Many new productions (hip-hop, club, etc) have no intro (without vocals), or If they do there’s a break right after (no beat, no kick), the crowd would be bored if all transitions were nexted by a long break.
It forces in cutting a lot (often ugly to listen to), getting remixs (produced by djs) with extended intros (God only knows how many they are), using cues points if the outro is instrumental (DJs who doesn’t have turntables with cue points or serato (traktor, etc) are fckd).
Today producing is far easier than 20 years ago, I don’t think that adding 8 bars intros will make them tired.
So, what are your methods, when you have to play this kind of songs ?
yeah, there are very few instrumental breaks in hip hop these days. Just means you gotta be better at scratching and cutting (and by you I mean every DJ, not you specifically, lol). I have been teaching myself how to scratch (I’m piss-poor to mediocre at best) and cut properly.
I love DJing hip hop. I was a strictly EDM DJ before I switched to using technics and a mixer. To me hip hop is more rewarding because you really need to find two songs which work perfectly together to be able to blend, cut, and scratch properly without switching up the beat on the dancefloor. For instance The Motto into Rack City or vice-versa. That blend for me is like butter. Cut the lows on the outgoing track and blend into the hook of the incoming track. Kills it every time.
For shit like “Party up in Here” and “Get Buck in Here” → banger tracks that everyone knows, I usually just scratch and drop on the one. If you can find a distinct synth or beat to drop that lets everyone know whats about to come on, that usually works too, as long as the song is popular.
I scratch, and drop too, but I use this when two songs have too different bpm.
If vocals start just before the first beat you’re about to scratch or drop into the first song it would sounds weird.
When djing in club, some songs can be blended even if there are vocals over vocals (when people are too drunk to make a difference), if you do it properly and not too long (somewhat like 4 bars), but if you’re making a mixtape it won’t sound great to those who are listening.
I do, I made some, when I love a track that is hard to mix.
I have around 8000 musics, even in my whole life I wouldn’t be able to make that many edits lol.
The new album by ‘Crazy P’ comes with ‘DJ friendly’ tracks that have longer intros/outros which, is nice for me but doesnt impress my girlfriend who is a big Crazy P fan but doesnt really want to hear 8 bars of intro to a track when shes straightening her hair before she goes out.
That’s usually the best way to find instrumentals, Dj friendly intros, acapellas. Etc… You said you used to Dj on vinyl so it should be much of a change for you.
i think some producers, especially in hip hop, are worried about people looping up their beats and making bootlegs with them. therefore you hear alot of short intros , and also alot of background chatter during any place where they choose to let the beat play.
and to answer the ? about mixing with these, i mix on 3 decks , which allows me more room for more instrumentals or breaks/changes to be manipulated.
Singers can talk a bit on the instrumental intro (like saying their name, etc…), no one could use this as sample to make mashup/bootleg/remix.
I think these guys (producers) just forgot that DJs spread their stuffs like radio stations do.
I don’t spin hip hop, just underground prog house and house. House has become a little bit more difficult, but not nothing has changed on the prog side. Won’t touch anything remotely related to anything you will ever hear on the radio.
You gotta think like we did when we had vinyl doubles. Set a cue at some point that could be used as a mix in point, could be an extended break or the outro, and mix into that point.
Deck A is playing, Mix into “Outro Cue” on Deck B. Once your transition is finished Duplicate Deck B onto Deck A but cue to the first verse, or wherever you want to drop into and drop that section back over the outro of the same track playing on Deck B.
It’s fun to do and adds some variety into your set, instead of just verse, hook, verse, hook.
it doesn’t make it hard, it just makes it non-trivial. mixing together drums is simple as anything, and is actually quite boring. i certainly can’t dj like that for hours without getting bored.
get creative. drop an echo freeze on the previous track as you cut, or bring up a lowpassfilter on the new track as it comes in at the same time.
Edits. People listening to music don’t like the extra minute or more on in/out mixes of a song as Karlos said. Album and radio mixes do away with it so that people can commence the fun times. DJ-friendly mixes have them. When there isn’t an official one available, you have the tools to make your own without too much effort.
If anything, it’s gotten easier. Nowadays pretty much anything you would want to play in a public space is on a 4/4 quantized grid. If it’s not electronic, the drummer’s on a click track to stay in time with other programmed instruments.
A generation ago, DJs would have killed to live in an alternate universe where sixties classic rock was recorded on a click track. Disco finally made mixing possible, but even then it was still pretty hard. Also, a lot of people hated disco.
But today mixing is a trivial matter, not due entirely to the amazing tools we have, but in large part because most music is just gridded out of the box.
