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Which genres are easiest/hardest to mix?

I get the impression that progressive is probably easier, while drum n' bass is one of the harder ones. What do you all think?

progressive is pretty tricky cuz sometimes the drum patterns get cluttered up....

but heres something i noticed when i started mixing

the faster the beat u play a set on...the easier it is to mix

so if u wanna practise..put ur songs really slow and just practise getting the beat right on even at a low pitch

I can imagine breakbeat could be tough.

That's interesting. I always though genres with faster beats are a lot harder to mix.

quote:

Originally posted by Wretched I can imagine breakbeat could be tough.

You're right, of all the genres I've tried mixing, breakbeats, are pretty much the hardest, although harmonic mixing is pretty hard in melodic trance cuz you gotta find tracks that are in the same key. I was talking to a dnb dj and told him I had respect cuz I assumed it was probably hard to mix it, but he disagreed and said trance is hard cuz there are so many elements to mix and beat juggling is not a big deal in dnb. I've tried mixing Dnb and it didn't seem as heard as straight breakbeats, I think it does have to do with speed, things seem a bit easier when they're above 140 bpm.

quote:

Originally posted by Wretched I can imagine breakbeat could be tough.

its easy
matching the beat isnt too hard, just the first kick and the 2 claps or snares or whtaever they are. the hardest part might be the cueing, but if you know the songs well, the cueing isnt a problem, perhaps in the beginning it might be a hard concept for someone to grasp as far as matching beats if they are used to trance, but it takes practice of course

quote:

Originally posted by Wretched I can imagine breakbeat could be tough.

From my experience as a breakbeat dj, its the easiest. breaks are sooo easy to mix because they can go off by a large amount, and still sound normal... drum and bass although seems really hard to mix is actually pretty easy, now i mean i can make a tight drum and bass mix, tight meaning sounding together, 2 Xs easier then a 4's.
my trickiest genre is progressive house... for reasons i dont know why.

i find trance is more harder to mix then progressive.. so it has to be how fast the track is.

house is easiest I would think

IMO, house and progressive are easiest.

Uplifting/melodic trance, drum and bass/jungle, hip hop, are the hardest.

uplifting because keys need to match

epic/uplifting can be tricky because of there being so many keys used to make trance melodies and they can clash. prog, breaks and techno are all pretty simple to mix. and dnb is very easy to mix on the whole.

I think the hardest to mix by a long way is psy trance. there are so many added loops and extra bars added here and there that it can be very tricky

having a broken beat doesn't make it hard to mix - breaks are easy cause of the above mentioned, even when it goes out you dont hear it as much as say prog etc

not to mention you can pretty much double drop dnb if a track has a shit intro / outro fun to mix.

Last night I was mixing hard house for fun for the first time over at my friends place all messed up and it was fairly easy. Much easier going than I've found with prog house.

techno is by far the hardest gendre to mix, but the most fun!

Of course, depends how you want to mix... but regarding a smooth, beat-synced flow... I'd say insanely fast drill-'n'-bass and other such glitchy, twitchy mayhem are often difficult to mix simply because of the hyperactivity of the rhythms and the odd time signatures (all too often) and the sheer tempo.

Mixing trance isn't often as hard as it could be, simply because so many tracks are in harmonic minor keys now throw in some other modes and microtones and you've got room for almost atonal fun! *smiles*

quote:

Originally posted by stevebutabi techno is by far the hardest gendre to mix, but the most fun!

why is that? It's not because you mix it and its your favorite genre and all, is it?

On some level i'd have to agree with you, since you should know some 'tricks/efx' to mix an entertaining techno session.

BUT I think hiphop is still harder. I really don't like the genre but with all the scratches and tricks going on, it's just harder to learn.

If you're going to count scratching and fx as part of the mix -- which they very well righteously should be counted, depending on the music -- then definitely. Some of that DMC stuff is AMAZING.

Yeah, but then again i don't count that DMC compo thingy as mixing. It's not music, just creativity. Nobody can dance to that kind of stuff.

I was just talking about 'normal' hiphop stuff like this (not me! )

quote:

Originally posted by ShadoWolf house is easiest I would think

I agree. The beats always tend to be a lot simpler.

And I agree with the speed. The faster it is the easier to mix. Must have something to do with you can tell faster if its going out of alignment.

quote:

Originally posted by Galapidate That's interesting. I always though genres with faster beats are a lot harder to mix.

I completely agree...the higher I pitch it up the more problems I have keeping them in sync. When I try to do slower, long trannys it works out much, much better.

quote:

Originally posted by Galapidate That's interesting. I always though genres with faster beats are a lot harder to mix.

Faster beats = more reference points.

I'd say the hardest would be ambient or IDM, beats can be truly abnormal as well as bpms, not to mention harmonic mixing.

quote:

Originally posted by Tranc3 Faster beats = more reference points. I'd say the hardest would be ambient or IDM, beats can be truly abnormal as well as bpms, not to mention harmonic mixing.

Yeah... there's a flipside though, and that flipside is more acceptance for "sloppiness" or "creative mixing" (or call it what you will!) may come with abnormal beats because they sound off-kilter and wacky anyway, not to mention strange multipliers of time signatures like 7/4 or 13/8

(I'd like to see an octopus dance to THAT!!!)

Faster tempos DO seem to be easier from one viewpoint, generally speaking. But on the other hand, it might be harder to "catch the bus on time" with each section of 8 bars as is standard in dance music (i.e. if you miss one segment, you have to wait for the next to come -- miss too many, and you get clashing basslines or something). But each person perceives the pulse uniquely so this is simply me saying this.

Ok maybe when u pitch faster music, u have more reference points, but the record can also go offbeat faster, so i guess it remains pretty much the same?

Brilliant classical musician once told me, playing slow can be so much harder because you have so much silence between the notes you have to fill with emotion!

I guess it depends, it's fair to say

quote:

Originally posted by Wildfir3 On some level i'd have to agree with you, since you should know some 'tricks/efx' to mix an entertaining techno session.

That does not go for all techno though, I tend to buy tracks that are entertaining enough by itself, tracks that tell a story in itself.. And they can still be classified as techno. With techno of the type that Marco 'a single loop is enough for 100 tracks' Bailey produces, the DJ has to add something special by himself. That doesn't make it harder to mix though, just makes it harder to let it be entertaining.

I don't really find it hard to mix (prog.) breaks, or offbeat techno either.. I would say that psytrance is a bit harder, although I have never tried it.

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