Mixing without waveforms

Nope, not a whole lot you can do. You just hit one of the quirks associated with Digital DJ-ing.

See, in the old days, carrying more than 2 crates of vinyl was out of the question. Toooooo heavy.

So, you’d have a relatively limited amount of music and since you used it for a long time, after a while you did indeed know where the breaks were in each song (waveform in your mind if you like).

Same goes for CD’s, only slightly easier to take with you than vinyl, but still not the thousands and thousands of tracks you can take on a USB stick or external HD.

Now, with essentially no limit to the amount of tracks you can take with you, there is no way in h*ll you can know each song intimately.

Not much you can do but make cue-cards (the actual physical small cardboard ones) for a track and just write down the approximate time you would normally drop the tune in. Stick that in your CD cover so it’s easy to read.

Alternatively, just skip-listen to the track you want to play next. Note the time of the point you want to mix into and remember it (or write it down on a small notepad).

Frankly it’s not like you need to memorize 10-15 points in a track. Typically you’ll want to mix into or out of a select number of points.

I am very curious if someone has come up with a better plan. As I said, I knew my entire collection inside out (and it was WAY more than 15 tracks I can tell you) when I still carried vinyl/CDs, so I never had the need for such a solution.

Nowadays if they don’t have USB-capable CDJ’s that I can hook up to my laptop, I’ll just bring my controller :-).

Greetinx.

The way of *cough EDM structured today ish more easier, it usually consist 2 parts, a full beats and a floating/breaks, Usually goes like this Full Beats1 (Intro) –> floating/breaks1 –> Full beats2 –> floating/breaks2 —> Full beats3

So what i do is after the floating/breaks2, when the build up transition into the Full beats3, i started counting from the first beat of the Full beats3, 1…2….3….4….8….1 then at 1 I play the first beat of my upcoming songB and start counting 1 full bar again and i slowly raised my fader of songB and start mixing it up with songA , works wonder

Hey Tony,

Preparation is the key though. DJ-ing is a serious business. And “reading” waveforms is a VERY poor substitute to knowing what you are doing. Now, if it works for you in the privacy of your home or at parties where you play with your own gear, and that is the extend of your ambition, by all means keep doing that.

So, if playing out on different gear is in your future more often, it might just be the right time to take the next step.

On a personal note, I look at waveforms sometimes when I have a new track (or an old one I have forgotten about LOL). And yes, I can see where the quiet and louder bits and pieces are. And when I know the track, I will know what transition in the track heralds what next bit. But, when I next track, I can do that by fast forwarding (needle dropping) through the track, cueing it up and be ready to go without needing a single waveform. It’s how it was done til relatively recently.

Greetinx and good luck with your waveform-less endeavour!

…not liking that video much either!

If you match beats with waveforms, then you’ll need to learn to match by ear.

If you’re more thinking of timing, many will tap on the cue (setting it on the first beat) repeatedly leading up to the point (crossfader all the way on the playing song) and then hit play at that moment (sliding the fader to the middle).