Tips for mixing different genres or making BPM jumps?
I was wondering if anyone could give me thoughts/suggestions on how to approach two things. One, mixing sets consisting of different types of music. I’m having pretty good luck mixing house tracks together, but it seems to sound a lot messier if I try to go from house to dubstep or some other genre. Eventually I’d like to include some rock/alternative tracks if possible (I realize this may sound like madness/blasphemy).
On that last point, some other genres feature much lower BPM. Any tips on how to transition between tracks where there is a gaping void in the BPM? Or is the answer just don’t do it?
I will start by saying that dubstep is damn hard to mix. That is just my opinion. Maybe I just suck at it, but there is way too much going on most of the time for it to sound clean. I would also like some tips haha
Of course you can jump BPM. You can do the overlydone spinback, echo-freeze effect, dying tape player (no idea what that’s really called) and tons more. You can even just slam the CF - especially if it’s just vocals on the incoming track.
My favorite though is the echo-freeze.
There will be tons of other recommendations though
after a transition into a build up, loop a melody, 8 to 16 bars, Filter into a 8,4,2,1, 1/2, 1/4, snap back into a 4 bar loop and insert new track. add a slicer or beatmasher into your loop and transition out. It’s most complicated yet most awesome sounding transition method. I use this method to do live remix with hot cue juggles.
^that works. Or a more simple way to do it would be to listen to where the snares are in the track. The snare in a dub step track is similar to the 4 on the floor in a regular house track. You can’t match up the beats necessarily because there is no set pattern in a dub step track. But no matter where the crazy beat goes, theres always going to be the snare in a regular pattern. Obviously you need to figure out your phrasing, but matching the snares is a good place to start. There are plenty of videos on youtube too that provide good tips!
Yeah it’s a combination of effects that was put into some mappings for the midi fighter. Pretty easy to manipulate even without the mapping. There is a video of it actually in one of my threads if you search my name. I would but I’m on my phone.
When I’m playing house and dubstep, which I like to mix together, I’ve been running at about 130-135ish bpm so that there is a hope that each style of music isn’t stretched to far one way or the other.
There was a DJ that I really admired in the 90’s named Three that frequently put breakbeat and house tracks together. When done right it has this nice staggered sound on the kick drums, which he pulled off frequently, when done wrong it is a train wreck.
Something that I’ve been playing with to switch styles and tempo is setting a cue point to use as a stab, then bang it in on the beat of the playing track and attempt to either follow a build up or create one and just slam it over.
I’ve also been fond of trying to find a soft spot to loop in the incoming track with out a beat and attempt to blend that to the track that is playing then make the switch during the breakdown.
Granted I still suck at the attempts most of the time, it is a ton of fun to play with and think about.
