Can anyone suggest a smooth way to switch basslines between tracks? My transitions are starting to sound boring because i keep on doing quick, hard slams with the low eqs which sound good, but I'd just like to learn how to do a smooth, gradual bassline switch. Seems like every time I try a gradual shift, it sounds like shit, with clashing/overloaded bass. I'm just looking for a useful pointer to get me going in the right direction, so if anyone can help that would be great.

"switching basslines" is not something a dj needs to do in every transition. It all depends on the songs your mixing together, if the cued track has a strong bass kick don't be shy obviously, but that doesn't meen that you have to kill the outgoing bass completely. Just try different things with the levels and eq's i guess.

Just play around with things, a good deal of the progressive tunes that are around now have such definitive basslines that you need to be pretty sharp when replacing one with the other.

Sometimes you can be creative with the basslines & have a really long smooth transition, other times now, there isn't really a tried & tested means of doing it.

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i like to do sharp bassline switches .. but thats just me... it sounds cool and even unnoticeable to the layperson if u just change it during a clash or a loud boom, etc...

but u could just have the incoming low eq all the way down and gradually bring it in while shifting the playing track down...

it can sound good ... but just play with it

If the two basslines & kicks sound similar enough, it is possible to do a gradual change over by lowering slightly the bass of the live track, while bringing up the bass slightly of the cued track. Keep it up until you have switched.

Another thing that I like to do is cut the bass of the live track quickly, and replace it with the bass of the cued track, but only for 4 beats, then switch back quickly. 4 beats live, 4 beats cued, then maybe 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, then full cued. It can really heighten the energy.

I think if the track you're bringing in is the same key as the outgoing track, or maybe even a complementary key, you can let slowly fade in the incoming bassline on fade out the outgoing one, not worrying about the basslines playing over eachother because they wont clash. If they aren't however, you could just cut the outgoing bass 4 beats before the end of a phrase and then bring the bass of the incoming track in on beat at the beginning of the next phrase (4 beats after cutting the outgoing track).

i hope that made sense...

try slowly fading in the song with the bass all the way up but with the mid down and the slowly bring up the mid and bring out the other bass

I find that a good time to swap them is at the end of some phrases when there are no beats in the last bar, i.e. where the last 4 beats are missing (does this have a name?). At this point, really good on the incoming track, I will turn off the kill and just before the first beat of the next phrase I will kill the other tracks bass. The good thing about this method is that you can turn up the bass but because there is no beats it is un-noticable. Its much easier to do this on something like traktor because you can see this approaching earlier on the waveforms.

Leave the bass EQ at 12'oclock. Use the faders to mix. Then you can mix that up with doing the EQ swap so you get a little more variety.

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If you're just starting to bass line swap, try doing it right as the outro starts, remember to phrase your tunes properly, right when the outro of your first track is a good way to do it, usually sounds pretty good.

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