9:38
The best moment to bring the next track in
On YouTube this video is called DJ Lesson. What's the Best Time to Bring the Next Tune in to the Mix?
What this lesson teaches
He ties himself in knots setting this up and the idea underneath is worth the tangle.
Three kinds of mix
Wrong. Out of time, out of key, out of phrase. Everybody can hear it and everybody knows what to do about it.
Right. In time, in key, on the phrase. This is what the whole curriculum up to now has been for.
Right, but wrong. In time, in key, on the phrase - and brought in at a point that ruins what was happening in the room.
That third one is the subject, and almost nothing else teaches it.
The example
Two uplifting anthems, same key, same energy. They will mix together perfectly; there is no technical obstacle at all.
Now imagine you have been playing music at that energy for half an hour. The crowd are up, they are expecting more, and the track that is playing arrives at a break - the moment where everything thins out and the room holds its breath waiting for the drop.
Bring your second record in across that break and you have answered their question with somebody else's answer. The build they were waiting for never arrives. Technically the mix is flawless and the floor has gone flat.
What this is really saying
The crowd's expectation is part of the arrangement.
A break is not empty space you can fill. It is a piece of tension that the record created deliberately, and the room is holding it with you. Whatever happens next has to resolve it - and a new track, however well matched, usually does not.
Which means the question "where do I bring this in?" has two halves. The structural half - which bar - is what counting answers. The other half is what the room is currently doing and what it is waiting for, and no amount of technique tells you that.
The practical rule
If the playing track is in a break, either let the break resolve before you mix, or make your incoming track provide the resolution - come in on the drop rather than during the run-up to it.
The technical skills get you the right to make this decision. They do not make it for you.
Contents of the video
0:01 This video is about bringing your track in at the right place
Alright guys, this video is about bringing your track in at the right place. Now, first of all, let's imagine you have a track that's playing. It's a banging tune and the choir are enjoying themselves and you're bringing in a second track. You're getting it ready on the headphones. Now, of course, there's lots of ways of bringing the next track in correctly but there's also lots of ways of bringing the next track in incorrectly. There's also ways of bringing the next track in correctly but incorrectly. Right. Bring it in correctly is in time, in key, in phrases etc. Bringing it in incorrectly is when maybe it's out of key, it's out of time etc. Now let's imagine though you're bringing the track in correctly but it's not being brought in correctly. So you're bringing it in in key, in time, correct phrase etc.
But it's at that point in the track that's playing where if you bring your new tune in, you're going to ruin the whole vibe, the whole atmosphere of the track that is playing. I hope you follow. I confused myself there as well. So what we're going to do, we've got an experiment here. We've got two tracks, Afro Jack and Rehab vs Dimitri. And over here we have Air Atlantis, Atlantica, sorry. I'm going to play both of them so you get an idea of what they sound like. An anthem sort of track you're going here, very uplifting, very like, ah, come on, boom! Now I just want you to bear that track in mind, this is the next one. Both very uplifting, same key, same energy. So I could mix these two in perfectly.
Beatmatch them perfectly, have them in a time scale, a time phrase position where they'll work together perfectly. But if I bring in this track here, Air Atlantica, at the wrong time, I could lose the complete vibe of this track here. Now I'm going to give you a demonstration of how I can do precisely that. Now let's imagine we have this plane bearing in mind and we're not using my headphones. This is a demonstration so I hope you get the general idea. Listen. Right, here we go. Play this one here. Imagine crowds bouncing around. Excuse me. Okay, so... Alright, so we've got a break. Now if we've played half a dozen tracks with the same energy level, the crowd are going to be buzzing. They're going to be, come on, come on, come on, more, more. They're going to want it. Music. Right, so there's a point here, so halfway through, where there's a break.
3:12 They'd be going mad
Now, at this point, if you'd been playing this sort of vibe for about half an hour, the crowd would have their hands in the air. They'd be going mad. They'd be up for it. They'd want more and more. They'd want to be taken down. They want to go up. They want to just feel more energy, feel more vibe. So listen. Higher and higher. Again, sounds very low. If you're in a nightclub, booming sound system, you're going to have like goosey-biddy bump bumps all over you. And you're going to be like that. Uh, it should be. Right, so... Okay, maybe missed a beat there but listen, this track here, alright? It was pretty much in time, alright, I chucked it in but this is what I'm trying to get you to understand here. Even though, yeah, alright, which in fact I'll try and do that properly. Hold on, here we go. So you'll see what I mean. Let's go back. I'm going to get a cue point to exactly where it comes in.
There. So I know. It's better. Now, if you imagine, I've lost the vibe. I've lost the energy of that room. Even though it's in time, etc., etc., I've lost the pure energy. I need to keep that energy going. So this track just says, it screams at me, play, carry on playing, don't stop it there. Unless...
5:12 I don't want fluffy bunnies
Pay attention. Unless I have another track that's got that boom, boom, boom or boom in, not something that's going, yeah, come on, come on, fluffy bunnies, fluffy bunnies. No! I want it to carry on like that. I don't want fluffy bunnies. But I could bring that track in a little bit further on. Here we go. So, go back to that. We'll get the feel, we'll still get the feel. I'm going to chop this one in, not going to mix it. So we've got the energy, we've got the... Yay! Maybe now with a filter. We can hear it rising. It's rising. Now, it's your choice. Think about it. I personally think that works because they've had the breakdown, they've had that build-up. They've gone, whoa! And at that correct time, bang, bring it in. Alright, baby. Again, thinking outside the box. Hold on. Let's go back. And again, this is where you start constructing your set. Alright? Again, digressing slightly. People say, oh, what should I do? Should I construct my set fully before a club or should I just go and do my thing? Well, maybe do 50-50 because if you construct your set before you go to the event, you may find your set, the first couple of tracks will work.
7:09 Work, crowd, practice enjoy
But then the crowd may disappear and it means if that's the only set you've got, then you can't work with the crowd or the crowd can't work with you. It's very important that you open your mind to what the crowd want and also what you want them to want. If you want them to want certain tracks, your set, but your set doesn't work, the crowd will disappear and you might as well go and play dominoes. Alternatively, if you can work with them, in other words, you have your set and they start to disappear... And then you think, oh, they're gone, but they need to be uplifted. And you bring in an uplifting track, then that'll work. I hope you get me there. So, here we go. Alright, er, yeah. No! Sorry, I'm doing this off the cuff. If we listen, we've got that... It goes down again. Of course! Duh! Right. Listen. I'm going to go back to the beginning of that track. There. Right, so... You see what happened there? And this is where we're listening to the track.
There was that uplift, and it went steady, and then it went down. And then of course, that's the point maybe we can bring up. Sorry. Right. I hope it's been a help. Bit of vibe going on here. It's all good. And I'm going to say practice and enjoy because this is possibly one of a collection of videos Which will be the last videos I will ever do in this house. I appreciate every single person watching my video work. I've had an immense joyful time doing my videos here in this house, but it's time to move on. To begin with, I wanted to stay here desperately, but now I'm happy to move on to pastures new. Yvette, myself and the kids are going to enjoy ourselves. And for my babies out there, I love you from the bottom of my heart. Practice and enjoy.
Come and see your dad.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
