Transition and Mix Refinement?

This topic has 17 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 14 years, 9 months ago by NewportDJ Drew.

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June 26, 2011 at 1:01 am #671

Emma Partnow
Member

Hello Adam :);
I Certainly think you are being Hard on yourself if you have only been Mixing for 2 Months;
It is all about Practice; Practice; Practice; and then some More Practice;
But; I have listened to your ‘Kickstart’ Mix; and I can give you a little Constructive Critism if you like; however; if it is not welcome then Please ignore it;
Your First Transition from ‘Example’ to ‘Katy Perry’ is Excellent
Your Second Transition from ‘Katy Perry’ to ‘Flo Rida’ is a bit of a ‘Trainwreck’
Your Third Transition from ‘Flo Rida’ to ‘Calvin Harris’ could also have been Excellent; but you Faded Out ‘Flo Rida’ Too Quickly;
I am Nobody; and only You will Know when you Feel Satisfied :);
But; from what I have heard; you have the Willingness and the Desire; and the Rest will come Naturally with Practice 🙂

June 26, 2011 at 3:11 am #1000433

Adam Sharizman
Participant

Thanks a lot! That really helped! Well yea, I’m still learning some transition techniques and hopefully it’ll better myself

June 26, 2011 at 7:54 am #712

Rob Francis
Member

For good transitioning, listen to some of the top DJs like Sasha or Digweed. They do it so well it’s difficult to spot where on track ends and another begins.

June 26, 2011 at 9:56 am #1000441

Paul Cook
Member

Watch videos online of big name DJs DJing, prefferably from inside the booth, i havent had time to listen to your mixes but a bit of advice is watch other djs. Ive seen Richie Hawtin, Carl Cox and Avicii live inside the booth and watched hundreds and hundreds of videos of other DJs just doing their thing, subconciously you will learn when to start intro’ng your track and when to mix in/out.

Also, commercial is a hard thing to DJ, ive been doing it in a residency for 6 months now and i still make cock-ups occasionally.

June 26, 2011 at 11:58 am #735

Adam Sharizman
Participant

Thanks loads for the inputs guys. Appreciate them.

June 26, 2011 at 2:35 pm #744

Beatmaster Mills
Member

Ive been djing about as long as you and i think it sounds pretty good! I’d say say Emma covered the constructive criticism, but wanted to say that it sounds like your doing well.

June 26, 2011 at 3:05 pm #752

Mindfloat
Member

is it really the essence of blending a mix that you cant hear any transitions? sometimes its cool,sometimes its really boring..depends on the situation,but personally i think sometimes its even cooler to get rougher transitions,so that the people recognize “ah,a new beat coming in” if you want perfect seamless transitions all you have to do is using ableton for djing..

June 26, 2011 at 3:54 pm #768

Adam Sharizman
Participant

Lol. I actually love trance. So little or no differences between two tracks are pretty welcomed. I’m trying to learn in key mixing. But some tracks DO sound good when there’s a major difference between the two.

I did a trance mix and am FINALLY proud of it. Haha.

June 26, 2011 at 6:01 pm #788

DJ GRE
Member

Mindfloat, post: 741 wrote: is it really the essence of blending a mix that you cant hear any transitions? sometimes its cool,sometimes its really boring..depends on the situation,but personally i think sometimes its even cooler to get rougher transitions,so that the people recognize “ah,a new beat coming in” if you want perfect seamless transitions all you have to do is using ableton for djing..

Yeah I love when I’m getting the crowd pumped up and a break is building to let it just echo freeze away at the very end as they get antsy for a drop and just have a different tracks drop cued up and just SLAM it on the 1. Not “mixing” per se but loads of fun.

But regarding your ableton comment: I’ve seen djs using ableton on the fly in clip view that make mistakes, whos transitions arent perfect, but ableton is pretty good dj software once you get the hang of it and I think that it is just hugely misunderstood. Not a fan of it for my style of djing but I still think it’s not as “skill-less” as some people think it is.

June 26, 2011 at 6:44 pm #792

D-Jam
Participant

Frankly, I agree that you’re coming down too hard on yourself for only two months. You’re doing way better than I did in 2 months. Granted I was on old belt-drive tables.

Beat matching you’re getting down. Yeah I can hear some slipping, but 2 months in you’re ahead of many. Keep it up and you’ll get tighter.

Also learn how to use those EQs to help in blending. My way is generally to turn the bass all the way down on the incoming track, then slowly bring it in, then gradually increase the bass to normal while lowering it on the other, as well as lowering the volume on the older track to start bringing it out. This is to help keep the sounds from fighting one another in many cases. Sometimes you might have to play with the mid and treble if you see there’s hi-hats or something that’s coming in very strong.

I think the one big thing you can work on is TIMING. I hear a lot of transitions where it seems like there are melodies fighting one another. The trick is to more find a “break”, a point in the song where things are coming down do you can bring in the new tune. Sometimes these pop tunes don’t give you much, which is why some DJs make their own edits of the tunes, or use the looping and EQs to extend things.

To me the best way of doing transitions is to try to make it sound like the songs work together, and thus give the illusion that it’s somehow the same tune, but it changed. It’s probably why I get steamed at requests that destroy the set and thus I have to suddenly change everything. In any case, programming is a big one, and you should explore your tunes to find the ideal spots to get in an get out. If you think tunes play too long while you wait for a break, then try remixing the tune or use hot cues and such to shorten.

June 26, 2011 at 8:45 pm #811

Darren Johnston
Member

I would advise you to learn by using tracks that start and end with kick drums , no vocals especially.

June 27, 2011 at 2:59 am #889

Adam Sharizman
Participant

Wow. Thanks a lot for the inputs guys! I really appreciate them.

June 28, 2011 at 2:56 pm #1330

U31
Member

Oooh no, i disagree with bass ALL the way down on the incoming track.. have it up just a little if you imagine the dail on the eq’s going from 7oclock to 5 oclock set it say 8 and a little bit… .. you lose so much “Richness” from the mid with the bass cut entirely

Also try cutting up that eq mixing.. totaly cut treble and mid from the incoming track and gradually replace the B line on the playing track with the new b line… fading out the playing b line as you go then bring in mid at a point that wont clash, dropping mid on the playing track. and so on. Vary this. being a one trick pony soon gets boring.
On hard tracks use them filters.. they are there, they are tools like the eq’s and faders so use em, have the filter set all the way, whatever way is up to you, on the new incoming track fade out as turn the filter back to mid…
Hope that made sense.. it did in my head lol

June 29, 2011 at 5:56 pm #1719

DJ Max D.
Member

Yeah, the filter thing is cool.. I like to use it this way: track A is in the mix, filter at 0, track B is beatmatched and going.. I turn the filter on track B to -100 and up the volume on it (still nothing gets out because filter cuts it all out) and then turn both filters into the plus.. crowd loves it to 🙂

June 29, 2011 at 6:12 pm #1000625

D-Jam
Participant

U31, post: 1319 wrote: Oooh no, i disagree with bass ALL the way down on the incoming track.. have it up just a little if you imagine the dail on the eq’s going from 7oclock to 5 oclock set it say 8 and a little bit… .. you lose so much “Richness” from the mid with the bass cut entirely

Also try cutting up that eq mixing.. totaly cut treble and mid from the incoming track and gradually replace the B line on the playing track with the new b line… fading out the playing b line as you go then bring in mid at a point that wont clash, dropping mid on the playing track. and so on. Vary this. being a one trick pony soon gets boring.
On hard tracks use them filters.. they are there, they are tools like the eq’s and faders so use em, have the filter set all the way, whatever way is up to you, on the new incoming track fade out as turn the filter back to mid…
Hope that made sense.. it did in my head lol

I hear you. I guess it depends on if your mixer totally cuts off the bass at the 0 mark, or just lowers it greatly.

I sometimes won’t kill the bass completely if I think it would not sound good.
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