DJ Tutorial Lesson Advise Demonstration Working with the Touch Brake

0:00 You have a defined kick for the bass and you have a d

Alright ladies and gentlemen, in this demonstration it is a demonstration and it's a great way of getting you used to timing phrases and using this technique you can pretty much mash up any track. First of all I highly recommend you use the likes of breakbeat or drum and bass because there's a lot more going on in between the bass and snare. So for example house is you know kick 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 The kicks pretty much are the same sound. Try and get breakbeat, trap, drum and bass, hip-hop because the sounds of the drums are very different. So you have a defined kick for the bass and you have a defined sound, a different sound for the snare. You also have sounds in between.

2:56 In greater detail what to do

So imagine, here we go, here's the platter and on this side on the left Inside the defined kicks. So I've got Ed Wizard here to track Disco Double D. Let's just play a little bit of it. Okay, what I've done, and you can do this pretty much with any decent controller, is I've set a hot cue at the beginning, and I've set a hot cue I think on the third or second kick. So one, two, so one, two. Okay, so we've got one on the high, what I would class as the snare. All right, what I'm going to do here is use the vinyl speed adjust, mainly the vinyl touch break. I've done a video like this before but this is slightly more intricate because I want to show you...

In greater detail what to do. At the moment I've set the touch break to 12 o'clock. Now that will give a, it will give not an abrupt stop to the beat. When I press play pause you will hear almost like a glide as it finishes. But what I want to do as well is during this video I'm going to change the vinyl speed adjust. While I'm messing around with this, the beats and you will hear a definite change in what I would class the colour of how the track slows down and finishes. Now there's not much of a difference but there's enough, there's a subtle difference to change the feel and the vibe. Even if you're stopping the track at the same time. So I'll just give you a demonstration here. So 1, 2, 3, 1, 2... The only reason I didn't say 4 is because I wanted you to hear the sound. So 1, 2, 3, 1, 2... OK, so for the partially sighted what I'm doing is one finger is hitting the play pause, the other finger is hitting the hot cue. So hot cue and play pause. Hot cue and play pause. Hot cue and play...

5:39 With the original timing of the track

Now, hot cue and play. All right, that was at 12 o'clock. What I'm going to do now is move that to about 1.32 o'clock. Here we go. Listen to the subtle difference. One, two, three. All right, we've almost got a doo-doo. Now, I'm going to move it slightly back to maybe one o'clock. I like the sound of that. It's almost in time, but not. When we heard it earlier, it definitely wasn't in time, but by me... Just changing the touch break very slightly, it might just be in time. Let's have a listen. Now I actually need to turn it the other way. Here we go, let's try it again. Now what I tried to do on the last time I pressed play pause is press it before the kick. So by me actually pressing it before the kick, it allowed more time for me to get that in time.

8:00 Of this tutorial and you get

With the original timing of the track. I hope you follow that. Now again, this is where practice is imperative. The more you can practice, the better you will get at it. OK, so I'm going to set that to 12 o'clock and let's have a go. Now again, one part of this tutorial is getting used to phrasing. Very important. So I'm not just going to press once, twice and three and just hope for the damn best. Some form of phrasing. So, for example, one, two, one, two. Next time I'm going to hit the speed adjust and again and so on. Alright, seems very laborious and you go on and on and on. But what this is teaching you is phrasing. Now, you're actually in control of, of course, what you're doing, but you're in control of designing the phrasing for yourself.

I have in my mind, I'm always picturing, and this is a good way of you learning how to phrase, is I'm picturing me climbing a hill, almost like a pyramid with steps, and I'm climbing up, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, and I'm up, and then down, 2, 3, 4, and it's almost like down the other side, so you're going up one side and down the other side. The more you practice this... The more you will find that the pyramid could be as tall or as short as you want it to be. Now there, I did a very simple routine. This time, we're going to make it slightly more intricate. So here we go. One, two, three. OK, you get the idea. Hopefully you get the idea. But once you've done the first part of this tutorial and you get used to that, then my advice is...

10:10 All I'm doing, I'm hitting the second hot cue

Have a play around, have a mess around. Just see what happens. It could sound absolutely terrible. But then again, out of 100% of you doing this kind of routine, 10% could be absolutely frigging awesome. The other 90% could be crap. Then remember that 10% and work off that. So, the first hot cue is at the beginning. The second hot cue is on the second kick. Have a listen.

So all I'm doing, I'm hitting the second hot cue. One there, so first, second, first, second, first, second, first, second, second, second, first, second, first, second, first, second, first, second, first, second, first, second, second, spin back and again we're getting that Because all we're doing is we're spinning back one kick, that's it. I put my hand on the platter to stop it straight away. There's another way of doing that but I can't at the moment because I've got the tripod right here, is I've got the volume control so I could do something like this. Just bring the volume down. Okay, now I hope that's been a help but something like this is a great feature in let's say a hip-hop mix where you want to impress the crowd.

And believe me, if you're in the right environment, people will love it. Because you're doing something that is a show. You're not just the DJ playing the music. You're now a performer. You're like a magician. A magician, they will demonstrate perfect tricks. They'll do something fantastic and it's visual. Thank you for watching.

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