DJ Basics
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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.
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.
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