Add an Extra Beat to the DJ Mix Can Be Used in All Styles of Music

0:01 Let's play two tracks

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. So, first and foremost, this is a beginner to, I suppose, sort of an intermediate DJ lesson. And I'm not going to be using the whole track, so you're going to have to work around the video simply because I don't want to get any copyright strikes if I play too much of a track. So, let's play two tracks. I've got a loop on both of them and I've just got the beat loop. So, have a listen to the one. If you do want to know the tracks, it's Ain't Got Time, Ricky Morrison Dub Instrumental by Hannah Kimo and DJ Abel. So, basic 4-4 beat. Okay, then the other one, All I Need Extended Mix, Sheba, Seen and Tim or could be Sean actually, S-A-N, Sean, depends how you pronounce it.

And Tim Bresco. Okay, and this is the other one.

There. Play it as it should be. Nearly gave it away then, didn't I? Okay, so again, another quick tip for you. Sort of a beginner tip. If you're finding it difficult mixing and using the pitch, then please look at the percentage you've got. The percentage, of course, is based on the BPM. So, if it's 100 BPM and you're at... 16%, you're going to increase it by 16, which means all the way towards you, you're going to go to 116 BPM. All the way away from you, you're going to go to 84 BPM. Okay, so just bear that in mind. Now, really what you need to do, if you're using tracks that are the same genre and they're roughly the same BPM, then you might as well go plus or minus 6 because you actually have more control over the BPM.

If you go any higher, plus or minus, you know, 16. Don't get me wrong, you can do that. It's more for advanced to professionals because you do have to concentrate a bit more on your BPM. But then that's really more suited if you want to go from slow disco house to techno. So, you can increase or decrease the speed. I digress. Anyway, back to the job at hand. So, what I'm going to do, I'm going to play them both together. Now, I haven't got any headphones, so it may go slightly off beat. That's not the idea of the video. Of course, the idea is for you to get an... idea and expand on this video. So, let's press play.

Okay. Both go at the same time. And that's the other one. So, what I'm going to do with this track now is just add a bit of sweep. Give it a nice techy sort of sound.

3:19 What I was doing there is just adding the other track

So, what I was doing there is just adding the other track. Adding all I need over Ain't Got Time. And because I've added the sweep, what it does... It gives it kind of a techy sound and a lot of people, if you've got sweep on your controller and you're more inclined to use the filter, then try it because you get a really nice kind of breakdown of the beat. So, if we go full-on to 12 o'clock, have a listen, turn it now anti-clockwise. It's almost like if you're familiar with sort of mastering and production terms, it's like you've got a gate on there, you know? You're only letting a little bit of... You're only letting a little bit of sound come through. Now, there I've got bass mid and treble at 12 o'clock.

Let's get rid of the bass. Lower the master volume down a bit because I was pumping in the red. OK, let's leave it like that. Let's try them both one out. Let's start them at the same time and slowly bring in all I need. That's by itself all I need.

4:43 Instead of it just being a kick, we've now added another dimension

OK, so what we've done there, we've highlighted a little bit of the top, you know, one, two, three, four. Instead of it just being a kick, we've now added another dimension. Now let's try something a little bit weird. One, two, three, four. OK, actually I didn't mean to do that. I wanted to do it on the two, beg your pardon. One, two adds another dimension to the beat.

OK, so what we've got here is if you imagine you're playing a track, you're going to bring the next one in. Why don't you before you bring the next one in halfway through the track that's going to overlap a segment of that beat? It could be a longer loop. It could be the beginning of the track, maybe eight or 16 bars and add an extra dimension to the track that's playing. So what you're doing in essence is you're starting to become a producer and you're rewriting the track. You're adding small, tiny, extra like that small, tiny, extra elements. Now again, with a lot of these videos I do, you can follow them to the T if you want. But a lot of people have emailed me and gone, well, I watched that video and I did

This because you inspired me to maybe do that or this extra. So what I've done is I've sort of made them think for themselves, which is what it's all about right now. I hope this is a help as ever. Don't forget, leave a comment. Let me know what you think. And then maybe in a month's time or a week or later on that day. If you've tried this, then let me know what it was like. Thanks for watching. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.