Drum and bass DJ Mixing Lesson the Drop Tunes from Hospital Records

0:00 Another lesson on mixing drum and bass

Alright guys, another lesson on mixing drum and bass. Tunes I'm using from Hospital Records, from the album Hospitality 2016. Two tracks, the one on the left is Komodo, that's by Whitney, and the one on the right is Had A Little Fight, it's by London Electricity. Now, this demonstration is sort of showing you how, even though you have two tracks, same key, it's maybe, just maybe, not all the time, maybe a good idea to form some form of transition towards the end of the one track, so the vibe changes naturally instead of halfway through the track. Now again, there's a lot more to this, it's the energy in the room, it's how you feel. How you want the energy to go, whether you want to keep it at a constant, or you're looking at the crowd and maybe you think, you know what, they need to have the vibe changed.

They need to be up one level, or down one level, or at a constant. Now, the trouble is with mixing drum and bass, it's not as simple as house music. House music, fall to the floor, steady flow, so long as you do it correctly, perfect. Drum and bass, practically every track has a different source. It's a different sort of feel. There is something about every track that makes it completely and utterly unique. Mixed correctly, you can make the vibe in the room as you want it to be. Mixed incorrectly, and you can have a steady flow, steady vibe, all of a sudden you'll bing, bung in another track, and there's this aggravation in the room. It doesn't happen, it's not happening. What you need to do with drum and bass,

2:18 Make sure I've got my phrasing in time

Is imagine you are taking your listeners on a wave. It's like they're on a boat, they're being sailed out to sea, and you're on calm waters. You can see the waters getting choppy a bit further on. But it's not just calm and then choppy. It's calm, and you're going to gradually get them used to that choppy kind of feel. So hopefully I'm going to do just that. Now, had a little fight, I have set a cue point at the end of the track. Let's have a listen to it first. Make sure I've got my phrasing in time. And it finishes. Have a listen. When it doesn't finish, I just chopped it off. There. OK. We've still got a bit of a melody in the background. But as soon as the beat stops, that's where I want to bring that one out.

And I'm going to bring in Komodo in at the beginning of the first break. Let's have a listen to, not exactly at the beginning of Komodo, but where the kick starts to take place, where the actual drumming comes in. There. So what we've got, we've got the same amount of time from that point to the break. I'll just play it forward a little bit. Now, that's where the transition will take place. Now, we've got a point here, this break, where the crowd will get used to this sound, this vibe, and then it's going to take them on a slightly different kind of deeper vibe when... the drop comes in. You'll get exactly what I mean about right now.

There. OK, so what we've got here, we have had a little fight gliding away, getting us into... getting us used to the break into Komodo and then the break will get the dancers, the people listening ready for the drop which is a little bit darker than had a little fight. So we'll do that transition now. What I'm going to do, I'm going to... my cue point there. I'm just going to move it back a little bit and I'm going to make sure I've got the Komodo ready.

There. So let's do this.

That is it. That is it. So this is our transition now. We've gone from one kind of mellow vibey tune. This is our transition point, this break and then we take the people listening, the dancers into a new dimension. The drop. Bang! Hope that's been of help. Don't forget check out the link in the description to Hospital Records and of course this LP or the tracks on the LP are finished off with a big shoutout to Hospital Records. Practice and enjoy. Thank you very much.

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