Transition Techniques
Anyone like to share their techniques, going from one song to another?
example
song1 → song2
-as song one plays
-cut bass on song2
-fade in
-cutbass on song 1
-bring in bass in song2
-fade out to song 2
probably not the most technical way of blending, but I’d love to hear what your techniques are …espcially the ones that use the effects..etc..
I’m more of a no nonsense mixer. I try to handle the transitions by means of crossfading.
This can be either smooth and soft or raw and filled with quick cuts from one channel to another. Last one being ideal for D&B.
I am trying to ace this before I am even looking at effect transitioning. 
In most DJ tutorials, that would be considered an “advanced technique”.
Seriously, there’s not much to it.
It’s true that pretty much anyone can learn to DJ in a weekend, the basics are that simple. The tough bit is how to be musical, exciting and innovative using just those simple techniques. In the same way, cooking is just “cutting up stuff and applying heat”. Ultimately you’re not playing records or MP3s, you’re playing with people’s emotions and expectations, the same way that great chefs do with basic ingredients.
Back when people people just handling two sound sources things were simpler, but modern digital DJing is turning into a two-handed, computer and controller-assisted juggling act (and that’s just the way I like it). For me, and advanced crossfade would involve four soundsources - Two tracks (A & B), a breakbeat and some spot effect like a white noise swoosh. Each of the sound sources has a filter on it, plus you have a global Reverb effect. The mix goes something like this:
Voila, a crossfade and a breakdown in one. At that point, you’re not so much moving between tracks as you are producing a remix.
Practice practice practice!
True that!
One thing that I enjoy doing is the following:
I think that makes since. It’s easier to show than explain.
That’s what i did for starters, now i increase the length of my transitions and do a lot of EQing for longer smoother transitions.
do you use the kill button on the low? that’s what i used to do a lot of.
This can be nice, clean and effective for a lot of stuff.
Try turning the low right down and not using low kill. Put the mid/high to about 10 o’clock on your incoming track and then over a couple of measures bring mid/high up to 12 and take them down a bit on your outgoing track - then at the end of a measure completely cut the outgoing track and put the low on the incoming track back up to 12 o’clock on the opening beat.
Hopefully that makes sense, it’s incredibly inefficient to explain this in text 
If you want to throw effects into the mix i find the best way is to just apply the effect over the last 2 - 4 beats of a measure before you do the cut and bass return. Remember with effects, generally less is more
depending on the genre you’re mixing try 2 - 4 beats of quick reverb/flanger sweeps so the strength and intensity of the effect quickly rises up just before the old track gets cut and the new ones bass kicks in.
needless to say, timing is important as hell
I do this alot when switching genres mid set. I maybe missing a few steps but you’ll get the jist of it.
1 Deck A- Playing House > Mains
2 Deck B- Hip Hop/Breaks > in cue
3 Kill bass on B
4 Fade in B
5 During B’s Build, Beat mash A with a tight length and rotation doing this on upbeats
6 During beatmash, start fading in bass on B
7 Match bass beat on B with Beatmashing A
8 Fade A’s bass
9 Tighten length on A’s beatmash
10 Start Beatmashing B
11 At end of build, rinse out mids and lows off A
12 During last measure of build, rinse highs out
13 At drop, kick B’s bass up a notch
14 Feather A out
Ill give you guys a little idea on how to Nicky_Law’s basic transition on a smartmixer setup.
1- Turn up the bass suppression channel of the track your mixing on(Track A) - this will use side chain compression to remove the bass from the track B, and make Track A dominate the bass frequencies.
2- Start your Crossfade over to deck B, As you slowly crossfade over Deck B’s bass will at first be more or less non existent, but as you start to reach the deck B side of the crossfader deck B’s bass will start kicking back in all by itself. When your crossfader has made it all the way over the Deck B side, Deck B’s bass will be back at normal volume level without touching anything to bring it back up.
3- Use that time that your not making so many EQ adjustments to take things to the next level
4- Praise Moldover for such an awesome idea.
This Los Angeles insomniac names this, “The Best Thread Ever!”
Just starting to wake up, but this would be made sticky if I were a mod.
I dont think it makes an appropriate sticky for the general thread.
What would be better though is creating a detailed list of good articles and create a FAQ at the same time where we can throw lots of good threads together like this into a single post and sticky it.
If enough people start sharing tricks in general we could create another thread for it in time.
Haven’t heared anything about that idea lately?
I mix trance/prog trance/prog house. Most of the time, there is no generic way to do a transition, as it depends on the frequencies of the songs and how they work together (i tend not to do intro-to-outro mixing, since it’s kind of boring). Sometimes, it sounds good to bring in the mid of the next song for that extra kick, while reducing the mid just a little bit (<10%) on the current song to allow for overhead.
Sometimes you can bring in the highs in the next without it being noticeable.
Lately, I’ve been REALLY good at very slowly bleeding in the mids in harmonically compatible tracks so that it sounds like it’s the same song. Just very slowly bleed in the melody and maybe make it a little louder on a phrase break and it will sound like the track’s just continuing.
Bass is the hardest to do, but I found out that you
Oh, and I usually have the volume fader for the next track at about 85% volume and slowly bring it up
I found that using NUO4 in traktor gives me the best results and that longer and therefore subtler transitions work better - as the current song is kind of “fading out” (and you can help it but slowly, very slowly turning the mids and the highs), the listener’s mind will transition to whatever’s in the background, and the trick is to have the next song playing loud and clear and catchy enough so that the mind latches on to that song. So you gotta have the phrasing done correctly.
Also, some people like to use the low/high-pass filters to blend tunes. I’ve done it a few times and it works well, extremely well for certain tunes. I like to EQ though because it gives me greater control over the frequencies and doesn’t sound plinky-wonky.
One i’ve just kind of discovered and find to be very dramatic.
On A, set a cue point on an interesting downbeat - usually something that punctuates a new phrase. A loose high-hat, a sharp electro chord, a kick drum, whatever sounds good.
On B, set a 4 beat loop repeating the beginning of the “meat” of the song (crossfader still on A)
With a midi or hotkey, play the cue point on A like a drum in a pattern that would build up energy. Something like kick-snare, kick-snare, kick, kick, kick, kick.
Slam it over to B, and release the loop.
Not for every set of tracks, but works well occasionally.
I love what FatLimey said about basically live remixing songs, thats exactly what I aim to do with ableton. ATM its basically just doing what Limey said but I intend to move it into using a lot of my own synth (basslines/pads) and potentially drumming etc as well (yay for novation remote 25SL!).
Tho atm I generally work very very dependantly on the dracks to create transitions. For example in the breakdown in a track I will find out how many bars til the drop eg 64 and then find a track that has a 64 bar intro or something. Either way drop the 2nd track so that thier build ups sync and effectively double drop the track when the 1st track comes in either cut the bass from it or cut it completely), This technique doesnt work for all tracks especially ones which both have vocals so it requires some decent song selection.
Some of the best transitions simply involve moving the crossfader over. You just need the right songs - they must be absolutely perfect for each other - and have to know when to drop it.
I love when I come across tracks that are compatible like this