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DirtyNammer,
I enjoyed the track selection of you mix quite a bit because I knew almost all of the tracks, yet they were mostly remixes that I haven't heard overplayed. It was a fresh way to remix those great tracks that everyone loved a few years ago without making it one of the typical mixes of that time.
There are three main things that I think that you need to work on.
First, and most importantly, beatmatching. You made most of your transitions pretty quickly and your use of the equalizers helped reduce the noticability (if that is a word of the lack of beatmatching. The volumes also help mask it, but I will get into that next. You are close to being nicely matching, but in almost every transition, it was painfully obvious that you didn't have the tracks beatmatched. The best advise that I can give you is to pay more attention to beamatching the high notes rather than the bass. Matching with the highs will be more precise and easier to do than with just the bass alone. It will also help you when you are having trouble figuring out which track is faster or slower and in situations when the bass beat gets killed.
Second, and secondly most important, gain structure. Almost every transition involved a noticable drop in volume. I could hear it in my speakers and even more in my headphones. I don't know how you mix, but if you use your crossfader, then try switching the curve selector. If you don't have this option on your mixer, then leave the fader in the middle and use the channel volumes to mix. Either way, you need to maintain the volumes at a higher level during your transitions so that it doesn't bring more attention to the mix than it has to. Also, since there was a drop in volume, as I said above, it helped to mask your not so good beatmatching. The volumes of the tracks during the main parts were right on, it is only during the transitions that you need to bring the overall volume up.
Third, phrasematching. This one is a bit more tricky to explain and to master. I'll repost an old post of mine from the Dj Booth to explain what I mean. It's a semi-legthy post, but I think that it will help quite a bit:
That sounds like a pretty good mixing technique, I do similar myself. I also use the channel faders instead of the crossfader. I do not however cut the bass on the live track when I bring it in. I find that if you mix the way you are doing it, then you will not have control over the transition as well--here's why: When you cue up the next track, you can listen to the whole intro and therefore you will know when the bass beat changes, whether it stops for a beat and then kicks in again, or if it gets louder after 32 or 64 beats etc. This is easier to pick up on the fly then listening to and remembering the ending of each track and when the bass beat gets killed or softer etc. Therefore, if you keep the bass volume constant on the incoming track, you can adjust the volume of the overall sound with the cue track's channel fader. When you bring in the cue track, then slowly decrease the bass eq on the live track as you bring in the cue. This will give you more control over the transition because you don't need to worry about not having control over the live track's fading bassline because you are killing it yourself--you are taking control of it's change and not just letting it happen on it's own.
This technique is pretty difficult to master so that you have a "perfect transition", but I believe that it is more versital over how you mix, in the long run, becuase you can effectively mix tracks with very different bass beats this way. This works because if you do what I call "incremental mixing" then the bass beat come in phrase all the time.
Incremental mixing is a technique I taught myself to overcome the fact that I wasn't bringing my cue tracks in in-phrase all of the time. The two tracks were in phrase with eachother, but what the audience was hearing wasn't. I.e. Both tracks were in phrase, but the audience would hear the the first beat of the cue track come in as both tracks were on beat 2 or 3 or 4 of the phrasing. So how do you do this? If you move the volume slider up in small increments right before beat 1, then whenever the cue track is loud enough to be heard from the master out, it will always be heard first on beat one because that is when you increased the volume. I have found that mixing this was lends itself to a very smooth bass switchover.
Don't get me wrong however, the way you mix could be better for you if you are looking to do a seamless transition, but if the basslines are not increadible silimar, then you will notice the small switchover. Another thing to note is that anytime you adjust an eq, always do it in phrase also--everything you do, every knob you adjust, every volume slider you slide, ever effect you introduce, should always be done in phrase. And further, I don't meant to tell you that you should change the way you mix, but I am saying that there are certain tracks that you will have to mix in differently than others due to different basslines. Getting a good grip on several different mixing techniques can help you become a very effective Dj.
Another reason that I don't adjust the volume on the cue track's bass is because that is going to be the live track, and so if you need to cut over to it during a trainwreck, or another problem or desire to cut over durig the transition, then that track has no bass line! In addition, the gain set on the cue track is very sensitive to how heavy the bass beat is hitting (by viewing the LEDs anyway) and therefore, if you have your bassline cut even a little, it may be one of those tracks with a bassline that is pretty soft, and therefore will be too loud when you mix it in. It is hard to notice this without the bass beat. If this happens to me, all I do is leave the channel fader at 7 or 8, or whatever the appropriate volume level is. But by bringing in the bassline afterward, if the mids and highs are too loud, then you have to correct for the mistake afterward, versus not making the mistake in the first place.
Anyway, tell me if that helps after you read through it about 5 times and try out this technique I'll go look for other tracks that work well with "Ocean of Joy" As far as mixing two vocal tracks, I don't think it makes that much of a difference as long as you don't mix in the vocals during the transition--unless they work really well together (ie vocals by the same person, or male vocals on one that complement female vocals on another etc.). Most of the time they have instrumental mixes anyway, if the vocals don't go well.
As far as mixes, I have one full length mix from close to a year ago, and I do have one really nice transition between two tracks that I can send you. My ICQ is 218587 and AIM is Djflesch2. If you want me to send them to you, drop me a line. I haven't had much time to mix in the last 6 months. I'm working full time and in school for my Masters in Chemistry too! Thank god it's the summer. Now all I have to do is a lot of home improvements, work on my car and get married! I'll find room to dj in there somewhere, I hope! I don't mind helping at all. I have a bunch of famous long-ass posts here on this board One of them even made it to a sticky thread on the vinyl vs cd sticky at the top!
If you have any comments or questions, I'll be more than happy to either clairify myself or go into more detail.
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When you dance, the DJ takes you on a journey, but he or she is usually not the focus of your experience at a club or festival or wherever you hear the music. Dancing is. Music is.
Last edited by Dj Flesch on Jun-25-2003 at 01:50
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