Crowd Control:


When you're onstage its true that your owning your set. You control everything from the lights to the music and the stage is your throne with the club your kingdom.  If your not quite in a spot where your sequestered by a Dj booth you're going to have to deal with stuff you might not have expected before you've gone through it. I'm talking about having that one dude who comes up wanting to hear some old school Will Smith (no disrespect Big Willie) when you already got the party popping off with a hot new electro remix of whatever's hitting the top 40 right now.

    Unfortunately what you'll find is 9 outta 10 times you won't be able to just ignore that dude as you still got him coming up, distracting you, asking stupid questions and potentially even spill his drink on your equipment?! oh man. Ok so here's a few ways to deal with "that guy".

-Have request box separate from your DJ setup, but potentially accessible without leaving your equipment too far behind to venture to the request box.

-Don't use the request box often, as in don't actually take requests from it too often,
That way people will feel like they were able to get a vote in on the music they're hearing and chances are even if you never get to their request, they will have gone back to having a good time anyway and won't care.

-If they do care tell em you got em next week.

-Parlay that request box into cash if you want, make em pay for the tracks, nothing wrong with that since you've got the stage for the next few hours anyway its your call if you wanna sell some time off, just gotta balance that with how your crowd feels about hearing some fools flow. I do $50 for a 3 min instrumental track otherwise no sale. 75 for each additional, they probably only buy one.

-Have private security, your bouncer or homie , handle the situation by firmly explaining theres no bothering the DJ anymore tonight.

-Drop some tracks that clearly state: No requests

     If you try to reason with "that guy" during a performance you're only going to get more negative feedback and distractions while your supposed to be mixing and throwing out positive energy.  I've actually seen a Dj let the music go quiet because he was so involved in telling a group of females theres no way he was going to drop some usher in the middle of hard house electro night. Wrong night y'all, wrong stage anyway.

Follow me on Twitter @DJbasics for daily #mixtips and insipration
Also google: TheSampleHouse760 for drum sounds, synth sounds, akai kits, and swagg

Remix the Remix with a couple remixes..?

     As a new DJ fresh on the scene behind the tables you'll want to have a wide arsenal of audio tracks you can lay down during your set.  The more you have at your disposal, the more likely you'll be able to be succeed in any DJ situation.  Builds, breaks, loops, organic string and drum sounds are all very important.  They are all tools that can be used in different ways when you need them.  Just as important as any of the tools you posses in your audio arsenal are the remixes that already exist.  You might be saying okay that's lame im looking to become a DJ so that I can make my own remixes, why the hell would I want to play someone else's work?!  If this was anything close to your thought process that's okay but I need to stress to you that you're job as a DJ will be to please the crowd that you have in front of you and throw down a sweet mix cd or two to showcase your skill sets.  In my opinion one of the very best ways to do that would be to get yourself some crazy cool remixes of the most popular radio top-40 in your area.  If Drake's new hit is whats playing day in and day out on the radio then when you set-up in the club or the pub and drop the un-offical remix its going to set it off, almost guaranteed.  What's more is that you shouldn't stop there. Hopefully you've had enough time with those new remixes that you can mix the two together during your set, maybe you had a cue point set on each of them (or several cue points) and you're about to get crazy flippin double slowing and speeding up during breaks and then dropping the other remixes drop where the first one was, YEAA. Something like that! All of a sudden you've got the crowd under control as you look around you'll find yourself in the lime-light that night.

     On a quick side note if you're looking to make you're own original remix the best way to go about it would be to obtain some vocal tracks also known as acapella tracks, that you can then mix over an instrumental or drum loop.  After you have an awesome remix of your own you'll need to contact the owners of the loops and vocals your using to ensure that they are royalty free and have been cleared for commercial use.  If you are interested in obtaining one-shot or single sound drum sounds that you can sequence into beats using a program like abelton or FL studio just scroll down to purchase a full selection of drum sounds professionally sampled from the Korg Electribe EMX-1.  Payments accepted through pay-pal only.

Beat Matching

&

The 8 Count

    Beat matching is the art of taking two beats, or a beat and a vocal and setting them to the same speed.  The speed of a track is displayed as a number representing the beats per minuet that play during the course of a track.  If the track selected is a very long mashup or mix set itself with many bpms involved in the course of play from start to finish, the BPM displayed will likely be an average during the length of the track. 

   By setting the two tracks to the same BPM you can be easily mix them together using some basic mix techniques.  The first technique you should familiarize yourself with is the 8 count.  An 8 count occurs when 2 steps have passed.  A step contains four meters.  Meters in this case is a unit of musical measurement.  A basics techno bass beat is usually an 8 count with the first hit of each meter being a bass drum, thump, thump, thump, thump.

     

     The 8 count is essential to being a well rounded DJ in my opinion. Like knowing how to read a map even though you can mostly rely on a GPS. 

     When it comes to mixing your set as a DJ you simply need two tracks with the same bpm and similar or compatible style such as two house tracks or two dubstep tracks (although with experience you can VASTLY stretch you definition of compatible and similar style tracks potentially getting to a point where your making mash-ups of everything).  To get started mixing lets start by playing track one. As it plays que the second track up to a 4x4 Bass drum beat, also known as a four on the floor beat. Now just wait for a build and at the right moment hit play on the second track as you move the crossfader from  track one to track two. If all went well then congrats, you just swapped out the next section of that song with another's 4x4 Bass line! This is just the start of getting crazy behind the wheels of steel, digital or otherwise.

Learning how to drop a track (meaning to play a new track in your mix) at the right moment will later allow you to manipulate looped beats to your advantage as well as Advert and Transition type samples.  If you have never mixed before I highly recommend starting with house music and trance in order to get yourself comfortable in your setup. After that it would probably be easier to then learn how to mix hip-hop and rock genres as some of the rules mixing change slightly based on the genres.  

Next week We'll be covering transitions as well as how to get out a tight spot if your systems fails you live or you get caught in a bad loop. Until then happy mixing, this is Dj-Jay Singing off.

Follow me on twitter @DJbasics Where I drop daily mixtips, news, and inspiration.


Check this out if u gotta sec too: rolling stones 25 DJ's that rule the world http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-25-djs-that-rule-the-earth-20121109

Korg EMX-1 Synthesizer Samples:

215+Drum machine sounds
1800+Synthesizer sounds
1 Complete production kit

Make your own beats and bangers

There are no other packages like this one in the world: Legendary Saw Wave-forms Korg Square Layered Waveforms Unique Sub-Bass Waveforms Unique High Register Waveforms Emx-1PCM waveforms  Emx-1 PCM CHORDS Waveforms All samples in .Wav All Samples have been cleared for use and are ROYALTY FREE GUARANTEED Custom made by TheSampleHouse (T.S.H.) Ships same day payment is processed. You can spend $800 on a new emx-1 or you can pick your complete Samples Pack from below: Korg drum machine drum sounds $6.69 USD Korg Synth Pack 1000+ synth samples $12.99 USD Korg Drum and Synth Pack $15.50 USD

Digital mix setups Vs Analog Turntables.

Tonight I want to talk to y'all about the big to do over analog vs Digital setups and hopefully I can help shine some light on the subject and I want to start by making it clear: There is always going to be respect due on both sides of the fence on this issue. An analog setup has its feel by its nature and so does a digital one. But i feel like the blend of the two is where its at.

Just so y'all know I only mix on digital mixing units and I would strongly encourage you to do the same, even if your setup with a couple sweet Technic tables, I would look into getting a digital interface, some midi records and hooking your tables up to the laptop through Serato or Virtal DJ (my fav). If you're experienced behind tables already I feel ya on that and just want you to know you can transfer that vynl library over, search thru it faster and manipulate it more than before you ever went digital. Try it you'll like it and you're turntablisim skills will shine through backed by your new found digital bossness (bpms comparisons, quick locks, cue points jump to's lighting controls video out options just amazing control over elements you couldn't hold onto in the same way as before.)


Old school Vynl DJ's have earned their bragging rights by consistently being able to pull of pre-meditated mixes/Sets without ANY digital help what so ever.  I'm talking about no BPM info  front of you unless you wrote it down. No length of track, No waveforms that show where the build and breaks are. All of which are bonus' of course to mixing digitally. That's not to say that because you are behind a laptop that your job has been so incredibly simplified that you shouldn't be proud of your hard work.  The way I like to see it is if your not able to take those mix sessions to the next level having all of that informan in front of you then maybe you need to really practice using waht you have.  I feel like a lot of the arguing back and forth may stem from the idea that the hard part has been done for the digial mixer. Not so.  To earn your respects as a digital DJ you better be able to pull off some crazy mixes using every tool at your disposal (bpm, track length, genres, file organization, samples and cuts labeling, effect modulation etc.)

I don't ever like to think of the digital era as simplifying the old, if it doesn in fact do so it only provides an opportunity to accomplish the previously unthinkable. So take your digi gift and fly.

Turntables AND a Laptop wtf is that?!  

Haha yea, I had that same reaction when I first saW someone spinning with 2 turntable a laptop.  Jaw dropped I did a little research and found out you can actually sync your turntables to your laptop by getting special "midi" records, and the right audio interface (external sound card needed to make it all work). You can then manipulate your mixes on screen using the same turntables you've always had or maybe just decided to add to your setup. That being said it's possible to connect all kinds of things to you setup from Kaoss pads (effects modualtor by KORG) to Drum Machines of all kinds to Guitar Bass and Distortion Pedels. Don't ever get stuck in that mode where your creativity suffers from cultural norms, push those limits till they bend break and shatter. And let the bass kick.
Let. The. Bass. Kick.

Sampling

Found an interesting article on sampling by National Public Radio:
Check this out http://www.npr.org/2011/01/28/133306353/Digital-Music-Sampling-Creativity-Or-Criminality

DJ Basics

Follow Me on Twitter @DJBasics  #DJB

Hey there!

    Welcome to DJ Basics, I'm DJ-Jay and I've decided its time someone with a little know how put a blog together containing more than just tips and tricks to get you motivated.  I want to develop this site into a full fledged how to DJ for beginners (not dummies).  There is a lot of work that goes into a mix session but hopefully we can dispel some of the magical mystery of mixing without blowing your mind over technical jargon. So welcome, to DJ Basics!

Feel free to email me with some of your own questions or ideas about mixing. I'd not only like to help get those questions answered but with your permission id like to share some Q&A from our followers. For now I can be reached in the meantime over at Osborne_Jonathan@ymail.com : )

Thanks so much for coming by, Add DJ Basics to your RSS feed, bookmark us and if you see a topic you like lets not horde the info, please tweet about it! #DJBasics

BPM (Beats Per Minuet)
  
     Tonight I want to talk to y'all about keeping your mixes smooth when it comes time to bring in a new track, scratch over a break, or basically sync almost any track to whats currently playing.  In order to do that you'll need to know a few things about the tracks your working with.

     One of the most important pieces of information you can get from each track is it's default BPM.  If two tracks have the same BPM they can be easily mixed together as long as the genre's are compatible.  Frank Sinatra and led zepplin do not go well together for example (save for some very outlandish and professional mash-ups that might be out there).  A tracks BPM rating is displayed as a solid natural number and while some genres have specific ranges of speed they are developed at others vary widely in their commonality. Below is a quick cheat sheet for common genre BPM's :


Trance: 120-132

House: 128-132

Dubstep: - 140-150

Drum and Bass- 160-165

Hard House: 160-165

     Ok, so knowing what the speed of the tracks are is great because at a glance you can see that a drum and bass style track will be a total train-wreck if you just play it over a house or a trance track because the speeds of those tracks are no where near each other!  Even Songs that are off by just a single beat per minuet can be noticeably off balance if they are let run too long, so a distance of 10 or more BPM is
probably not a wise mix move.

If you are comfortable behind your mixing station, and we'll discuss options for mixing stations soon, you can try to do some mental math and really get creative during your mix.  Try overlaying a dubstep track of 70bpm over a dubstep track of 140bpm.  Adjust the eq accordingly and there you have some interesting combos.  The same track can be overlay-ed upon itself at half or double speed to create some interesting effects.

As a DJ you can cut, cut back, back, and forth, forth between two tracks of the same speed.
This is called FLIPPING DOUBLE.
Just set a copy of the first track about a bar behind the second one and cut the crossfader from one to the other when you feel like flipping double.  In the old days before laptop setups and digital mixing programs (Which I Highly recommend using) the only way to flip double would be to purchase two copies of the same album and set them up by ear.

What a pain, so that being said lets take a minuet and talk about a neat and all too looked down upon feature of most Digital Mix units and CD mixers:

The SYNC feature!

     Sync is an awesome feature that with 1 push will match the BPM of the track your "syncing" to the other, eliminating the need for the pitch control arm to be used to adjust the tracks to the same speeds.  Using the Sync option can also help with some advanced speed up and slow down techniques but I'll save that for another time. Even I have used this tool to pull off some amazing mixes live and on stage. As a new DJ I quickly realized the emphasis of those around me, often times not even a DJ themselves, blaming a lack of skill and over simplicity that SYNC offers at the push of a button.  Look Y'all, all I can say is there should be no shame in using technology to its fullest when performing for others, and if you want to waste your time dialing in a speed pitch control arm, be my guest! The animosity may stem from some of the late great record scratching full analog straight up disc jockeys from back in the day that didn't have such luxuries.  However, Our music has come a long way since then.