3:21
Counting a phrase, and beat mixing to it
On YouTube this video is called Dj tutor, How to count a PHRASE and beat mix part two.
What this lesson teaches
The practical follow-up, done slowly and narrated while he does it.
The job
He wants the incoming record to arrive exactly when a particular moment lands on the one that is playing - a vocal saying "get up".
The procedure
Count forward on the incoming record. How many bars from where it will start to the point you care about? He counts: four bars.
Count backwards on the playing record. From the moment you want the two to coincide, count back the same number of bars - four - and that is the instant you have to press play.
He does the counting out loud both ways, and spins the record back while counting, which is the physical skill that takes practice.
Then he starts it, and the two land together.
The principle underneath
Worth stating plainly because it is the whole of phrase mixing:
A mix is the alignment of two events, and bars are the ruler you measure with.
You are not feeling your way to the right moment. You are measuring a distance on one record, measuring the same distance backwards on the other, and starting accordingly. If both measurements are right, the result is right - and if it comes out wrong, you know one of the counts was wrong rather than being baffled.
And then you can play
His aside at the end is worth keeping: with the two locked together, now you can start messing around with the EQs.
That is the right order. Get the structural alignment first, by counting, and treat the EQ work as what you do with the overlap once you have earned it. Trying to do both at once, before the counting is automatic, is how people end up with a mix that sounds busy and lands in the wrong place.
He says "cross fingers"
Twice. Which is a reasonable summary of how this feels for the first few months, and worth seeing from somebody who has been doing it for decades.
Contents of the video
0:01 Count them both together, we work back, okay, and we want to work back
Okay folks, this time on the second lesson we're actually going to count the bars on this record that we're going to bring in to this record. So we need to know how many bars are on this one and how many bars are here. Count them both together, we work back, okay, and we want to work back. On the principle, if this is 2, we want to work back on 2 here. If this is 3, we want to work back on 3. If this is 4, we need to work back on 4, knowing where to bring this one in. Okay, so first, we'll count to see how many bars we need to come back. So we'll start off, right? We'll stop the record and spin it to get it a lot quicker. So 1-1-2-3-2-1-2-3-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-1-2-3-1-2-3-3-1-2-3 Okay, four bars. So we'll get that ready. Okay, now then, we're going to bring this record in when this lady starts saying get up. Okay, so we've got a difference there. Now here's the tricky bit for me. I need to now count back, spin this back.
1:25 We need to count back here, so we count here
Four bars and then bring them both together at that point and hopefully when she says get up the break will come in and away we go. So we need to count back here, so we count here. That's one. One, one, two, three, two, one, two, three, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. One, one, two, three, two, one, two, three, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. One, one, two, three, two, one, two, three, three, one, two, three. Four, one, two, three. One, one, two, three. Two, one, two, three. Three, one, two, three. Four, one, two, three. One. There. Cross fingers. Bring them both together. Basically got it mixed anyway. So you can start messing around with EQs and stuff, yeah? All we did, we counted four bars there and we got the break where we wanted the break here to come in here.
On all I did, it counted four bars back, started this one four bars back, brought it in, perfect mix, near enough. That's how it's done. See you soon.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
