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A tip for fast beatmatching


Steve

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i'd say it's more important to get the tune selection right than the mix right, as far as priorities go. and also it's better to play to the room of people as a whole rather than the 2 judgy DJ's who care about whether your mix dropped at the right point....

 

having said that, the phrasing thing you mentioned is definately a good way to mix hip hop, but also, as hiphop tunes often have such short intro's and outros, don't forget the effectiveness of a good live drop. as in just dropping the beginning of the tune (or verse) straight in with no long mix. not everything has to be mixed and some of my favourite parts of classic mixes are just good drops. demolition pumpkin squeeze muzik for example.

 

and to bring the thread back to it's 2 years old subject matter - that video is kinda mental to me! i'm all down for mixing with the pitch fader, but i'd be doing as little platter manipulation as possible when using the pitch fader.

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I agree with Si - there's no harm in a drop to mix out of tricky songs. You've got a load of options too. If you've got a leading sound like a snare or whatever you can scratch that during the chorus, let if off at the right point and then move the fader across when the new track hits the 1.

 

Or, if you've got an 8 bar chorus, you could scratch the beginning of the new track towards the end of the chorus and then move the fader all the way across at the start of the 8th bar, echo the sound out with the up fader for the rest of the bar and then drop the new track in.

 

And if you wants to get all fancy pants about it, try what Flex does at 51:40 here...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PwL2Ed0OtM#t=51m40s

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So I have a basic question. To set up the question-- So you beatmatch the beat, right. Then some people harmonic mix too, right. What about phrasing of the songs? IDK if that's the right word for it... but like say in a perfect world scenario you have at least an 8-bar phrase into for every song so say you have a hiphop song with a 16 bar hook and you drop the next record in halfway through that hook so the last 8 bars of the hook is mixed and playing at the same time as the into 8 bar lead in of the new song and so the result is the new record's first verse kicks off perfectly as the last one's hook ends. Hopefully that makes sense so far. So hang in there with me... So, obviously that's not always the case where you have a clean 8 or 16 bar phrase at the beginning of a song. Sometimes when I'm mixing I don't quite drop in the new song perfect so it still has say 4 or 8 more bars after I've dropped out the old song before the new songs really kicks off--which brings me to my actual question--do yall consider that a fuck up or sloppy mixing? Everything is still beat matched and it's not like I'm cutting off a verse but it's not a perfect verse/hook/verse/hook/new verse/new hook/etc. My goal is to have it be that way but doesn't always happen. What I'm wondering is do you guys as listeners to other people's mixes see that as a flaw in the DJ's mix or that it doesn't really matter if it goes an extra 4 bars. It's the type of thing a casual listener wouldn't notice but I've wondered if among DJ's that considered bad mixing. I've never done a 2x4 set with someone but it seems like at the very least that could screw up the flow especially if there was an accapella playing. That's what made me think about it. Hopefully that question makes sense.

 

Personally, I think there are no hard, fast rules. What you're really talking about here is "arranging".

 

If you just do verse/hook/verse/hook/new verse/hook that get's kind of boring. If you get creative you can make an intro from one song into a bridge for another, then go into a breakdown, etc. I'll also set things up so that there is word play between the lyrics of the different songs. I'll sometimes have two choruses portions running at the same time and they play off each other, or a chorus directly over a verse, etc. Or, I'll drop in a track mid verse and have the new track play off the lyrics in the previous one. The more turntables you add, the crazier you can get with this type of shit. Juggling different tracks off each other like a Q&A can work with some songs. Sometimes it works best to drop a track with no transition at all. Sometimes it works best to have 2 minutes or more of blending. I'll do all types of peakaboo techniques too where you preview the next tract throughout a lot of the track before it.

 

The biggest thing about nice arrangements is that if you're not pre-planning them then it's really hard to pull them off correctly. All my early DJing was pretty much mixtapes and I would piece things together and practice the set until I had it flowing like I wanted it. It would take hours of days of planning to get the mix right. Freestyling on the radio or at live venues is a different story and I never got too uptight about super-slick arrangements. Unless you REALLY know the tracks you're working with it's hard to know exactly when the change ups happen and the arrangement is going to be best.

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Hoo advice guys and defo dimeing I'd like to work towards perfecting Jam. Still advanced for me but great ideas for where I should be thinking.

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