Yea I get those, mine come from trying to play music that I'm just not feeling, like playing hard, but actually want to do a chilled set, when I do that I can't pick tracks well and so it causes me to beatmatch crappy, if I'm feeling good and play what I want, then its all good.

This will probably make me sound like a bit of an odd bod but it doesn't happen very often to me.
Only if I'm not concentrating or something like that. Otherwise no... can't afford to.

Cheers
Nem

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Originally posted by razzi it happens. just turn off your decks and mixer and chill out for a bit. then go back 30 mintues later and try it again. hopefully it works razzi.

I do the exact same thing, or sometimes I just don't mix that day anymore. If I chill for 30 min. I would still mix for crap.
I usually just stop that day.

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Hmm, I still cant beat match worth a crap haha, its all good. I just keep mixing the same two records until i get them matched..

I think I've listened to PVD - Crush like 800 times :/

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"We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots."

this is all about the zone! have i explained the zone? well...its simplicity itself but its hard to describe.

so i do it with mario kart. see. i used to be pretty good at mario kart. i could get 1:08:80 on mario grand prix 1 with bowser and by the time i set that race record my ghost was practically undefeatable. sometimes i would pick up the joypad and have the race of my mario kart career. i would just take the corners and i wouldnt spin off the track - i would be playing on the edge of my seat, pulse pounding and i would be in this frame of mind where i was sort of on autopilot. i didnt have to think about what i was doing - i knew what to do - i just had to do it. hold that thought. thats the zone.

some days i try to get back into that frame of mind. but i try too hard. i take a corner badly and i know i could do it better. so i restart but im annoyed that i did so well last time and im fucking up now. thats not a good frame of mind to be in cuz im thinking about fucking up. i wouldnt feel the pulse and the adrenaline and i sure as hell wasnt on autopilot. instead im thinking of being pissed off. im wasting my energy on being pissed off when i could be channeling it on getting into THAT frame of mind. thats trying to get into the zone and failing. the more and more i practice, the more consistantly i could switch onto autopilot and just do it. but crucially i couldnt do this every time - i couldnt have the race of my life every single go. mixing is kind of like mario kart. sometimes you just get on the decks and everything you spin is golden and the hair on the back of your neck is raised and you are really feeling the tunes. and you capitalise on the momentum of pulling off flawless mixes which raises the pulse even more and gets you even more psyched. if you start thinking (wow, ive mixed 5 tunes back to back perfectly you might start fucking up cuz you are not going with it or you are expecting to fuck up. and if you start to think you might screw up, sods law says you will. and you spiral out of the zone. the zone is a state of mind. getting into it consistantly is the hardest thing to do, but when you are there, you are flying.

so whoever said that stuff about feeling the tunes is absolutely correct. its harder to get psyched when you arent feeling the tunes you are playing. its harder to get psyched when theres any doubt in your mind that you are gonna screw up.

the advice is good too. take 30 minutes out and clear your head. just dont think about it. do something else. come back to it with a fresh mindset and try again. producing is like this too. sometimes im not feeling the tunes im writing and it all goes pear shaped. sometimes ill spend hours fixing a tiny bit of my song and ill end up tweaking it so much it sounds worse than it did before. and ill get frustrated. and trust me when i say that you cannot write a good tune if you hate what you are producing. or if you are annoyed at how its going. the best tunes i wrote are the ones i boshed up in an hour, capitalising on the momentum ive gained. what i should have done when i was fucking up was to work up to that point where i start to plateau and just stopped. taken some time out. cleared my head. come back to it and look for what sounds wrong. then correct it with a new frame of mind and fresh ears.

i notice as well that the more i do this, the more time i spend on improving my songs instead of tweaking them into the ground. im more productive. im more positive about it. im getting better all the time and im not wasting time and energy on something that blatently isnt happening. and i find that i can more consistantly get into that frame of mind where i am doing something productive.

try it! there is such a thing as overdoing it. or forcing it when its not coming naturally. instead of getting annoyed about it, crack open a can o beer, do something else that you find is fun and engaging, then come back to mixing when you are a little more psyched, a little more in the frame of mind where you are gonna set out to mix like a mashed up, six armed hindu GOD.

Last edited by Derivative on Jan-19-2005 at 22:18

Hehehe

You always know exactly what to say mate

Hows revision? (NOOOOOOOOOO the dreaded R word!!)

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quote:

Originally posted by 3xx3r7 Have you ever had one of those days, when you can't mix for shit? No matter how hard, pissed and concentrated you get, you still produce crappy mixes that day.

You little fucker...

I was doing just fine until yesterday and now my mixing hasn't been shit. I have a lot on my mind right now which is most if not all of the problem, but I have never hit a slump like this. It usually takes me about 30 seconds to have a song beatmatched perfectly, now it is taking up to 3 minutes and still not sounding right. Not only that, but my mixer control has just been ridiculous -- everything sounds like shit when I mix them together. ARGGGGGHHH

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Originally posted by Dirk W. You little fucker... I was doing just fine until yesterday and now my mixing hasn't been shit. I have a lot on my mind right now which is most if not all of the problem, but I have never hit a slump like this. It usually takes me about 30 seconds to have a song beatmatched perfectly, now it is taking up to 3 minutes and still not sounding right. Not only that, but my mixer control has just been ridiculous -- everything sounds like shit when I mix them together. ARGGGGGHHH

Say it ain't so Dirk, say it ain't so!

Dude...your mixes that you've released, the beatmatching is flawless...like when I listen...I cant even tell your songs changed dude...

Just clear your mind man.

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"We did not choose to become robots. There was an accident in our studio. We were working on our sampler, and at exactly 9:09 a.m. on September 9, 1999, it exploded. When we regained consciousness, we discovered that we had become robots."

quote:

Originally posted by Nemesis44 This will probably make me sound like a bit of an odd bod but it doesn't happen very often to me. Only if I'm not concentrating or something like that. Otherwise no... can't afford to. Cheers Nem

u've been djin since the beginning of time though, its no fair.

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Originally posted by placebo Say it ain't so Dirk, say it ain't so! Dude...your mixes that you've released, the beatmatching is flawless...like when I listen...I cant even tell your songs changed dude... Just clear your mind man.

Hey, I appreciate it bro... I went to the gym for a while tonight and that helped clear my mind. I came home just now and recorded myself and I am getting back into it again -- so it's not too bad. Hopefully the slump is over. Thanks for the words of encouragement, I think I am back in "the zone" for now.

But to everyone out there, yes, I can totally sympathize with the Slump. It makes you want to sell your decks. I was actually figuring out how much I could get for my tables, efx, mixers etc on ebay. A temporarily lapse of insanity....

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Helping girls make bad decisions since 1979

quote:

Hehehe You always know exactly what to say mate Hows revision? (NOOOOOOOOOO the dreaded R word!!)

im here aint i? that cant be good!

and i like that expression 'DJing since the beginning of time.' i wonder...

in the beginning of time there was void and emptiness and nothing. nothing except...nemesis spinnin' trance amidst the blackness. and god heard what was being played. and it was good. on the 2nd day, god gave nemesis the gift of coloured light which moved in time with the music. psychedellic. hoo ha! everything has gone 2d again! god was pleased with what he saw. but nemesis was sad to play to the blackness so...on the 3rd day, god made a crowd of people amidst the blackness that would bop up and down non stop in time with the music. and some not. nobody knows why. but nemesis was happy anyway. and god was happy too. and all the people were happy. until they realised they couldnt get booze or even water and there was no bar. so on the fourth day, all the people got pissed off and god had to build a bar establishment with a license to sell alcohol. and all the people were very happy. and drunk. but said, licensed establishment took big chunks out of nemesis's profit margins and were also happy. but nemesis was unhappy. and god didnt give a fuck cuz he had a cracking good party going down and he was teh host. thus ends the first chapter of how the dance music industry sold out.