Intermediate DJ Lesson on Phrase Mixing an Acapella in Your Set

0:00 In this video I'm going to teach you how to mix acapellas in phrase

Alright ladies and gentlemen, in this video I'm going to teach you how to mix acapellas in phrase. Now first of all, an acapella is part of the track that is just the vocals, the voice, the rap, the singing it's got. It shouldn't have, if it's a proper acapella, any of the original track. So imagine a normal track, you've got bass, you've got treble, you've got mid, you've got percussion, you've got hi-hat snares, you've got vocals, you've got melody, you've got everything, singing and dancing and people getting drunk and just having god knows what in the corner. Oi! Pack it in. But with an acapella, he... Excuse me.

Please stop doing that, this is rude. Pack it in as well.

So, you take away all of the melody, the bassline, and you're left with the voice, the vocals. That is the acapella. The two tracks I'm using is Afro-Columbian. So we've got Jack, Take Over, Control and then we have André Fissori and the track here, André Fissori, the track is entitled Ask Yourself. It's the original mix. You've gotta make sure they're both in time and also you've gotta make sure that they're in phrase. Now a couple of things you can do here. One is you can find a track that's perfectly at the correct phrasing of the acapella. Alternatively, you can use your hot cues. You can put hot cues, set hot cues at the beginning of phrases in the acapella. So when you do come to change a new phrase in the track, hit the acapella and away you go.

Now what I've done is I'm gonna start them both at the same time but then I set a point here. Sorry, not that one, over here.

I've set that point. I want that point to come in at exactly this point here.

There. So even if the original acapella when it starts at the beginning of this track isn't at that point, if it sounds as though it's not going to work I could quite easily pull the acapella out very slowly and slightly maybe use an effect and then start the acapella at my point here and then it will be perfectly in phrase because there's a point in this acapella where it works really well over a break in this track. So we'll just try this now.

2:40 What I'm finding as well with this, I'm gonna add some echo

Not bad. What I'm finding as well with this, I'm gonna add some echo.

There is a little bit of an echo there anyway but I want to emphasise that. I'm doing three quarters.

Now I should have taken that out because that didn't really work there so maybe just leave it like that or maybe just start it off again. The phrase finished on the acapella we had the phrase finish on the track as well so it works, this is good.

5:33 There's no beat so how can you physically mix something if you're a be

There's no beat so how can you physically mix something if you're a beginner? Or if you've never done it before. And there's no beat, there's no kick to listen to because when you're listening to this track here there's a kick and there's a defined tap-tap-tap-tap but with an acapella there's nothing.

So one two

Now an acapella is pretty much exactly the same as a rhyme, an old school rhyme when you're in school. Mary had a little that you know Mary had a little lamb So if you imagine you try to put that to a beat you know Mary had a little lamb But if you broke that up even more the M in the Mary pretty much would be the first kick. Mary her, the her in the had Had a little lamb So that's a very simple way of looking at it so what you need to do you need to try and listen to the points in the acapella That are defined points And those defined points are That's, well are The defined points Defined points

The defined points is The defined points are the exact places where the kick will come in. Now this may take practice but you'll get there in the end. Before you go by the way if you're in or around Dubai on the Check the dates 13th and 14th of November 2014 The DJ Academy is having an open day It's going to happen here There it's going to be music and lights It's open turntables as well, open decks Now that doesn't mean to say that if you turn up on the night with your vinyl or with your CDs You can have a set What you will have to do is contact the DJ Academy first To be booked in to have your set alright It's open to anyone you can come along if you want to There is also a piece of Pioneer kit that you can win

And also Native Instruments will be premiering their S8 here in the building So if you want to come along and join in, have some fun And also this guy over here as well Mr Trey would like to come and say hello I've just finished doing a video over here And if you're into turntablism by the way And you'd like to learn how to scratch Check out Mr Trey sir Are you good? Practice and enjoy See you on the 13th and 14th Starts at 6pm Nice one

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