What to Look for Before You Mix in the Next Track DJ

0:00 How tracks are made

Let's have a look at how tracks are made. Now, also, how you can use them in a mix. So, what does that mean? Well, if you're going to be playing, let's say, an extended track, something that is more than, say, five minutes long, generally what you'll find is that track will have a nice intro. Now, let's imagine that we are going on, close your eyes, imagine you're going to go on a walk out in the hills. Now, you're not all of a sudden going to be at the top of a hill, unless, of course, you live on the top of a hill, and then start walking on more hills. No, you're going to be on a flat surface and then you're going to start to walk up a hill. Now, we're not on about rock climbing here, we're on about walking. Now, how does that analogy fit with a track?

Well, some tracks will start off at bass level and slowly work their way up. Now, as they work their way up and they get higher and higher, new elements are added to that track. For example, the bass line, the melody, the vocals, samples, edits, rapping, and so on. You know, whereas some tracks, maybe you start a bit higher, maybe the bass line is already there from stage one, or maybe the melody is already there. Now, these are tracks that you've got to be a little bit more careful with when mixing them in. Because if you have, let's say, a track that starts from the first kick with the melody, you have to make sure that that melody will work with the melody of the other track. If not, then you're going to get potentially a clash of keys. So this video is about listening to some of these tracks and working out where they are along that sort of walk.

Are they at bass level? Are they halfway up? Are they all the way at the top? And so on. All right, I've got some tunes here from CDPool from the dance releases from August 2018. I'm going to do a random flick and we'll go there and I'm going to press play. Let's have a listen. Where is this track? This one here is Lorde, the Junior J Extended Remix. So here we go. Right now, straight away, we've got that melody in there. All right. The melody is there. From the first kick. Now, that tells me very simply, if I'm going to mix this track in with another track, I need to be very careful because if I'm not sure about the melodies, then of course, you know, use the likes of some software that will help you determine the keys of the track.

You know, on the other hand, if you're if you've got a musical ear, you should know. Yeah, that melody works with X, Y and Z. So.

Let's just have a listen to a little bit more of the track.

3:04 Let's have a listen to the end of the track now

Let's have a listen to the end of the track now.

See, again, this track is finishing with some melody as well. It's not just finishing with that dum-dum-dum, that kick. Now what I want to do now is try and find a complete opposite. I want to try and find a track that has got a defined just kick to begin with. Now, this is just over five minutes. So yeah, there you go. All right. Now, how did I know that? Well. If you have tracks that are very short, three minutes and so on, then the phrasing is going to be short. Also, it's more than likely that you're going to have the track coming straight in with that melody. Boom, it's straight in. If you listen to a lot of tracks on the radio, very rarely daytime will you hear like a dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum?

It just comes straight in because daytime listeners want to hear something straight away. Most daytime listeners are not. Well, when I say not clubbers, but they just want to hear that commercial poppy sound. On the other hand, an extended version, any track normally over about five minutes will have a more of a longer introduction. And this one is at base level. We're now right at the bottom of our journey. Okay. So we're right on ground level and hopefully we're going to start to just elevate slightly. We're going to climb that hill. Here we go. So. There we go. There's our melody now. So our melody came in after, what would that be? About eight bars. I didn't count exactly. Okay. This is Gameplay Rough Lord's Vocal Mix.

And don't forget if you go to the CDBall website, there is a link in the description right down there. August Dance 2018. You can get to listen to all of these tracks I'm playing and every single other track on the Twin CD. CDs and also dances. They're all downloadable as well. All right, let's try a track here entitled Only You. Wide Boys Club Mix. Now even though this is a toughie, but even though there is that beat to begin with, you've got that sound now, even though it's only a small sound, if you did mix out of key, you'd be able to tell that you know you're mixing out of key because you've got that initial sound. . Also, listen to that kick.

That itself is has a key to it. So you need to be careful about the kick as well.

5:52 Again, this one starts with that melody straight away

Again, building up slowly in phrase, the phrases are a lot shorter because it's a three and a half minute track by four, three, two and spin it forward a little bit.

Okay, let's try another one. This one here. Four minutes. And 50 seconds. Love lasts forever.

Now, again, this one starts with that melody straight away. Okay, so this is another track that you have to be very careful. Dogs barking. Do not chew the postman's leg off, please. That did it last time. Terrible. Honestly, blood all over the place. Postman are nightmare. Right? So you've got to be careful with the likes of this one as well because it's starting straight away with a melody. So make sure that you either bring this track in just over a beat of the last track, or if you're bringing it in over another melody with the other tracks, make sure those two melodies work well together. Otherwise, I'll be honest with you, it's going to sound rubbish. Okay, even if this is phrase and in time, if the melodies don't work terrible blood lasts forever.

Okay, one more deep in your heart. Just a kick. There we go.

But again, we've got some vocals in the background very quickly. Let's let's count how many bars away before the vocal started. One, one, two, three, two, one, two, three, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. Okay, really quickly. So again, another track you've got to be very careful of deep in your heart. The extended mix. Let's have a listen to the end of this track.

Get into the last 38 seconds. 25. Four seconds.

8:10 Am I going to play this?

Yeah, again. So this track you'd have to be very careful with mixing the beginning and the end. Okay. Oh my goodness. Am I going to play this? Oh, I am. Don't go breaking my heart. This is the Dave aura remix and it's the Backstreet Boys. But these are the dance mixes. What do you expect? This is commercial dance music. It's not about the artist sometimes. It's about the producer, the remixer, because they can put their own little twist on it as they've done here. Like it a little bit slower. Okay, we've got that melody building in the background. But to begin with, listen just the beat. Okay, just forms a loop again. I'm just using the original files. I'm not using record box or anything so that loop may be a little bit off now.

I formed a loop there. So if that loop was an exact quantized loop, that would give me plenty of time. To bring in another track. So even though the intro of this track may not be very long and there could be vocals coming in after, say, four or eight bars by forming a loop, that gives me the time to bring in something else for as long as I want. Okay, let's go out of the loop and let's have a listen to Don't Go Breaking My Heart.

Okay, once again, check out the link in the description to CDPool.com. These are the dance releases. This is for August 2018. All right, thank you very much for watching. Practice and enjoy.

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