DJ Transitions That Are Rough as Old Boots Club January 2021

0:00 Track disc, disc number

All right, so back in the day, if you're sort of my age, slightly older or younger, you used to leave school, go home, raid the fridge, go outside, stay out till God knows what hour, till your mum and dad called you in. You'd come in dirty as heck, mud all over your hands, eat your food with dirty hands, which of course helped your immune system.

And like today, we won't go there, but OK, wavelength, please. And then everything was like sort of real, whereas nowadays a lot of people, DJs, will look at the laptop, use and abuse the software so they can get this mix that sounds just seamless. When you have to ask yourself if you're said DJ, how much of that set are you doing or how much are you relying on said kit? So what I'm going to do here, I'm going to just show you a couple of ways of just being real. OK, track two, disc number one, which is all I want. So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to put this forward a bit so you get an idea.

Now, I'm not going to touch the pitches or anything like that. Just leave it the way it is. OK, that's what I wanted to do, actually get it right at the beginning. OK, track two, disc number one, over here we've tracked one, disc number two, polo can fold, what's your love? Like.

OK, so let's just get another track ready over here. So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to get them ready. So let's put this forward a bit.

1:57 Random track

OK, track number three, disc number one, The Weeknd by Nathan X.

Why?

Why X? OK, so let's put this forward a bit.

Just going to go to a random track. Hold on, what I wanted to do there, sorry. Slight mistake, let me just go back. I sort of stopped it, let it play a bit and then put that one in. Didn't want to do that, I wanted to do this.

That's better. OK, bit of a spin back and then chuck the next one in, which is track number four from disc number two, which is One For Me.

You see, I think we need to re-evaluate all these transitions and we need to just think outside of the box. In other words... Dive, as you say in America, dive into the trash can, get out all the rubbish and just make something with it. I mean... I don't know, I'm getting to the stage now where technology is great but I like the old school, I mean that's one reason why I've got these Mark 3s again. It's because even though they are technology, they're still old school. You know, the Pioneer CDJ... 1000 Mark 3s are very much like the Technic's SL-1200 Mark 2 vinyl turntables. They're sort of... they epitomise how DJing started. I know there were other decks beforehand, the Mark 1, the Mark 2 and other decks like the 500, was it 5000?

But these are almost like they were industry standard and they still do the job but also what they don't do is... they don't... they don't take away you being a natural DJ. You're still allowed to become a natural, real DJ using these without the use of a laptop if you get what I mean. Okay, track 4 there... Let's go to track 8 over here.

Now watch this... This has got to be one of the simplest transitions known to man.

5:06 Any pro professional DJ who watched that would think

Crazy!

There you go. Any pro professional DJ who watched that would think... Guys, lost the plot. But no, not at all, not at all. What is playing music? It's about playing some tracks one after the other. You can of course think solely and completely about mixing in key, in time, in phrase... That's fine, that's great. But also if you just want to play some music then play some music. Period. Okay, track number 8. Let's do one more after this which is Love You So. I like this one.

Okay, let's go to track number 8 on that side. What are we going to do there? If that'll work... Let me try.

Yeah! Okay. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to press the search button which will skip through the track. Give it a sort of an effect. And then start the next one. Listen, that did sound a bit rough but... So what? Who cares? Now I've got to be honest here. Before you give me a thumbs down. This might change it from a thumbs down to a thumbs up. I would not be doing these sorts of transitions with a dance floor full of people. Alright? Because if you think about it. If people are dancing in time. They want to still dance in time. If you did transitions like this with a dance floor full of people. They'd start throwing things at you. On the other hand, if you've got a bunch of mates in a room and you're all putting stuff in your mouth and blowing smoke out or having a quick sniff or whatever.

Then something like this... Does it matter? Does it really matter? When you've got a group of friends around. Do you really want them to get up and start boogieing? Maybe you do. On the other hand, maybe you just want to play some tunes. Or alternatively... You could do a transition like this. We'll finish off with this one. This one here. Yeah, track number eight. Diss number two. Yeah, I think I've already said this. No, I haven't.

7:49 Was I stopped the one and started the other one on the one

What's that? Univo U. Okay. Let's do one more. Like this. Oh my goodness. Now all I did there... Was I stopped the one and started the other one on the one. So three, four, one. Of course you've got to make sure that the other track is on the one. Now that sort of transition is a little bit more yes in time. And also if you want to make that just slightly better than what I did... Make sure it's in phrase as well. So as soon as the one track finishes its phrase, start the other one. Make sure that's in phrase. And you now have something that's in time. And in phrase. It may not be in feet as in the same BPM or in key, but it's definitely in time and in phrase. Track ten here from diss number one which is do what I want.

If you like what I do by the way, I've got a donation button. Chuck in what you want. Half a cent. Thank you very much. And also if you are interested, I do one-to-one lessons. We go through the medium of Skype, Facebook Messenger. Or Google Hangouts. It's basically me and you on the decks having a bit of fun. And I can teach very simple ways of DJing or slightly more intricate. We can use these, or we can use the controller, the XZ, or we can use vinyl turntables as well. It's basically me and you strictly confidential. I don't care where you are, who you are, what you are, what you look like, how you look like it, or anything like that. It's just me and you having some fun on the decks. All different styles of music.

If you are interested, there is an email address in the description. Send me an email. We'll have a chat. I'll explain exactly how it works and let's hook up soon and have some one-to-one lessons. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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