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Wax on, wax off - practising how to mix
On YouTube this video is called Complete Beginner DJ Lessons Video 23. Wax on Wax off Practise How to Mix
What this lesson teaches
Named after the Karate Kid, and the comparison is exact: a repetitive, slightly boring motion done until it stops requiring thought.
The cycle
One complete repetition:
1. Press play on one side, with the volume up. 2. Count. One two three four, one two three four. 3. Four or eight bars in - on the one - press play on the other side. 4. Listen. If there is an echo, nudge the jog wheel until it goes. 5. Bring the first side down and the second side up. 6. Cue the first side back up, ready. 7. Go back to step two.
And again. And again.
With headphones
The same cycle with the cue added: one cup over one ear, the other ear free for the speakers. Cue the incoming side, get it started and nudged into place in the headphones, then bring it up.
Start with the easier no-headphones version if that is where you are. The cycle is the same either way.
It is not about speed
His demonstration moves quickly and he immediately says it does not matter if yours does not. Four bars, eight bars, sixteen bars between transitions - all fine.
What matters is the repetition. He says it four times in the video: wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.
Why this is the right exercise
Because the bottleneck at this stage is not understanding. You already know what a bar is, what the jog wheel does, and what an echo means. The bottleneck is that doing all of it at once needs more attention than you have.
Repetition is how that changes. Each pass through the cycle moves one small piece from "thinking about it" to "already done", until eventually the counting is automatic and your hand finds the fader without being sent.
Then there is attention left over for the music - which is the whole point of getting the mechanics out of the way.
Use the numbers
He reminds you to drop the second track in on one of the magic numbers - four or eight bars for practice, and in real music two and four for radio edits, eight, sixteen, twenty-four and thirty-two for extended mixes.
Drilling those in is part of the exercise. Coming in on the one, at the right distance, every single time.
Contents of the video
0:01 I think as well very quickly it's my files that these files aren
Alright, video 23 and I'm going to call this Wax On, Wax Off. So hopefully you have seen the Karate Kid film where there's a part in it where the guy says you've got to wax on, wax off and just do these motions all the time. So what I'm going to teach you here is the Wax On, Wax Off of DJing and also this will boost your muscle memory. This is the key for you to not even having to think about what you're doing, it just comes naturally. So first of all I'll give you a demonstration then I'll explain exactly what I was doing. Okay, I think as well very quickly it's my files that these files aren't exactly on the one when I press play but that doesn't matter. Again this is a demonstration. So first of all again what you need to do is make sure you've got the same track on both sides, make sure your master tempo, sorry I'll start again, your tempo reset is exactly at the same BPM so you've got a mirror image on both sides.
1:41 What I did, I pressed play on the one side
So what I did, I pressed play on the one side. I wasn't using headphones by the way, of course you can if you want to and you should have seen a previous video on the very basics of using headphones. So press play on one side. I was then counting, started play on the other side, brought the first one down and so on. Now what I'll do now is again exact demonstration this time I will talk you through the process. So I'm just going to get this set up there you can see it was just slightly off whereas that's exactly in time. Okay. So let's talk through the process so 1, 2, 3, 4 and count to 3, 4, 1 start the other side on the one jog it slightly forward because we had an echo cue the next side up 4, 1, 2, 3 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 cue the next side up 3, 4, 3, 3 and 1, 2.
3:27 Bars, side start, magical numbers
And bring the next side in now again you may not be able to do it as quick as that it doesn't matter even if you take maybe 4, 8, 16 bars it's not about speed it's about wax on wax off wax on wax off so if you're going to be using headphones all you do is you start off with the one side you have the volume up you cue the other side with one cup over one ear the other ear. Left out so it can hear the speaker system you're using you of course press play on the one side with the volume up you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 on the one start the other side but don't start the one on the other side anywhere while you're counting on the first side try and start the one on the second side maybe 4 bars in.
Or 8 bars in get used to those magical numbers that I've talked about before a radio version 2 bars and 4 bars an extended version 8, 16, 24, 32 magical numbers drill those into your head so we play that we maybe count 4 bars and then we start the other side of course you've got your headphone cup on if you hear that echo use your jog wheel just to nudge it in beat you may have to move the jog wheel clockwise if the echo increases you're going the wrong way move it anti-clockwise till you don't have an echo bring the volume up bring the volume down on the other side and then repeat the process hope that's a help practice and enjoy thank you.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
