracks over and over until something cool happens. I really want to make them work together. More practice i suppose. No job, No lady. Lots of free time, i want 1 good mix lol graghh.
I had so many trainwrecks in that mix…I drank too much tequila when I was doing it and thought it came out great. When I finally listened to it I was a little bummed. As you can tell from my mix cloud, I still suck a whole bunch.
I posted another one tonight. I started this mix last Sunday with about 40 tracks and worked it down to 16, playing the same mix all week and learning the tracks. Finally got it all to click tonight when I got home from work.
You might want to check out Mixed In Key and the camelot wheel…which is called the circle of fifths in the music theory world. I use mixshare’s Rapid Evolution 3 (free) to key all my tracks and find the BPM. You should still play by ear, but playing songs with keys that go together can help the mix sound better as well.
As long as you’re having fun practicing, that’s all that matters.
What type of gear do you use? Is Indie House the genre you prefer? Sounds good, i grew up on Goa Trance, indie house reminds me a little of Goa.
I just bought my MBP 13" s2 and xone 53 headphones on the 19th. Im enjoying all of it.
I will go listen to your mixes right now, my friday night is me staying home playing with my gear listening to other peoples music. Im having fun. Im not a fan of dub step but i thought id try to mix two heavily dub step bass songs together. Here are some sample songs that came with traktor i tried to blend them together, check it out if you get bored.
