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-- Why am I having such a hard time spinning house?

Why am I having such a hard time spinning house?

So, throughout my "career" () as a DJ, I pretty much started out spinning Trance, but then moved to more proggy stuff, but still I guess with a bit more of a trancy vibe to them... Well, needless to say, I'm tiring of playing a lot of "McProg" all the time... It's not that I don't like it anymore, but when I play out live, I just gotta play some housey sounding shit... So the majority of the records I've bought in the last 4 or 5 months have been different kinds of house, but mostly a lot of prog & electro house, with a bit of tech house...

To give you an idea of who/what I'm playing & listening to:

My favorite DJ's at the moment: Max Graham & Steve Porter

Favorite Producer: Steve Porter

A couple of the tracks I've recently got (Not necessarily new releases) that I love:

Sebastian Ingrosso & John Dahlback - Lick My Deck
The Skeleton Key - The Conjure (Steve Lawler Remix)
Steve Lawler - That Sound
Funk Harmony Park - Planet P (Steve Porter's Funk Fantasy Remix)
Jay Allegro & Kevin Brown - Seductive Undertow (Vox Mix)

The biggest problem I'm having right now is that I've gotten so accustomed to the way trance and prog trance are commonly phrased, that I'm having a hard time getting my phrasing right with a lot of the new records I've got. And I've bought a LOT (Probably 150) of new tracks in the last few months, so nothing's really gotten worked with for too long...

I don't know, I guess my question is, for any of you guys playing housier sounding stuff right now, are there anythings that you really focus on when spinning this kind of EDM? Certain ways you like to EQ or phrase, or anything that would be helpful to know starting to dive into house?

If it's basically just getting to know my records, I'm sure that will come with time... but I guess I'm just wondering if there was anything in particular about throwing house that people worked differently?

Thanks, Peace, Cheers,

Rob

I'm definately interested to learn about some house mixing as well, as i've been considering getting into mixing house.

I rarely play trance ...im a house nut.

I find you can get away witha lot more experimentation with house- its structure lends it to be a bit less rigid with regards to where you can mix. It also doesnt have as big a peaks as trance. Its about the groove rather than the big builds and drops.

You can really mess with the eq or filters if you have them too.


You can also layer- dub with a dub -maybe one with the bass killed and the other with the mid killed, with an acapella plonked on top- double up two copies of the same track and put a third record on top....go nuts.
Try and listen to some of the masters do it- like morillo, sanchez, louie vega/kenny dope etc.
Loop three tracks on the cdjs and it can be great (or terrible)

I may get flamed for saying its more open to experimentation- but I dont care thats what I have found in my experience, and also heard from others playing.

quote:

Originally posted by Freak I rarely play trance ...im a house nut. I find you can get away witha lot more experimentation with house- its structure lends it to be a bit less rigid with regards to where you can mix. It also doesnt have as big a peaks as trance. Its about the groove rather than the big builds and drops. You can really mess with the eq or filters if you have them too. You can also layer- dub with a dub -maybe one with the bass killed and the other with the mid killed, with an acapella plonked on top- double up two copies of the same track and put a third record on top....go nuts. Try and listen to some of the masters do it- like morillo, sanchez, louie vega/kenny dope etc. Loop three tracks on the cdjs and it can be great (or terrible) I may get flamed for saying its more open to experimentation- but I dont care thats what I have found in my experience, and also heard from others playing.

i rarely (read: like once in my life) play house...i'm a trance nut. so i probably don't know what i'm talking about.

but i agree here...house seems to be a genre where you can experiment more. you're not bound by having to match phrase to 32 bar phrase...throw a 8 beat phrase in here, loop another acapella there...throw the breakdown of track B earlier then you usually would...basically step out of the standard intro over outro mixing that you've gotten accustomed to.

and most definitely listen to how the veteran DJs do it...learn some, then experiment some.

Ewwwww @ intro/outro mixing. don't do that even if you mix trance

quote:

Originally posted by Freak I rarely play trance ...im a house nut. I find you can get away witha lot more experimentation with house- its structure lends it to be a bit less rigid with regards to where you can mix. It also doesnt have as big a peaks as trance. Its about the groove rather than the big builds and drops. You can really mess with the eq or filters if you have them too. You can also layer- dub with a dub -maybe one with the bass killed and the other with the mid killed, with an acapella plonked on top- double up two copies of the same track and put a third record on top....go nuts. Try and listen to some of the masters do it- like morillo, sanchez, louie vega/kenny dope etc. Loop three tracks on the cdjs and it can be great (or terrible) I may get flamed for saying its more open to experimentation- but I dont care thats what I have found in my experience, and also heard from others playing.

wow sounds like lots of fun

but i spinn Prog. House and i do the same thing, have like 3 tracks going at one, and i want to add a 4th {maybe a CDJ)
just to be able to do all this stuff with House, i meen i like mixing Trance its pretty, and i like mixing Breaks because i can do more 'tricks' and scratch and no one will care...
but with spinn Prog. House, like i feel like i GET to do more, because some times its so minimal, i can mix in another track and it sounds GREAT!

The thing I find about progressive house/trance is that it is ALWAYS on time. Very unlike Psytrance where it could just cut, skip 3 beats and then start up again unphrased. You can always count on prog to drop the bass when you expect it.

Another thing about prog is the beat is very 'obvious'. It's really straightforward to beatmatch - and once you have it, it's easy to pick out any deviations on the beatmatch, so you can correct it faster. I was mixing with a couple guys in my room and I pulled off a 6-minute prog mix, and only had to adjust the pitch once. It's times like these you throw on a third record/cd or even a fourth, because you just have so much time to work with. Myself, i've mastered the effects on the Numark DXM06, especially the 2x copy. This is when i play with the effects to apply buildups, double up the beats, make it sound a bit more epic with a few well-timed tape echoes... And then mix it out by cutting the bass, next 4 beats i turn the highs up and then the mids down, and fade the highs out... can apply a filter to it as well, or a flanger on the particular channel.

House is really fun to mix, for example the Westbam remix of Ich Will by Rammstein, is really nice to mix into the Eric Prydz remix of Rocker by Alter Ego - when it's beatmatched, cut the bass on Ich Will and slide up Rocker on the 4th beat - etc etc..

Man.. i guess i could just go on and on explaining some of my favorite mixes, or i could just record the mix and put it up here for you guys to listen to :P

quote:

Originally posted by Zild Ewwwww @ intro/outro mixing. don't do that even if you mix trance

+1.. you gotta mix before you get to those dreaded empty beats where there is no energy

okay... i definitely have got to chime in on this one considering i've played every genre except for industrial and ambient.

house mixing is not essentially any different than trance mixing. the problem always seems to reside in the person making a transition from one genre to the next. start out by practicing with shorter mixes just to get the feel of different beats but also try to adjust your mixing logic.

if you've played goa/psytrance at all you might be able to get where i'm coming from. house obviously has a lot of bassline elements. be sure not to overlap basslines unless they sound really clever that way and work on flicking the bass eq's (so to speak) on beat. you'll be able to create more flawless mixes this way as opposed to waiting until the end of the record and trying to mix with those emotionless beats. you want your mixes sounding tight, on point, and you sure as fuck want to make sure you're getting more than 11 records in your set.

perhaps you should listen to a few house mixes that are UNEDITED to get a feel. in fact... peep this out cuz it really seems like this might be a bit of what you might be getting into since it's tech-housey + electro-y + progressivey. And be sure to really observe how each mix is formulated:



HOUSE SET [Tech House/Progressive/Electro/Acid Breaks]


^^^^click that.

quote:

Originally posted by Zild Ewwwww @ intro/outro mixing. don't do that even if you mix trance

How Else do you mix trance? To have the 'Trance In Your Pants' you must not touch the beloved melodies!

Use some creativity, besides you don't have to take the advice.

quote:

Originally posted by Zild Use some creativity, besides you don't have to take the advice.

LoL, I know... Just being sarcastic... I spin Techno, So all my mixes are off the wall as far as uniformity is concerned.

Oh! Thank God!

try layering a house song over a trance song. Some wild things you can do with that.



and just p[ractice and know your songs.

quote:

[i][b]and just p[ractice and know your songs.

now that is just BRILLIANT!

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