DJ Mixing Lesson a Visual Interpretation of Looking at How a Transition Works

0:01 You're probably wondering how can I do it?

Alright ladies and gentlemen, I'm in Dubai. I'm at the DJ Academy, Dubai DJ Academy and I'm about to give you a mixing lesson. You're probably wondering how can I do it? And here I am. This lesson is all about transitions. This is about phrase mixing. This is about making sure you get the exact mix. Now first of all, you have to make sure that tracks you're using are in time, they're in keys that work and also you need to start getting something called graph paper. That's the paper with small little squares and I have that just here. Now they're not little squares, they're actually quite big squares but this will give you an idea. Now what I want you to do, I want you to imagine that every single square is one bar. I want you to have the two tracks that you really love and you know work well together

1:13 Start counting those squares, so for example the first kick

And I want you then to have the first line of squares classed as maybe the beat. The second line could be the bassline, the third line could be the melody, the fourth the vocals. Not only that, I want you to then colour in different colours. The beat could be blue, the bassline could be black, the melody could be red, the vocals could be yellow. And what I want you to do then, once you've worked out that you need graph paper, you need one bar is one square, is then start the track and start writing. Start counting those squares, so for example the first kick. One, two, three, four. That's one square filled in say for example with blue if you're using blue for your beat. Continue that all the way through to the end of the track making sure that you eliminate any parts where there isn't a beat or there isn't a bassline

1:53 Here is the genius part

So you'll end up with something that will look like this once you've cut it out. Alright, so that could be my one track. This could be my other track. Now because they're different songs, they're going to be different, they're going to look different, they're going to have different shapes. Now here is the genius part. This is where you can start visually having, visually seeing your mix, your transition. So for example, here we go. You can see this track here and let's imagine this is the beginning of the track, this is the end of the track. This is the beginning of my other track. No, yeah, this is... Doesn't matter. This is the beginning of my track, this is the end of my second track. So what I can now do, I can now put these two together and see that if I put the tracks here, the transition's going to be okay.

It's going to be in time but there, it's you know, there, there. Ah, how about here? Now that works doesn't it because the second part of this is bassline. So I can see as soon as this bassline finishes, this bassline starts. Not only can I see it starts and finishes by noting this point here and where it matches up on this track I've now got a visual interpretation of where this track needs to come in. Do you see the genius behind this? So it's not something you'd probably want to do with every single song but it's a good idea to do it with two. Because you have a visual interpretation of the track, alright? Hope that's been a help. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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