Hee Won Jung

Steelo, post: 23533, member: 1368 wrote: I guess it depends on what type of DJ you are. If you’re not a commercial DJ (nothing wrong with that by the way – its just not for me) then there’s a line you must draw about how cheesy you will go. I’d much rather drop an underground bomb that gets the dancefloor pumping that whore myself out to playing some cheddar.

Agree 100X

Ive said it probably a ton of times on this forums…but lets be honest here…any DJ can grab all the latest songs and choons and make everyone dance because they know the tracks….but really anyone can do this…Its finding the gems that no one knows about that you can really tear the roof off and make people go ballistic.

Do you want to be that DJ that plays the same tracks as 1/2 the DJs in your city? Or are you willing to spend the copious amounts of time sifting through blog sites, soundcloud and other musical resources to find that track that no one else has.

I would have to agree with the overall point here:

Phrasing, EQing, Song Selection, and being in Key are all just as if not more important than beat matching…and yes you can be a DJ without having to beatmatch.

But it is still an essential tool that every DJ should and must master.

all depends on what you are using…Both PC and Mac people have said there are issues while others have said it works totally fine.

Install it and try it out…it does not overwrite the existing copy of traktor and you can always revert back to 2.1.3

Gonna go out on a limb here and ask…what do you consider mixing? 32 beats of 2 songs together…or 2 minutes of 2 songs together?

A lot of people consider combining 2 songs togeather as “Mashups” but in reality its just mixing/blending.
With that said…some genres you just cant do extended blending due to how busy the songs are. Synthetic nailed on the head, every genre has the same pattern but different structure, and so you have to do different things to mix different genres. IE…When mixing house music usually the highs are very similar from track to track…so its easy to blend your highs in then mix in your mids and at the right time swap your basslines….Where as Drumstep/Dubstep are on a 1/2 time scale so its more about making sure you are on phrase…usually the kick is very similar and the highs and mids are very accentuated…so you have to bring your bass in then slowly bring in your highs then swap mids.

Trance/Progressive are very high and mid based while the bassline is usually very simple…so different techniques are used for different genres…and its just a matter of practicing with different genres to be able to master them all…

Since i am not a hip hop DJ its very hard for me to mix hiphop its a completely different style than EDM.

I always use ladder…Ladder has a lot of resonance while Xone has like ZERO resonance…and really filter sweeps should have resonance. As well the Ladder EQ i find increases the high pass or lo pass while the Xone just cuts out the high or lows.

Yeah its always a really hard to transition into a song with 2 totally different bpms.
A few tricks are:

Hip Hop Slam – its all about timing on this one…at the end of a phrase…which is usually 32 beats drop the 2nd track and slam your crossfader over and just go into the next song….its all about timing though…usually just before a drop or the beginning of a build of the 1st song you just cut to the 2nd track…make sure the 2nd track is lined up on the 1 so you still maintain proper phrasing.

Mixing – This one is really tricky sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. It works best when you start off with the build of the 2nd track, The majority of songs have 2 timing sounds…which is usually the percussion (snap) and the kick drum…kicks are of course on the low eq and percussion is on the high eq. By cutting both the highs and lows out you are left with usually a melody…something that doesnt really go to a certian beat. By slowly bringing the 2nd track in with just your mids @ 12′ with your channel fader at around 1/2 way, slowly raising the volume of your 2nd track and slowly bringing up your highs and mids, then when its about 16 beats before the drop of the 2nd track adjust the highs and lows of the first so you the dominate tempo sounds are from the 2nd track…wait for the drop cut to the 2nd song and your off.

Double time – set your 2nd track to be 1/2 or double of the original song…mix in and then when the drop of the 2nd song hits…pull the tempo fader to the original bpm of the 2nd song and cut.

There are lots of variations of these but these are the 3 i usually use.

Yeah I think you are totally right to not go for the 2ks…they are really expensive and specially in a club enviroment they WILL get trashed…its just a matter of time…and for the investment its not really worth it considering the majority of people that will come on there wont know how to use 1/2 the stuff on the 2000s or have not setup any of their tracks with Rekord box to fully utilize the 2000s. 850s or 900s imo would be the way to go, with a DJM800. Those are still pretty much club standards from what i have noticed…Since you are a controller DJ you might wanna push for the DJM900 since they already have a traktor certified soundcard…but thats just to benefit you and not the club lololol.

Other than that Kudos on the gig bro!!

I use loops in a ton of different ways to make things different, but its also a matter of what genre you are playing.

I will use a 4-8 beat vocal/synth loop when the build of my 2nd track is coming in , in combination with the key knob and slowly increase the pitch then use the beatmasher(looproll) to a 1/2 > 1/4 >1/8 with the build of the 2nd track and then use an echo fade when the 2nd track has it drop.

I will loop the drums and percussion of a song 4-8 beats before the build of 1 song to mix into the current track then cut the loop off and start the build while the basic drumline (last 64 beats of a track) of the first song to mix in.

I guess this is more sampling than it is looping but since i dont use the remix or sample decks and just jump with loops with 4 Track decks

Live looping is really fun when you can add in effects with it to change the sound…Synth loop with a delay and reverb totally changes the sound.

Just a few examples of how i creatively use looping 🙂