|
Visually there is an indication on the record in the form of breaks in the bands. If you understand how that translates into the math behind the music in terms of bars, measures and time signature, time remaining is no longer a concern, it then becomes a simple matter of understanding that all music follows a conventional formula that will introduce and remove or reduce instruments as a track builds or breaks apart from begining to end. Therefore by using this knowledge you can physically look at the record being played and know where your cue points are for release of the record coming in next and where things need to be faded in based on beat, bar, phrase and measure count, not "time remaining" which is useless and incorrect. From there you can use what is visually represented on the record mixed in and determine what an appropriate plan of attack you should have in your head for mixing out - working with those instruments falling off and instruments coming in from record to record. The results are a more natural transition with out really have to "know" the tracks selected inside and out. Once you understand this stuff, you can essentially grab any two records out of say a mail order package you have had come to your door just before you leave to go play at a club and pull them out and mix them more or less with ease (providing they are in the pitch range that feels appropriate going from one to the other in terms of tempo - and no key shifting doesn't really fix this problem) simply by looking at them!
Amazing stuff.
Brutally obvious but many people including a lot of "pro djs" are clueless to this fact. Also many people who teach others how to play are clueless about this technique and why you should use it from a musical stand point (the process essentially being billed over the years as phrase mixing) right from the get go. It helps to ensure a proper understanding of first beat (not release off kick) cueing and that translates into faster and better beat matching skill development - leaving DJs to pay further attention to appropriate EQing technique, crowd interaction, fader control etc. All around a good thing.
After a while as you have discovered from what you have described above, you "just come to know how much time is left" - this is correct, you will essentially gain the skill to just time left but not in minutes and seconds really but "band distance/width to matching band distance/width" (usually ending up being an equal amount of bars which again gets back to the math of music) each of the records. Think of it as lego. If it doesn't smack you in the head with what I mean with that statement, hit my website end email me off of there and I will explain further.
___________________
DJ Lithium
Black Tiger Recordings | NKME Ltd.
www.djlithium.com | www.blacktigerrecordings.com
|
Not London.
