The Official Mix Techniques Thread!
Home :: REMIX section. Mistapes, Podcasts, Breaks, and Soundcloud links :: The Official Mix Techniques Thread!Reply
The Official Mix Techniques Thread! Posted on: 29.01.2011 by Wai Rofkahr Ok, i've been wanting to post this one for a while. Here's the deal->Post at least one of your go-to mix techniques, be it beginner or advanced, any platform, plus some quick details on how to execute it properly in your set. Post pictures or video as needed! Simple enough, and if done properly it will make a great archive of techniques. I'll start with an easy one: Mix A->B using delay & EQ: On Deck A, slowly fade the bass out OR sweep the filter to high pass, while raising the wet/dry on your delay (i'm using Traktor). Once the track has a good amount of delay going, stop the track on a downbeat. Let the echo of the delay ride out and start your song on Deck B. This one's good for jumping between genres and big BPM jumps. It's the most seemless when Deck B is loaded with a dramatic intro or build without a beat (drums). Additionally, you can keep the Decks beatmatched and simply fade Deck A out as Deck B starts with the Delay and EQ, although it's a bit more difficult to keep things from getting muddy. As with any technique, experiment with some songs to get the feel. | |
| Daine Ziadeh 09.05.2012 |
Originally Posted by Kruse Control
|
| Willard Battley 23.04.2012 | Hello everybody I'm new on the community and I'm only mixing since 1 year but not so often. I have purchased the traktor S4. I try to increase my level by mixing more often and reading community s and watching Ean's tutorials but I have some questions concerning transitions : When you start song B at the begin of song A's breakdown, which song do you EQ to make room for the new song, in order that song B can be heard over the song A ? I would say song A but decreasing EQ of song A will be heard because the output level is lower no ? Thank you for your help and sorry for my little knowledge ;-) Nice evening J |
| Odis Stirewalt 30.11.2011 |
Originally Posted by mostapha
as you can see in my post, this is also my approach of the thing |
| Dorie Scelzo 29.11.2011 | I know this is going to sound like trolling. It's not. My favorite mixing technique is to press play. I'm really not kidding. Most tracks will mix themselves if you let them. IMHO, volume controls are for the times when the next track isn't perfect and everything else is sugar. Please take that with a grain of salt |
| Brant Beitzel 21.08.2012 | OMG! Thank you for this thread, I've been looking for something like this on this community for a while major ups to the thread creator |
| Cole Pantzer 21.08.2012 | Music in itself is a creativity. And once you add up some mixes it becomes more relishing. Mixing your music with vocals gives really some magical effect. Try once and enjoy!! |
| Jonah Askland 21.08.2012 | So good to read all these tips! How about just blending track A when it is ending with track B in its intro after beat matching and EQ arrange of course Before the bass from track B kicks in you stop track A after it finishes or let it finishes it will depend on the song. keep the feedback!!! |
| Maxwell Zubke 10.05.2012 | Indeed! Cutting the crossfader back to the old track. What I do is mix at the build up until the breakdown (when both tracks break down) and then cut entirely to the new track. Then after 8 or 16 bars of the new track I cut back to the old for 8 bars. It doesnt necessarily have to be 8 bars - it just has to stick with the beat. You can get pretty crazy with this. It works best when you know both of the songs really well. My personal favorite is cutting back to the old track right when I know there is a quick vocal before the end of the 8th bar and then cutting back into the new track right after the vocal. The important part is keeping your tracks phrase matched. |
| Daine Ziadeh 09.05.2012 |
Originally Posted by Kruse Control
|
| Tori Rumer 09.05.2012 | Can i bump my own comment? :lease post short video clips of you demonstrating your technique:: I believe it would be very beneficial to see for everyone - thanks! |
| Maxwell Zubke 07.05.2012 | Contributing! I will share one of my favorite techniques that really help me gain a better understanding of electronic music and its structure. One of the reasons the structure is good to understand is because when you are familiar with the pattern in which songs are created - you can begin to mix with the same pattern. When mixing songs that are of the same genre and similar in structure (same key for bonus points): - Find an area that is very similar in length (my favorite is before the second breakdown). This will usually be 16 - 32 bars (pro tip: dont count the bars, simply scroll to the breakdown and roll back that many bars using loop controls). - Play the songs at the same time so the breakdown hits at exactly the same time. (great chance to use your OTHER new mixing techniques *hint hint*) - Exactly at the break cut to the new track. - Keep counting the beats (hopefully your in the habit of doing this anyway) - Using your headphones, the beat count, and your big sexy DJ brain - cut back over to the old track at some increment of 8 bars (8, 16, 32 this is just a rule of thumb, you can do 4s or even 2s depending on how it sounds). If the music is similar in genres and you are matched correctly, you can come up with some really really interesting combinations. A sort of remix-on-the-fly type sounds. A few assumptions here for some of you newer DJs: * The music is beat matched (setting your cue point of your new track a good 16 or 32 bars before the breakdown will give you a great chance to practice manually beat matching with great results. Whats more, all you traktor users get to see whether or not your songs are in phrase leading up to the breakdown!) * The music is similar in genre (I do this with dubstep and have some really pleasing results sometimes. It works well with most genres of electronic music). * This is also a great way to begin to grasp and start to dabble more in what is known as "phrase mixing". Like all of the other tips you have read - this sounds more complicated than it actually is!! Try it! My personal favorite is when the songs are beat matched, the same key, and phrase matched. |
| Jaleesa Zheng 05.05.2012 | How do i create the echo effect in traktor pro 2? On deck A, i select delay, on deck B i turn on dry/wet and the feedB button. Its nice effect to transition from Track A to B. Any advice is appreciated. |
| Willard Battley 25.04.2012 | I have seen several technics using the delay effect and I have a question concerning this effect : the rate button sets the time of the delay in fractions of beats. So for example the 4/4 value which is one beat, does it mean that I will hear the echo of the beat number n when the beat number n+1 is playing ? Or does traktor use a buffer memory for that effect in order to record the length you set with the rate button when you turn the effect on ? Thank you a lot for your reply, I'm currently trying to understand in details each effect in order to know where I could use them the best ;-) |
| Tori Rumer 24.04.2012 | Can you all start posting video links that show how to do what you're talking about so we can try to emulate your techniques and practice them? Or maybe even just recommend a couple songs that you would suggest using to practice these mixing types on? |
| Willard Battley 23.04.2012 | Hello everybody I'm new on the community and I'm only mixing since 1 year but not so often. I have purchased the traktor S4. I try to increase my level by mixing more often and reading community s and watching Ean's tutorials but I have some questions concerning transitions : When you start song B at the begin of song A's breakdown, which song do you EQ to make room for the new song, in order that song B can be heard over the song A ? I would say song A but decreasing EQ of song A will be heard because the output level is lower no ? Thank you for your help and sorry for my little knowledge ;-) Nice evening J |
| Laquita Shorty 17.03.2012 | Echo Spin Back on DJM 800 & CDJ Basically set your echo to the channel you want to do the spin back and asign it to 1/4 beats. . . Do you spin back, Hit Echo and then Hit pause on the CDJ and the spin back will echo out, it all has to be done within basically one second though. There's aslo another one you can do that's similar but you hit the loop and then loop adjust twice and spin back hit echo and pause and the track with buzz out. |
| Pierre Aliseo 16.03.2012 | Found this thread using the search function and had to bump it up because it's gold! Think this should be stickied... can't wait to get home and try some of these! Hopefully if anyone has any of their own they'll post more |
| Odis Stirewalt 30.11.2011 |
Originally Posted by mostapha
as you can see in my post, this is also my approach of the thing |
| Dorie Scelzo 29.11.2011 | I know this is going to sound like trolling. It's not. My favorite mixing technique is to press play. I'm really not kidding. Most tracks will mix themselves if you let them. IMHO, volume controls are for the times when the next track isn't perfect and everything else is sugar. Please take that with a grain of salt |
| Odis Stirewalt 29.11.2011 | since i play really, really INTENSE psychedelic dance music, i can't EFX the shit out of it and also can't make transistions in which they leads are layered because its just TOO MUCH. so i EQ the shit out of it, try to not let it get too much and don't use more than the EQ and one or two (A&H)filters. i just enjoy it more to play with more than 2 decks so i can prepare cue points and beatmatches with decks which are not "in use for the mix right now" and with this preparations which i make when i have time, i can act with "more pressure" and with a greater "slection-accuracy" because you can prepare 2 or 3 options and take the prepared track that you believe will fit the most, or mix a track into it just to have a "bridge" to mix further to the third deck 32beats afterwards. (too fast you would make it with only 2 players incl. cuepoint setting and beatmatching ;D) MY TIPP FOR EQ MIXING: don't ever have the same EQ from different channels on the exact same level, let them have a slight volume difference. LET YOU GUIDE your EQ-Poti-Movements by the music: So you move the EQ from the track you are fading in in a pattern from the running track and move the EQ of the track you want to mix out in a pattern from the incoming track and they will merging even more. Their are always enough rhythmic-patterns existing in the music you can take, you don't need to make your own ones. PS: Mixing too perfect tends to lead to an dancefloor which can't respect what you're doing because they cannot recognize what you're doing. if you need a positive response from the dancefloor it could be that it's the better way to mix a bit "raw" so that the untrained dancefloor-people can recognize your actions. (because some people love the feeling of recognizing the dj-actions on the dancefloor, it makes feel them special ;D) |
| Anamaria Cappola 29.11.2011 | @Decon. I'm a totall noob, but what is the breakdown of a song? |
| Sung Zebrowski 29.11.2011 | very interesting thread |
| Khadijah Wojtach 22.10.2011 | With techno, tech/prog house I find the format filter + gater effect chain to be awesome. When track A breakdown, cut out the low, play track B (easier if the breakdowns are the same length). As the the breakdown ends, have a loop ready on track A (or set it on-the-fly) of 4-8 bars. As with BradCees technique, you loop the track that you'll be fading out (track A) and play around with the the gater effect and format filter. You get the pleasurekraft robot vocal hehe Few videos to illustrate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4TrDCW583I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUWDggQ3k4M |
| Kristopher Hoptowit 26.09.2011 |
Originally Posted by BradCee
|
| Lizzie Hoesley 15.09.2011 |
Originally Posted by djnesquigs
|
| Coreen Pankow 15.09.2011 | ^^ post a video of that. if you dont mind... id like to see how you do that. |
| Lizzie Hoesley 15.09.2011 | I got one here that I've been toying with I was believeing (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 believe the second sounds better actually.... and much easier...haha |
| Jacquelyn Swiatkowski 21.07.2011 | Bump |
| Lilliana Perris 05.07.2011 | Just make them up as you play mate! Once you understand how the timing works, there are LOADS of ways to transition. I guess you are wanting to see\hear some examples. Using the FX, there are a million ways\combo's to transition. |
| Latrice Atcherson 05.07.2011 | 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. |
| Berta Baie 22.06.2011 | I believe 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. |
| Napoleon Abling 22.06.2011 | 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. |
| Loralee Erban 06.06.2011 | 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 believe 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 |
| Natashia Dionise 16.02.2011 | GR8 Thread! |
| Gregorio Sakata 15.02.2011 | Thanks for all the great tips and tricks! |
| Ewa Bucior 13.02.2011 | 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. I filter and EQ a lot of tracks as well. |
| Coreen Pankow 13.02.2011 |
Originally Posted by Jester.NZ
|
| Latoria Kavulich 13.02.2011 | As long as this one stays on topic, i believe it deserves to be stickified |
| Korey Quines 12.02.2011 | Here's an example of the thing I explained in my first post http://soundcloud.com/kaptain-krunch-mixes/kaptains-log-feb-02-2011 It can be heard at about 5.50. |
| Mikki Brasuell 06.02.2011 | 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 |
<< Back to REMIX section. Mistapes, Podcasts, Breaks, and Soundcloud linksReply