dont do it too much tho. so awesome freezing it on a vocal phrase that echos out over a breakdown of a new track.
question about the the technicalities of freezing tho. does freezing track A to say 2/3 or 1/4 mean itll echo on teh beat of track b at either of those speeds?? or how much of a bar it “freezes” to delay out?
keeping it simple: i like to lower the bass to about 9 oclock but bring the mids up to about 1-2 oclock on the track coming in if its a vocal track. sounds pretty natural to me, distingueshes the voice nicely
Great thread! The echo freeze is a great transition I take advantage of with the Midifighter mapping.
I normally will go with one of the transitions Ean showed in a video:
At the breakdown of Song A, begin Song B (either begin or from break down) and slowly fade or filter off Song A at its build up or at the build up of B. Really this involves more counting beats/measures than anything.
We need a major bump on this people to update with there tips , Playing electro house a blend I always use is usually to let a play… Play b on a’s drop and slowly highpass filter a but leave it playing for about a bar or 2 then usually delay freeze it, either that or i think someones already mentioned cue sampling… Just getting a vocal bit of a track keep cueing it whilst highering the volume durng deck a’s buildup then cue in a heavy bit and play on a’s drop whilst killing a’s bass then slow cross fade into b
A couple go to techniques for me include some planning:
With dance/house music, find the breakdown or buildups and mark them with fade in/fade out beatmarkers so you can see 'em coming. When Deck A track reaches a breakdown, switch it out for Deck B’s breakdown by pressing pause/play on both decks (keyboard: press a and z at the same time). Always great for injecting spontaneity into the mix.
Alternatively, when you reach a breakdown, filter down the track that is playing as well as the track you are about to play- then fade over. If they’re turned down enough, the filter sound will be similar, especially if the two songs are in key. Simply crossfade from one filtered song to the other and then bring the filter back out slowly for a cool transition.
I think with Live you can do most of the effects heavy transitions that you can do with Traktor, its just a matter of figuring out the equivalent effects i guess.
Because I usually mix groovier tech and progressive house my transitions tend to be more timing focused and as seamless as possible, as opposed to the more dancy stuff (electro, dubstep etc.) where you can mess around with effects more and it works with the genre. So im usually just trying to find the most appropriate sections to blend in to.
But as far as effects go, im not gonna lie, fade to grey is pretty awesome, its almost impossible to go wrong with that. Also I do a version of “echo-freeze” as well with live, works great going into the incoming track’s breakdown.
Really dug that short mix as well Brad, some sick tracks in there.
Def would love videos with Traktor screencast on popular transitions.
Ean did one for the basic ones, one for intermediates or even advanced would be awesome.
I was thinking (in traktor) one effect that is so cliche that it is UNDERUSED (imho) is the turntablefx.
Have a break cue’d up on deck B while deck A is in it’s buildup (I would probably have a low pass filter or formant filter turned down on the cue’d deck) When deck A is finishing it’s buildup and about to hit the drop, grab that TTFX and drop in the BREAK from deck B (double break? Kit-Kat?).
If it’s short, wait for the new buildup, if it’s long, just sweep the filter after a couple bars before dropping back into the original track.
Use this as a tease (a la “cue stabbing”)
I also use the TTFX right before a track fades out, and leave a 4 beats of silence before dropping in the next track (cue’d to a downbeat and beatmatched, of course!)
…I think the second sounds better actually… and much easier…haha