Do you know any DJs who don't mix?

Hee Won, many appologies for the typo.

Some guys in Chicago would throw some wild/colorful electroclash/retro nights. Their main DJ (and promoter) was a guy named Pier Novikov. He never beatmatched or mixed, just slid things in at the right time…much like I’d see older disco DJs do. The crowd loved him.

Goes to show how much song selection/programming matters. Look at how Larry Levan spun at the Paradise Garage, or old recordings of Pickering, Park, and De Salva at the Haciencda.

In my opinion, good music and a good choice of it is a must, but crappy mixing can ruin it all.
I HATE educative Djs (as a friend of mine recently described DJs who want to teach the crowd their taste of music at all costs but do not realize that nobody is dancing), and I’d rather have a top40-guy with a nice playline (say, the follow up of the songs generates athmosphere or just flows well) than a super duper fly controllerist who slices and cuts the tracks so hard you have no chance to get into a dancing flow kind of feeling.

Finally: I try to mix as best as I can in the certain situation, but never to the disadvantage of the track.
Means, the choice between sick mixing and ruining the recognition value or just the feeling of the song AND leaving the song in a rather pure shape, but keeping it intact so the crowd gets shivers will most certainly swing towards leaving the song be.

When I am among the crowd, nice blends are fine. Nice mixing, remixing, whatsoever is nice to have, too.
But if you’re messing up the tune and disrupting the flow, go to hell.

Just my opinion.

Steelo, post: 20864, member: 1368 wrote: The worst thing about being a DJ is how conscious you are of bad mixing. I’ll be pout with my friends at the club and you’ll hear some atrocious mixing but none of the other punters notice. It eats away at me if its really bad.

Yeah I know exactly what you are talking about. Bad mixing/Trainwrecking…and DJs who just stand there doing nothing really bug the crap outta my buddies and I. It’s almost like nails on a chalkboard how aggravating it is LOL

D.J.Manhattan, post: 20915, member: 1201 wrote: Would you guys say then that song mixing / live remixing is mostly for the DJ’s Ego or say street rep? Because even my gf says that she hates when DJ’s switch out songs too fast. Although I think that to keep a good flow basic mixing is needed.

No i would totally disagree…When your Gf/ppl say switching out songs to fast…thats not blending…thats cutting going from one song to the next song…blending is being able to add certian elements from one song in to the current song playing…

Blending is probably one of the harder elements of DJing because if you leave your EQ all at 12 and bring the new song in…chances are its going to sound like crap…its tweaking your mids lows and highs to just bring in a snappy high hat or a certian vocal riff…thats REAL blending, and that can create a whole new dimension to the existing song…small little tweaks like that can take a good set to being a great set…well IMO at least LOL.

Anyone else think differently?

D.J.Manhattan, post: 20915, member: 1201 wrote: Would you guys say then that song mixing / live remixing is mostly for the DJ’s Ego or say street rep? Because even my gf says that she hates when DJ’s switch out songs too fast. Although I think that to keep a good flow basic mixing is needed.

My g/f says the same thing when a DJ doesn’t let the vocals finish on her favorite girly tracks.

I believe that you should try to mix as much as possible even if it’s just a cut in at the right time. If your songs are within 2 bpm of each other you could, in most cases, blend them (this obviously depends on the individual songs keys etc) I don’t think you have an excuse not to, and if you’re playing a genre like Tech House or Minimal then you REALLY have no excuse because they’re all very similar. When playing tech house I often find myself creating mashups on the fly, simply because the songs compliment each other so nicely.

When playing things harder to mix I can see why you can’t mix them together without it sounding like trash, but you have to make a plan. Find a good place to drop it in or cut to it. Tweak your EQ to get only the vocals coming in… there are many alternatives for song transition than straight out blending.

Be that as it may, song choice is still way more important, but I still think that DJ’s should mix as much as possible, otherwise why have us, because your crowd could always just hook up their iPod and just play one after the other. Mixing/Transitioning is part of the DJ experience, and it should be part of the service we provide.