Vinyl Mixing Back in the Day TRY to Keep Your DJ Set Organic

0:00 Another video on mixing with vinyl

Alright guys, another video on mixing with vinyl. A couple of classic, classic, I mean like really classic tunes. I have here Lillo Thomas track entitled Sexy Girl. Wow! And also the Groove Train. Why do you do it? On that side over there. Alright, now the thing is with these tracks is there's a lot going on. The Groove Train, there's practically no sort of instrumental breaks. There's nowhere where you can go, oh, there's a big gap, I can bring the next one in. So what do you do? Well, there's actually still lots you can do. Now, I'm going to say something really controversial here. I mean like big time. I mean like really big time. And there's sort of an irony attached to this. Because with today's DJing environment, laptop, controller, program, everything's digitized and everything has to sound sweet as a nut.

Well, okay, that's great. I mean there's nothing better than listening to this seamless mix that just sounds like it's come from a computer. Actually, I disagree with that. I think those mixes sound shit. I'm sorry. I've got to be honest with you. But if you are going to use a controller and you're going to use a laptop and you're going to use sync, then fine, no problem. But be creative in your mix. Make it exciting. You know, I mean what you've got to do, you have to remember, it has to have a tiny bit of an organic feel. If you lose that, then you might as well go out, download a mix. And pretend you did it. Because there's no beauty to it. There's none of this sort of human error. So what I'm about to show you now is maybe a little bit of human error, which shows it's real.

So let me just put this on. Hopefully this is not going to get copyright issues or anything like that. Let's do it.

2:12 Kind of natural feel to it

It's a magic. Kind of natural feel to it. Now, the trouble is with a lot of tracks like this, when I say like this, old school tunes, is that they weren't made for this long, smooth mix of 1632 or 64 bars. It was a case of chuck that sucker in. So what else we could do is something like this. So. Chuck it in. Okay. It's sort of for the end of a bit of the vocals, I didn't sort of cut it in halfway through. So what I'm doing here, in a way, is sort of back in the day when DJs had 7-inch singles and dodgy turntables, we didn't have, they didn't have, well, I didn't have the pleasure of making these long mixes. It was a case of you had to try and... Chuck it in. You had to try and blend it in a way so you didn't have this, well, you weren't able to have this long extended mix unless of course you were using tracks that would let you make a long extended mix.

You had to just chop it in. You had to try and do your best. Now, if you think about it, let me give you an analogy here. All right? And this is a real... This is good. And if you don't get this then... I feel sorry for you. I do. But go into a forest and have a look at a small tree, touch it, feel it, smell it, and look at it. And it's Mother Nature making something. It's growing. And then go to some showroom somewhere and have a look at another tree, similar size, looks good, but it's made of plastic. And they're so clever now of making it look real. It looks real, but when you go close, you can see it is indeed plastic. But from far away they look both real. This is what DJ is like today. A lot of people, if you think about it, are making these mixes that sound good, they look good, they feel good, but in essence it's plastic because you're using too much technology.

I'm not saying don't use it. I'm saying use it, but do not abuse it. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

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