Intermediate DJ Mixing Lesson on a Double Drop in Banging Electro House Music

0:00 Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor

Alright guys, Jonathan Ellaskins, The DJ Tutor. First of all, I do give Skype lessons over the web, either Skype or Facebook. They're one-to-one, there is a fee and you can book either one lesson, two, three, or if you book five then there is a discount. And if you're interested, check out in the information below on how you can take part. The lessons are strictly confidential, it's between me and you, and absolutely no information on you, emails or anything like that is given away to anybody. This lesson is dedicated to intermediate DJs, so you already should know how to mix. It's about phrase mixing and snapping in another tune very, very quickly. I'll give you a demonstration first, then I'll show you how to do it.

And then I will explain exactly what's going on. The names of the tunes will be down there in the description, along with the email where you can contact me. So let's try this. Okay, so here we go. Wish me luck. Okay, let's go back a little bit more.

2:35 It's like walking along the ground

Now first of all, to do something like this, you've got to be like a bison. Imagine a bison. It's like walking along the ground. It's eating its grass, but it's got balls this big and they're dragging along the... Oh, I didn't want to say that because I'm probably going to have that image in my mind for the rest of the day. I'll take that image away. Right, okay, so... Oh no, I really need to take that image away. Right, so what was going on there? Okay, so first of all, two keys here. Actually, there are three very important factors. One, make sure they're in key, make sure they're in time, but also it's got to be spot-on phrase mixing. Now, if you're using three tunes that are the same BPM, no problem.

You don't have to mess around with the pitch. But if you're going to be using three tracks and maybe different BPM, you've got to be very quick at changing the pitch. So you have to snap it in time. Now there's no point here can you like bring the volume out and try to mix it in on your headphones and spend about five days doing it and then think, oh, it's in B now I can bring it in. No, this is why it's an intermediate DJ lesson. Because this is slightly more advanced. It's more technical and you've got to be quick. So imagine this, imagine you have got an absolute banger on the right hand side. You're bringing in an absolute stomper on the left hand side. So people are ready for that stomper. They can hear it.

They know it's coming in. But what you do is you take that out and you bring another stomper in. So what you're doing is a bit like a double drop in a sense, which it is because they're both dropping at the same time. But instead of that, instead of having the second banger, you're giving them the third one. So let's run through that again. And while it's happening, I will cross fingers, hopefully talk about what's going on. So let's go back to my point here, which I set. Now again, this is about mainly phrase mixing. You have to be on time with your phrase mixing. Remember in tunes, as soon as one phrase finishes, the other one starts. When the producer decided to have a phrase finish there, he or she did not think,

Just nip outside now, go and have a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee and spend the next half an hour out there. And then I'll start the next phrase, leaving a gap. No, one phrase finishes, the other one starts, whether it's an instrumental break, the chorus, the verse, whatever. 99.999% of time in modern day music there will be phrasing, even in these radio versions that are about 30 seconds long. Actually, three and a half minutes. Right, so let's go to that point then.

5:20 Rats, I pressed the Q

Rats, I pressed the Q.

Balls dangling along the floor. No, don't do that, it's silly!

No! Come on! Ow!

Original speed. So I'm mixing these two together, sort of, in phrase. Now this one's building up. But what I'm doing, as soon as we get to the end of that track, I'm starting the other one.

So we've gone one straight to the other. This one's got a nice build up, people are going, yeah, I know this tune, I'm thinking of it, yeah, let's get that fill, that drop. A double drop in a way because the two tracks are dropping in in time and in phrase but instead of having the second tune you're actually bringing in a third. Very quickly. I hope that's been of help. Info on the lessons and the tracks in the description. Practice and enjoy. Here we go. Me balls!

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