Tutorial on Mixing Drum & Bass .

0:00 Haven't done a video for a couple of days

Alright folks, Jonathan here. Haven't done a video for a couple of days. The main reason is it's half term. It's a bloody nightmare. But in this video, sort of a tutorial, what we're going to be doing is looking at mixing drum and bass. Right, drum and bass. It is a very, very difficult sort of music to mix because of the complexity of the beats. It's not the most difficult I suppose I have said in the past it's possibly one of the most difficult, but I would say one of the most difficult is the likes of Spanish music like merengue, that kind of stuff, because there's more emphasis with the actual music. The beat's there, but of course the trouble is, it's like I've said in previous lessons, it's all well and good getting the beats lined up correctly, but if the key, the tone, the feel of the actual mix isn't correct, it's going to sound atrocious. First of all, listen...

To these particular two tracks. Let's have a listen, here we go. If you want the actual names of the tracks, look to the side of the video. Now, we haven't got a bass beat there. Well, we've got a bass beat there now, but if we pause it back and we start right at the beginning again. Take a listen, here we go. We've just got that... You see, I can tap along to that. Like so. Now, what I want you to do, okay, is I want you to listen to this a second time, a third time, fourth time, and I want you to count by yourself, but also I want you to count two ways. One is in bars, as in one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, and then also in phrases. One, one, two, three, two, one, two, three, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. Like so. Excuse me, right, we'll pause that. Now let's have a listen to this track.

2:17 Where there's no beat at all at the beginning

Where there's no beat at all at the beginning. Take a listen. So how on earth do you mix that when there's no beat to listen to and no beat to actually hear? There's nothing, there's no beat whatsoever. There's not even a tambourine. But believe it or not, there is a beat there. Now we've got something. Let's put it back to the beginning again. How do we do that? How do we actually find the beat in there? Well first of all, this is what I would personally do. I'd listen to it a couple of times. Now eventually, after a little bit of practice, you'll start to hear, almost where the music is, you'll start to hear structure in the music itself because the music changes and the beauty about this particular track, it changes in beat. Now let's have another listen. See what I mean? It's very difficult to get the actual timing but this is what you could actually do.

4:17 To begin with, it'll be like rocket science to you

With this particular track, there's no beat at the beginning. So what I would do, I would find an area where there's a beat. I would mix that area where there's a beat in with the track I want to mix it in with. Then theoretically, I should know, I would know that track should be in beat. If the beginning where there's no beat and you can't hear a beat, the timing is correct, then theoretically what should happen is you bring this back to the beginning. And you start it off at that precise point. And because you've got it in beat to begin with, the beginning should match the track you want it to mix into. Now, there's lots of beats and into and in and out and all sorts going on there with how I'm explaining it. But it is very logical. To begin with, it'll be like rocket science to you. What the hell's going on? But eventually, it will be the most simplest thing possible

To understand, once you can understand how to mix in the likes of drum and bass. Now let's give it a go. Let's put this one on a little bit. The best mix in the world. All this tutorial is, is about trying to explain one of the principles with mixing or with regards mixing with drum and bass. If you haven't got a beat at the beginning of a particular track, nine times out of ten, it will be in beat. So what you need to do... If we could almost compress this lesson into like 30 seconds, which is highly difficult for me. And that is go halfway through the track where you actually got a beat, get it mixed in at that point and then if you bring it back to the beginning you'll find that that almost sort of airy feel is in timing with how you've got it in beat during the actual middle of the track let's say. Hope that's been a help. Yes I do waffle but practice and enjoy.

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