DJ Mix Tutorial Bit Like Back in the Old Days

0:00 Another video on learning how to mix old school disco

Alright, another video on learning how to mix old school disco. Two tunes I'm using, it's Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next To Me, Mr Barry White on the left hand side, on the right hand side we have Alicia Miles' I Wanna Thank You, the original mix. Now again, with old school disco, there are no drum machines. You know, these are real people. By the way, you may notice I have got some gloves over the thumb drives, that's because I'm not at liberty to show you what thumb drives I'm using at the moment, but I will in the near future, so hold tight. Okay, so let's have a listen to Barry White first.

Okay, so what I'm going to do, I'm going to go maybe to the chorus of the verse. Okay, so you've got the general idea there. Let's have a listen to I Wanna Thank You. Now, at the moment with both pitches set to the centre point pretty much, if I put that exactly at 0%, and same here. The Barry White tune, 102 bpm, and the Alicia Miles' 108 bpm. So I'm going to speed Mr Barry up to about 104-ish, and slow Alicia Miles down to, guess what? 6,482,000. No, 104, same. So we're going to put them, I don't know, round about the same. Now when I say round about the same, why? Why aren't I making sure they're exactly the same bpm? Well, because it's old school. This is original disco music, so even though the Barry White tune at about a third of the way through

2:16 Same applies to the other track

Is saying in the centre point it's at 102.8, it may fluctuate. In fact, it's very likely it's going to fluctuate, so it may get a little bit faster or slower. Same applies to the other track. This is why it's imperative. It's so important that when you start an old school disco tune and it says 100-and-whatever bpm, don't think... It will be that same bpm all the way through. It is going to change, because remember, in years gone by, real people made these tracks. And they're not machines, they would have maybe got a little bit faster during the tune, or maybe a little bit slower, or maybe faster and slower. They may have started the track at 110 and finished at 111! Always bear that in mind. So when you do a mix like this, and you do it live as I am going to show you,

There's more soul to it. It's real. This isn't being made now by a laptop and a program that's telling me, it's the keys that work, and it's the songs that work, and guess what? Chuck it in because you're looking at a beat grid. Bollocks! This is using your ears. OK, so what I'm going to do first of all is...

I'm going to form a loop. Just a manual loop.

Get rid of that one.

OK, so let's go back to Mr White. And you're in and out next to me.

And you're in and out next to me.

To me. If I don't make my move, yeah. Right, I'm hitting the... I've got to make sure you don't get away. The loop. All you gotta get to make me wanna stay. All my life I've been such a first star. Now my season's over, and here we are. You're in and out next to me, yeah. When you're in and out next to me, yeah.

4:51 It's not as structured as modern day EDM

And there, bring it in. Now, as any old school DJ will tell you, mixing disco like this, there's more soul to it. It's not as structured as modern day EDM. You've really got to get into that tune. But also, it's about experimenting, alright? Now, two immensely brilliant cuts. And I'm going to tell you in the future, I can't say when at the moment, about how they're being played. Not how, but what through. Alright, but that's, as I said, for a future video. Two amazing tunes. And you may remember there's a tune by The Flipmode Squad.

They use this sample. That sample. This is just immense. And immense. Alright, listen. If you're a new DJ and all you're into is EDM, then check out old... In fact, if you like hip hop, R&B or anything, check out the old school tunes. But guess what? That's where a lot of modern day stuff came from. This sort of just wondrous, eargasmic music. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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