DJ Lesson Step BY Step Instructions on a Mix Using Electronic Dance Music Part 1

0:01 First of all what I'm going to do is I'm going to work ou

Alright guys, in this demonstration stroke tutorial I'm going to talk as much as I can through a mix. This video will also have another video attached to it, there'll be a link in the description and also there should be an annotation at some point during the video where you can hear the mix in proper stereo on another camera I've got over there. So the two tunes I'm using, the one on the right is Groove Rhythm, Feelings Can't Stop and the one on the left Lenny Fontana featuring Kiva The Diva, a track entitled I Don't Want You Back. Now first of all what I'm going to do is I'm going to work out a plan how to mix these two together. So if we have a listen first of all to Groove Rhythm, now you'll notice as well on the up-faders...

I've got both of the up-faders all the way up to the top, what I'm going to do now is just reduce the trim very slightly so it's only tapping into the zero, quite an uplifting kind of a vibe with this particular cut.

Move it forward a little bit and a bit more, that point there...

I've set a cue point and a hot cue I beg your pardon, and that hot cue is on C. Now I've done that because this is where timing comes in. This is where timing is very important, not just 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 but counting in bars from that point C to, if I go to C...

2:16 Straight away, if I look at my EQ

To this point here, the hot cue B so from C to B the timing there, the amount of bars is exactly the same amount of bars that we have at the beginning of the Lenny Fontana track. I don't want you back, so if we have a listen to that now...

Before I do this mix as well, what I need to consider is this track here, that I don't want you back. There's less going on at the moment, there's no beat, there's no bass line, or when I say beat, there is some form of beat here but there's no big bass drums. So straight away, if I look at my EQ... I can see that it's tapping now on sort of more... Minus one. So I'm going to just increase that slightly now, to zero. So it's now the same audio level as the Groove Rhythm track. But what I will need to do is I'll need to keep my eye on the volume here, on the trim, on the levels, on the EQ... Because as soon as the bass line comes in here and the beat etc... There's a very good chance the audio level could increase.

If I'm not careful, I can start to go a lot higher here and overpower the Groove Rhythm track. So if we just zip this forward a bit... Luckily, the levels are round about the same.

So again, I have taken the time to count the amount of bars in the Lenny Fontana I don't want you back track... From the beginning to this point.

4:27 We will find there's two bars as follows

Now if we count that part of the track... We will find there's two bars as follows. Sorry, and... One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. There. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Alright now again, this is where timing is very important and also what maybe you've found here... Is that when vocals come in or vocals go out they don't definitely start on the count of one or they don't definitely start at the beginning of a bar or at the end of a bar. Sometimes they can start slightly before so... One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Now that point there will come in... At the break here. Just before... B. So if we have a listen to that break... One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Bam!

So basically what's going to happen is that break there... That's almost my key point. That is the point at which the mix will start. Now of course there are many ways of doing this mix. One is to play that track over the entire part of this track from C to B. Alternatively I could bring this one in and out, fade it in and out, maybe use some EQ etc. Also what I could do... As soon as I get to the point where we have that... This part here... That beat come in. I'll set a hot QB. What I could do if I wanted to, I could just take this one out completely. Or I could maybe take the bass out of the groove rhythm track because I've got bass on the kevver track over here. So there are lots of different ways of doing this kind of mix and as I've said many times before...

There isn't just one standard. There are many ways of making your mix. So if we have a listen now after point B... So we've got melody, we've got beat...

7:16 Pass filter, high pass, bring track

Just pause it there. Let's have a listen to point B here where hopefully we will then bring in more so this track over that track. Now what we could do now is just try those two tracks together at those points.

Okay, what I did there is instead of just fading one out, chopping one out, chopping one in etc... All I did, I pressed the high pass filter and then I increased the high pass filter over the groove rhythm track... To eventually we got to the stage where the vocals of the Lenny Fontana kevver track came straight in. And that was the I Don't Want You Back track. Again, if I am sort of saying names of tracks incorrectly, I do apologise. By the way, these particular tracks... What I will do, I'll put links to where you can get them and I believe, let me just check... That the groove rhythm track release date on Beatport is 23rd December 2013. So that's in a couple of weeks from the time of the upload of this track.

9:42 Let's count how many bars we've got

I'll also put information on how you can get more info on Mr Lenny Fontana as well. So what we'll do now is, we'll just bring that one up... And like I said earlier, point C is where we're going to bring the other track in. Now you'll notice point C here is just after a break. So let's count how many bars we've got. From the break to point C. OK, there's four bars. Now timing is imperative here. It's really, really important to get timing perfect. And timing in music is about counting bars and phrases etc. So what we'll do now is... We will start to do the mix but this time at the moment we'll just do it with this camera and then we'll do it a second time using the other camera as well. So if you want to, once you've watched this video

Then you can watch the other video with hopefully the better audio but I will still let this camera roll first mix and the second mix as well. So we'll play this one...

Right, I'm going to put my headphones on now. Bring the volume down on the track I'm going to mix in.

11:14 One, two, three, four

Sort of, you know, playing around with this.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. And ready, two. Two, in. Setting my level on the headphones so it matches the audio level on the speaker.

Again you've got to remember that your headphones are really close to your ear so the audio even though it's low through the headphones will seem louder because it's right next to your ear.

Slowly bringing the volume up.

I don't want you back. The track here, I want you back just seems slightly louder so I'm compensating for keeping the volume, the up fader down slightly.

Listen.

This is exactly how I wanted to make the mix to work. So again as I said earlier, I could have if I wanted to let this carry on playing but that's how I wanted the mix to go. Alright so we'll pause that. What I'll do now, I'll put the other camera on. I'll just twist it around and turn that on. Hopefully it will come on. He says. It was on when it turned off. So now it's on. Press record on that. And we'll do near enough exactly the same thing now. So I'm going to press play on the Groove Rhythm track. Got the volume working now and again to just speed this up slightly because there's quite a bit of a gap in between the beginning of the track and the point at which I want to bring the Lenny Fontana track in on the left

So I'm just gonna whizz this forward a little bit. At this point now I could be doing a bit of EQ low frequency pass bit of high frequency could be doing a bit of echo or a bit of a roll if I wanted to. Again, don't just sit around do things what you could do as well is get these tracks

And try this out for yourself

Slowly increase the volume slowly start to increase the volume in this one you know slowly and you'll get this. Very very simple mix but I hope that's been a help don't forget if you're watching this on the camera up there go and check it out on the one over there so you can get better audio and I will say thank you very much to Mr Lenny Fontana for letting me use his tunes don't forget check out the links in the description so you can get these tracks go and check out Lenny as well practice and enjoy thank you very much.

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