I've heard some livesets or mixes (PVD and Nick Warren for example) where the dj might mix a breakbeat into a straight thumping trance beat? Is this hard to do? I think it's a great way to start off a set or creat a breakdown in the set. How do you get the steady 4/4 kick of a trance track to smoothly mix into an off beat break beat kick (without sounding like a train wreck)??.

I think its always great to mix in some good trancey or atmosphere breaks or whatever to make things interesting in a set.
Just count out the measure in the break beat track and match that with the 4 beat measure of the 4/4 track. Its kinda hard to do with so much going on at once. But the best thing I find for me is to just count 1 2 3 4 and so forth whilst listening to the breaks track and then figure out which speed to get it going to match it with the 4/4 track.
just practice it alot.

well, there are pretty much two ways to mix breakbeats into 4/4.

1. turn the bass down on the incoming track...at an appropriate time, make a quick swap between basses

or method 2

turn the bass down on the incoming track, and keep it this way till the first little breakdown. then you can turn the incoming tracks bass up, and the outgoing track's bass down without a REALLY obvious switch

___________________
huh?

there is another thread on this if you do a search (but breaks and prog not breaks and trance) theory is the same though. i can mix them now but it takes me a lot longer then with 4/4 + 4/4 as it is harder to pick up the BPM of alot of breaks tracks just by listening as accurately as you can with 4/4. the easiest way ive found is to mix it through the headhpones, just slow down the breaks (cued) one until it sounds right, then make standard adjustments, you have to be quick on the pitch control though, as i find it becomes messier faster and harder to correct :)

practice i guess!

i love putting breaks in my trance songs . it gives ppl a break from the same beat. the crowd love it, a nice change in the set is always good. practice. good luck.

mixing breaks isn't that hard
in almost every 3/4 beat track there's a high end element (snare, hi-hat, etc.) that is on a 4/4 beat
so when you mix anything listen to the high end of the track, your mixes will be tighter and you can easily cross from a 4/4 beat to a 3/4 beat and back

___________________
Tony Morello Dot Com
Soundcloud
Facebook
Twitter
The Drunken Monkey Podcast
The Mixdown Podcast presented by Tony Morello

good luck in this one

___________________
- gho[z]t

quote:

Originally posted by DJ_Shockwav mixing breaks isn't that hard in almost every 3/4 beat track there's a high end element (snare, hi-hat, etc.) that is on a 4/4 beat so when you mix anything listen to the high end of the track, your mixes will be tighter and you can easily cross from a 4/4 beat to a 3/4 beat and back

breaks isn't 3/4 beat

all electronic music that i can think of is 4/4


as for mixing breaks into trance and viceversa
all you have to do is match the snare on the 2nd & 4th beat, and for fine tuning listen to the cymbols

also the first kickdrum in the breaks 4 beat measure should fall on the first kickdrum of the trance measure (usually...but not always, its pretty obvious to tell when it does and doesn't)

to mix them you can do any number of a different things
you can mix the hi & mids like you normally do since the cymbols are usually the same
and for the broken kickdrum, you can just slowly fade it in as you slowly bring the trance kick out...having both tracks kickdrums going sounds fine
but as with all dj'ing, there's no set way of mixing...this is just one way

___________________
http://kidlax.vibez.ca
Go there, it's what all the cool kids are doing
Bear with me while the site goes through some major construction

quote:

Originally posted by Kid Lax breaks isn't 3/4 beat all electronic music that i can think of is 4/4 )

your saying DnB is on a 4/4 beat????

___________________
sig too big, read the rules

yaarr matey that's exactly what im saying

4/4 refers to 4 beats per bar, 4 bars per measure
(my terminology might be a bit off, its been a long time, but you get what i mean)

i.e. 16 beats a measure

but they don't mean physical beats as in kickdrums, but in timing

4/4 describes this type of idea
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

so in drum&bass the noticable instrument to count (snare/clap) falls on 2 & 4, then 2+ & 4, alternating, but that doesn't change the fact that its a 4/4 measure...just keep in mind its at 170+ bpm when testing this out for yourself

in breaks the noticable counting instrument falls on 2 & 4


if it were a 3/4 measure it would be
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
an example of this is the classic song "Tubular Bells" (i.e. The Exorcist theme), though it might be 3/3 I can't remember exactly, but i know its 3/something as ive tried to incorperate it into a set but the timing is all wrong

___________________
http://kidlax.vibez.ca
Go there, it's what all the cool kids are doing
Bear with me while the site goes through some major construction

Yeah, Kid Lax is Right.

Kid Lax: Your problem with tubular bells is that it has a structure of 3 bars of 7/8 followed by 1 bar of 8/8 (or 4/4) .. if you count the quavers in a bar you'll see what i mean (grouped as 2, 2, 3 for the 7/8 bars and 2, 2, 2, 2 for the 8/8) .. i've tried it too, and its almost impossible to pull off..