DJ Phrase Mixing Made Easy BY Ellaskins the Original DJ Tutor

0:00 The tune I'm using is entitled Reaching to My Brother

Alright guys, the tune I'm using is entitled Reaching to My Brother. It's the instrumental mix from Eddie Amador and Danny himself. It's Danny Cohibia. Right, so in this video we're going to do some phrase mixing. Now, if there was a top ten on the definite do's to make sure you get a good mix, the first top one would be to mix in key. The next one would be to make sure you're beatmatched and the third one to make sure you're mixing in phrase. Now, what we're going to do here is hopefully at least all three of those. Now, there may be a few people out there that would disagree because, you know, mixing in beat is far more important than key or mixing in phrase is far more important than mixing in phrase or key.

But with my personal experience, I would say the music side is the most important because that's what keeps the vibe going. Now, this form of exercise, you don't have to worry about that so much. You're going to hopefully be using the same track. So, let me just move the camera up slightly. Right, so let's have a listen to the tune itself.

Now, again, I'm using the instrumental version. Good reason for that is there is going to be none if any vocals because we don't want to try and make things awkward. We want to try and have a very basic kind of track, a bit of melody, good vibe going on. But also at the same time, we're using the same... We're using the same track on the other side and also we have the pitches dead center, same position. Now, phrase mixing is very important because what that will help you with and also when you're phrase mixing in a venue to the public is that your mix becomes more structured instead of slap-happy. So, in other words, if you're mixing in key also in beat but not in phrase, then you start to get a lot of clashes.

2:23 It's a little bit like putting bricks together

Maybe vocals over vocals, maybe melodies clashing, bass lines and so on. If you stick to the top three in beat, in key and of course in phrase, then everything should fit in place. It's a little bit like putting bricks together. So, imagine... Okay, I'm now going to have my charger. This is my personal sort of walkabout charger for my phone. And here's my phone. I'm going to butt one next to the other. So, there you go. As you can see, they're butted next to each other. Now that is in phrase. As soon as the charger finishes, that's the end of the charge and my phone is butted right next to it. So imagine that that was the mix. All right, that is like... You could class that as a chop. But let's imagine you're still beat matching them.

They're still mixed. And as the charger finishes... The end of the charger is like the end of the bass line of that track. And the beginning of the phone is the beginning of the bass line of the next track. Well, that's what we want. We do not want them overlapping. Now again, you can have them overlapping. So this is where life does get very confusing. Because as you get more in tune with what you want and you start to feel the mix... Then you can become a little bit more adventurous and start to blend in different places. But for a beginner especially... It's a good idea to mix in phrase. Now, hold on a second. Something strange is happening here. We have an instrumental break. I'm going to go back... Let's go back to the beginning of the instrumental break.

4:54 Twenty-four is not an odd number

There. Okay, so let's go to perform and I'm going to set a hot cue. Right. I am now going to start from that hot cue which is the beginning of the break. And I'm going to count how many bars I have before the end of the break. So one, one, two... Two, three... Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Okay, so we had twenty-four. Now, as I've said quite a few times, phrasing is not just about eights, sixteens and thirty-twos. Twenty-four is not an odd number. Okay, it isn't... Of course it's not odd because it's an even number but in terms of phrasing it's not an odd number to find because twenty-four is just sixteen and eight.

Very simple. So let's have a listen to the other side and the beginning of exactly the same track. Now also as well, same track, the pitches are at exactly the same position so this is like a bit of a... It's just a way of practising, okay? You wouldn't normally do this at a gig. You probably would want to do this with family or friends if they know you're practising but you wouldn't want to be doing this in your bedroom with a whole bunch of friends smoking dope and having a laugh. Did I really say that? Yeah, whatever. So listen. Here we go. One, one, two, three, two. One, two, three, three. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, five. Three, six. One, two, three, seven. One, two, three, eight. One, two, three, nine.

One, two, three. Okay. It's good to perform. I'm going to set a hot cue where the melody starts so...

Right. So we had eight bars and then that melody started. Right. So let's play that again. One, one, two, three. Two. Three. Four.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 10. 120. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 102. 103. 104. 105. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 121. 122. 123. 123. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 149. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 1410. 1411. 1412. 1413. 1414. 1415. 1416. 1417.

12:18 Let's go to the end of the break on the right-hand side

1418. 1419. 1420. 1421. 1422. 1423. 1424. 1425. 1426. 1427. 1428. 1430. 1433. 1434. 1435. 1436. 1437. 1439. 1441. 1442. 1443. 1445. 1446. 1447. 1448. 1449. 1450. 1451. 1452. 1453. 1456. 1457. 1458. 1459. 1460. 1461. 1462. 1463. 1464. 1465. so as soon as the drop came in on the right hand side instead of having the drop on the right, the break would come in on the left. But again this is the fun of practicing using the same track. Alright let's go to the end of the break on the right-hand side. Let's skip it forward. Right I'm going to be slightly more adventurous and I'm going to go towards the end of the track on the left hand side. Okay there's another break, let's just bring that down so you can hear what I'm listening for or listening to. Here's another break. There okay so that's where

I'm cued up on the left. Let's listen to the right. Okay so the right is pretty much now going through the break and that's where I'm cued up on the left deck at the beginning of that break. Now I can't see the wave format on the right so the break could be this break could be exactly the same amount of bars as the first one but it sounds like it could be a little bit shorter because we're coming to that sort of build. Just using the up faders now or crossfade back into the left. So really if I was to talk about this video in, I don't know, a few seconds what you're trying to do is you're trying to mix four bars at once and then you're going to have two bars at once and then you're going to have three bars at once.

You're just going to have two bars at once. You're going to have three bars at once. Keep one side playing from one track to the other but keep the phrasing going. In other words try not to have one side playing and just slap happily bring the other one in anywhere at the third bar or fourth or fifth. Try and bring it in at eights, sixteens, twenty-fourths and thirty-two so if you can remember those numbers that will help you and also while you're listening to the track even without playing it I mean for example practice to become a DJ you don't even have to have turntables in front of you you can be in your car you can be on the bus you can be surfing away with your eye with your headphones on which is probably not a good idea because wet but

So long as you're listening to the track and you're counting you will start to slowly understand the phrasing of tracks right I hope that's been help check out the link in the description to this wonderful tune practice and enjoy thank you very much as good as yes much thank you

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