I’ve recently started a transition away from mixing DnB and started playing more and more techno, particularly the darker stuff.
I’ve adopted the same technique to cue point organisation as I did with DnB… 1st Cue point is a load marker at the start of the track. 2nd Cue point is the first drop and 3rd/4th cue point is on the first beat of each subsequent drop.
On the deck layout I have a beats to cue countdown which shows exactly how long I have until the next drop. I have continued this with my techno tracks and when mixing (3 decks) I constantly double drop two tracks.
Is this an accepted technique for mixing techno? It sounds good to me and does create a hell of an impact when two tracks drop together… I searched around online and the only stuff I could find that relates to double dropping is mostly DnB related.
If it works for you, then why not use it? One thing I’d say (as a techno DJ) is don’t worry too much about ‘drops’ as Techno doesn’t tend to make a big deal about them. A lot of Techno DJing Is about continuous rhythm and creating patterns across several layered tracks. I’d suggest finding some recorded sets from DJs playing your sort of music and watch what they do. Adam Beyer, Dave Clarke, Richie Hawtin could be useful. Rodhad, Blawan are good too.
Oops… I wrote out a long winded reply and then lost it
You are spot on with your comment about keeping a constant rhythm. My eventual plan is to do exactly that…
My end goal for my home set up will be: 2x X1 Mk2s, 1x F1 with a CMD MM-1 (hoping to remap to 4 band EQ when I buy one)
My playing out set up will be the same just without the MM-1 and I’ll use my Gigaport HD+ to route 4 channels into a xone 92.
I will have decks A, B & C set up as track decks and deck D as a remix deck. I have already spending quite a bit of time preparing kick and percussion loops in ableton ready to build some remix sets with.
I hope to learn this style of double drop mixing and looping with the 3 tracks decks until it becomes second nature and then add the F1 which my girlfriend is getting me for my upcoming birthday. The remix deck will be playing almost constantly with a kick drums and hat patterns layered underneath the (usually) two simultaneously playing track decks.
Also in your list of DJs to listen to you forgot Chris Liebing !
Techno is more about building an interesting layer of hihat/drums patterns that complement each other, do not worry too much about drops, and focus on a good groovy bassline and how can you complement it by using another records.
also from what ive heard of dnb, the main difference would be “modern” techno has longer transitions, you can cue the next record right away and maybe throw it in the mix if you feel like it adds some color to whats playing on the speakers.
For me techno is all about the groove and building on it throughout a set, layering loops that sit right with the tracks, jamming away with 2 or 3 tracks at a time, as previously said you can throw the next track in at pretty much any point to build up the energy levels, everyone these days seems to have their own way of marking tracks with cues to indicate certain changes in the music / mix in and mix out points / highlight vocal sections etc in this day and age everyone has their own methods of doing this but essentially we, for the most part, end up wih the same results. Techno is pretty straight forward in terms of structure so its easy to just let rip and experiment
I’m slowly coming around to this way of working, playing techno has really re-awakened my love of DJing.
Using loops is something I need to practise with still but I’ve been playing for around an hour a night at the moment so it should come soon. Hopefully once I get the F1 I can really open things up and start building loops and extra percussion patterns to layer under the tracks I’m playing.
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