Okay…for specific suggestions.
- It’s all about song selection.
If your tracks are good for the night and for your set, everything else is just icing. Get to the point where you can mix a coherent set with just song selection and volume faders (or crossfader if you prefer) before you add anything or you’re going to be fighting with advanced techniques you can’t understand because you don’t know the basics.
I believe this advice holds regardless of what equipment you use.
- EQs are effects.
Don’t use them until you can mix a set. Then, start using them to fix errors that you hear. At first, you’ll probably just use the bass EQ to keep basslines and kicks from laying on top of each other. Most of the time, it’s because they’re clashing or just taking up too much dynamic range and dominating the mix.
Eventually, you’ll hear that other elements tend to dominate the mix…and EQs are primarily used to fix those problems in a way that’s a bit more precise than just volume controls.
You can also use them entirely as effects, primarily to build or relieve tension. IMHO, that’s more advanced and shouldn’t be attempted until you figure it out on your own. If you really want advice, go back a little while on the DJTT blog and watch the videos about Isolators. They’re really not that different from EQs…the biggest thing is that they affect the master. Yes, the bands are wider, but it doesn’t really matter.
Personally, I think those examples were horrible. The Derrick May one was probably the best in my opinion, but I kind of think the track would have been better if left alone.
I’ve walked out on DJs for doing shit like that and fully support that decision.
- Effects are never necessary.
Use them very sparingly. If you want a flanger sound, find a song with that sound in it. If you want a filter sweep to build tension, find a track that already has it. Figure out how they’re used in production environments first, then think about maybe adding some. It’s really easy to overdo effects, especially when your only option in the DJ booth is to apply them to full songs (or use something like Ableton and play multitracks of your own songs).
- Mind the Chorus
Every song has something like a chorus. In hip hop and top40, they’re really apparent. In house, they can be obvious. In a lot of EDM–especially non-vocal stuff–they hide. But they’re still there. Don’t mix chorus to chorus…mix chorus to verse or chorus to bridge (aka, breakdown). Verse to verse usually causes problems, but it’s probably not a bad idea if you can talk about why you’re choosing to do it that way.
- Don’t do anything if you can’t articulate why you’re doing it.
If you don’t know why you’re doing something, just don’t do it…it will do more harm than good. Do you know why you’re swapping basslines during a transition? Because you thought that was the way it’s done………nope. Stop doing it until you hear a need for it, and then figure out why you think you need that.
I think that applies to everything.
- Don’t chase technology.
You don’t have to have the best, most up-to-date anything. Most new stuff isn’t much better than the last revision, and if you haven’t mastered your old tools, there’s no reason to add more. The exception to this one is if you just want to make a change or you find something that solves some problem that you’ve been having and not been able to solve.
- Don’t add things to a mix because you’re bored.
All it does is ruin music. If you’re bored with your music, either concentrate on your paycheck or spin music you actually like. If you’re spinning music that bores you for free…take a serious look about where your career is and figure out if what you’re doing is going to get you to where you want to be. If it is, focus on the end point. If not, drop it.
And because so many people do things like this without posting anything…here.
It’s old. I haven’t recorded anything in a long time for a number of reasons–which I’m fixing–but this mix illustrates what I’ve outlined above. I like the tracks and the style, though it might not be to your taste. What is apparent is how little “next level” techniques matter. No effects, no EQs, no volume faders anywhere in that mix (and no crossfader, either). No automation of any kind. It was done in Ableton, but all I did was set gain staging and launch and stop clips…including the mashup like 2/3 of the way through it.
It may not be your taste, as I was trying something weird with housey vocals over nu-skool breaks, but it flows well without any of the crap that people think is necessary.
In the end, DJing is just song selection and phrasing. Everything else is sugar.
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