EDM Mixing Lesson for the Beginner DJ BY Ellaskins the DJ Tutor

0:00 This is a beginner tutorial

Alright guys, I get so many people asking me to try and organise my videos more correctly. So what I'm going to do from now on, in the title of every single video I make, I'm going to make it more clear and apparent what the video is about. So for example, if it's a video showing you kit, it will be a demonstration, whether it be PA or lighting or a piece of hardware. Also, with the tutorials, you will get beginner, intermediate or advanced in the description of the video. Also in the title, more importantly. This is a beginner tutorial. So from now on, every single video I do, I hope I remember, beginner, intermediate or advanced, or for that matter, we could do pro. There could be a few tips and tricks and a few skills I can show you.

I'm no genius, but I have known top DJs. Use a couple of tips and tricks, because I thought that's a good idea. They bugged it into their set. So this video is for complete beginners, and this is what I call fade in and fade out. Two tracks I'm going to be using are from the underground releases from CDPool June 2014. The track you're listening to now is Bicep, a track entitled Circles. It's the original mix, track three from disc one. We're going to be mixing in... this one here, track four from disc two, Bartskills, Shadow Print. It's the original mix and it's track four from disc number two. Don't forget that. Okay. The first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to form a loop on the bicep. And I can do that by just going into loop mode on this CDJ.

And if I press play...

1:56 I'm just going to hit eight, which is two bars

I'm just going to hit eight, which is two bars. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. We've got a loop right. You can see I'm not using any headphones. It's easier for me, but probably better for you if you use headphones. So what you need to do then is press Q on the track that you're going to mix in and set your level. So the level on your headphones with your headphone cup over one ear. The audio level will correspond. It will be at the same level as the speaker. That's what you want to do. So it's almost as though the speaker is the one cup, but it's away from you. The other cup, which is of course on your ear, is right next to your ear. So the audio level has to be the same. This is the cup. This is the speaker like that.

You don't want the speaker up here and the cup down here. Try and get them the same. Again, there's many ways of using headphones. Some people like to use, have both headphones on... ...and use two Q's, but for this sort of practice, there's no need. You just have to... Well, just trust me, one headphone over one ear and use your other ear on the speaker. Now you'll notice I've got the speaker on the left hand side. You can have it on the right hand side. Alternatively, you can have two speakers, but just one cup over one ear. All right, this is fade in, fade out. And first of all, let's set the pitch so it's all over the place. Let's press play in time.

We can hear that's off. Listen, what I'm going to do as well is I'm going to cover over the BPM so you know I'm not cheating. Have a listen.

Right, let's move the pitch down a little bit further down to the minus position and let's have a listen to see... Let's try and work out what we can hear.

Right, they're going even more off. So we've taken the pitch the wrong way. We don't put it back to the same position. We bring it up a bit further from the original position where it was when I started doing the mix.

Right. We're getting there. We're getting there. The beats were together slightly longer, but they still drifted apart. So we're in the right direction. Let's try that. Here we go.

We're not there quite yet. Let's bring it up again.

4:27 It's getting better, but it's still not in time

Now it's getting better, but it's still not in time. Have a listen.

Can you hear how they're sort of in time and then they seem to start to glide away from each other? So let's bring this up again.

Still not there. I've got a nose cold. Right, let's have a look. We've got 130.4 and we're on 130.5. So that wasn't too bad. But again, this video is about fade in fade out. So this is what I want you to do again. That's the first part of the video and that's a way of showing you how to get it in beat trial and error. The next part is as follows. You have your headphone on, you're tapping Q and you fade in and fade out. Here we go. Fade in, fade out. Fade out, fade in and fade out, fade in and fade out, fade in. Now you'll notice that I moved the jog wheel. Why did I do that? Well it started to go off beat slightly. Why did I move the jog wheel and not touch the pitch? All I did, I nudged that beat slightly. Now you'll notice I'm moving the jog wheel to try and bring it back into beat.

Now if I had to do this continually, it would tell me one thing that is still off beat. It's still not in time. So to get it in time, I need to move the pitch. All right, I think that's pretty much enough for this video. I hope that's been a help. There will be more like this in the future. This is a beginner's video practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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