Hi guys,

Let’s continue from the previous video on fading. This time I will use the cutoff filter in a few different ways. This controls frequencies as does the EQ, but one control knob handles the entire frequency range rather than needing 3.

Cutoff with high-pass (HPF)

Recall from previous videos that the cutoff filter allows you to remove sound frequencies below or above a particular frequency (called the cutoff frequency). I won’t go into technical details this time as I want to get straight to the point on how to use the filter for fading.

• The live track and the cued track are playing together.
• Set the filter up to high-pass (HPF).
• Make sure the cutoff frequency is at the lowest level since we want to start by letting all of the frequencies through.
• Enable the filter for the live track.
• When the timing is right, just before the last bar of the phrase ends, increase the cutoff frequency so it reaches maximum level at the point the bar ends.
• Depending on your mixer, you may still have some really high frequencies coming through even at the maximum setting, so immediately bring the volume of the live track down with the channel fader (or xfader if you are using that).

Cutoff with low-pass (LPF)

This will work the same but in the opposite direction. You start with the filter at the maximum level as you want to include all frequencies below that point initially.

One thing I find with my mixer (the Xone 42) is that even with the cutoff frequency at maximum, as soon as you turn the LPF on, there is a change in sound. This tells me that there are frequencies higher than the maximum setting which get cut off. The issue here is that I can’t just turn the filter on and off as I please (which I could do with the HPF), since the audience will hear the change. I therefore have to turn the filter on when the audience is less likely to hear this change.

In the video I show you what I mean with the Xone 42.

Adding resonance

There should be a feature on your mixer called resonance. This adds a funky effect to your cutoff filter as you increase/decrease the frequency knob. What you can do before fading out with the LPF and HPF is turn resonance on. Without getting too technical, resonance amplifies the frequency at the cutoff level and feeds it back into the filter.

Once again, note that if you switch the filter on for a track and resonance is set, the audience will hear a change in the sound instantly. What you could do is turn the filter on without resonance and add maximum resonance just when you’re about to perform the fade.

It all becomes clear in the video.

Until next time….

Hopefully you’ve found these 2 videos on fading useful. Next time we’ll go through another transitioning technique. I haven’t decided what it is yet so I’ll leave it as a surprise.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have your own technique of fading the live track out? If so, why not let us know about it in the forums, we’d love to hear from you.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Good evening all,

I bet you guys have forgotten about me as it has been a couple of months since I made a video. I’ve been tied up with many projects as well as having a go at stand-up comedy. I’ve put my stand-up gig onto my youtube channel so you can check it out if you like.

Anyway, back to business. We’ll continue from where we left off, which was transitioning using the bass eq. Today I want to talk about how to fade the live track out once you have brought the cued one in. As always, watch the video to see these ideas in action.

Amplitude fading

The most basic fade is to turn the volume of the live track down when the timing is right. The trick is to find the right timing, but you guys should know by now that it all comes down to bars and phrases. You can either fade out gradually or in an instant depending on the effect you’re wanting to achieve and the sounds that are playing at that moment in time. As always, experimentation is key.

The way I do it is:

• The live track is playing.
• Bring the cued track in (usually with the bass switchover I mentioned last time).
• At the end of a phrase, when you hear some sort of a build-up, kill the volume of the live track immediately with the channel fader.

Amplitude fading works a lot of the time but not always. I find it is useful when the live track ends with beats and has a lack of melody. With very little sound in all frequency ranges, the instant fadeout works. If there is too much happening in the mid and high frequencies as well, killing all the sound off instantly most likely won’t work (depending on the track of course, every situation is unique). In the video I show you an example of when amplitude fading doesn’t work.

Sometimes you can also time it so that the live track finishes automatically at the end of the track at the time you would want to fade out. If you time your phrases correctly and know your tracks well, this is possible and you don’t have to do anything, just let the live track play and it will stop naturally as it needs to.

Frequency fading – EQ

When you find that killing off the amplitude doesn’t sound good, you can fall back on plan B, fading out the frequencies of the track. This has the same effect in that there is no sound when all frequencies are switched off. The difference is how it gets to that point. Rather than the volume being reduced on the entire track, you are reducing the volume of particular frequencies in the track.

We touched on this last time when we played around with the bass EQ. By reducing the EQ of the lower frequencies we removed sounds such as the bass kick.

Mixers tend to have low, mid and high EQ filters. You can reduce them however you like during the transition, just make sure you start the fading at the right time and at the right speed for it to work. Once again, I can’t tell you what that is, you’ll have to experiment for the particular mix you’re working on. One approach could be:

• Reduce the low EQ to 0 if it hasn’t already been reduced.
• Reduce the mid EQ.
• While the mid is being reduced, with the other hand start reducing the high EQ so it is just lagging behind it.

Do all this at the correct speed and the transition will sound cool.

Until next time….

We’ll continue the 2nd part of the fading tutorial in the next video where the cutoff filter is used instead of the EQ filters.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have your own technique of fading the live track out? If so, why not let us know about it in the forums, we’d love to hear from you.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Happy Easter all,

It’s time to put the chocolate down and take off the bunny costume. Let’s get our hands dirty in EQs.

In the last video I went through the mixing cycle explaining the different stages involved in transitioning from on track to another. Over the coming videos I’ll b going through some techniques we can use to do this.

This week I’d like to focus on the transition method I used in the video last time. I played around with the bass frequencies and there are a number of different variations on this method. Let’s go through a few of them here (and watch the video to see the ideas in action).

The bass switchover

This is the method I use most often and is pretty much all I prefer to do as it works well for trance. If you are starting out and don’t have the skills to improvise or be fancy then use this method. It may not work so well for other genres of music, just listen to the sounds and you will feel if it’s the right thing to do or not. So how does it work?

• The live track is playing with its bass EQ set to full, let’s call this track B. By full I mean normal levels, don’t turn the knob all the way to its maximum as you’re then adding more bass than what was intended for the track.
• Track A has been cued up and beatmatched.
• Track A is ready to be introduced so turn its bass EQ down and introduce it to full volume gradually or immediately (timing is key, think phrases).
• When the moment is right to switch the tracks over (again think phrases), switch A’s bass to full and kill B’s bass off.
• Both tracks are still playing together but the crowd here the beats of track B more.
• When the moment is right (phrases yet again), kill off track B completely. We’ll discuss different ways of doing this in the future, for now you can just turn the volume down all the way.
• Transition complete.

Killing the live bass

This is a variation that works well if the track coming in should come in strong. If the crowd is bouncing about, the beats of the cued track are powerful and the higher frequencies work well with the live track, use this method to jump straight into it.

• Track B is playing live with its bass EQ set to full.
• Track A has been cued up and beatmatched.
• Track A is ready to be introduced. This time keep the bass EQ full for track A. Introduce track A immediately and at the same time kill off B’s bass.
• Both tracks are still playing together but the crowd here the beats of track B more.
• When the moment is right, kill off track B completely.
• Transition complete.

Killing the live track

Ok, this is a useful variation you can use when you have no intention of playing both tracks together live at the same time once the bass switch over has been done. It works well with certain tracks but only if you have introduced the track in at the right phrase. You’ll just have to practise and obtain a feel for when this method can be used.

• Track B is playing live with its bass EQ set to full.
• Track A has been cued up and beatmatched.
• Track A is ready to be introduced so turn its bass EQ down and introduce it to full volume gradually or immediately.
• When the moment is right to switch the tracks over, switch A’s bass to full. This time though, at the same time kill off track B completely.
• Transition complete.

Until next time….

Here I have shown you some ways of transitioning by manipulating bass frequencies. Practise using these methods on your own tunes to develop a feel for what works and doesn’t work in different scenarios. You never know, you may end up coming up with your own method. If so, I’d love to hear about it.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have a particular method of playing with EQ? If so, why not let us know about it in the forums, we’d love to hear from you.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi guys,

Let’s move on and get down to business. This week I want to perform a basic transition from one track to another. As we do so, we’ll go through some of the stages involved in the mixing cycle. We are now getting into the set of tutorials where it’s more tricky to explain things with text. You should really be watching the videos to get an idea of what is being discussed. Let’s begin.

Stage 1 – Preparation

Mixing always starts with you cueing a track to mix into. First browse through your records and find a track that fits in well with the one that is currently being played. You want to chose something that will work well at the same BPM and preferably in a similar key.

Once a track is chosen, beatmatch it. If auto-cueing hasn’t been enabled or hasn’t worked, find the first beat of the bar manually. To make beatmatching easier you want to find a strong beat that can be heard alongside the live track. You may want to set a cue point on this beat so it’s easier to get back to when you’re ready to begin the mix.

You want to make sure when the main part of the cued track is being played that the volume is at the same level as that of the live track. You can use the VU meters and your own ears for this (make sure none of the EQ levels are down otherwise it isn’t a true test).

The other thing you want to do is analyze the cued track so you know when to bring it in and at what points you want to play with the frequency. Listen to the track and count the phrases, listening in on what’s happening at the beginning of each phrase. This will give you a feel of what to do when.

Stage 2 – Release and Correction

So now we have prepped everything up, it is time to set the cued track off. Wait for an appropriate time to do this. Again, you want to be listening out for phrases in the live track and for what’s happening to the sound. I can’t give you any rules here on what to do as every track is different. By listening to me and practising yourself, you’ll get a feel for when to bring in the mix. Watch the video to see an example.

Once you’ve released the cued track, make any corrections to it to ensure the beats are in sync. At this point you don’t want to falter or you’ll have to restart the mix and the live track is coming close to an end. If you start the mix on a phrase later than expected, the result could be poor. You don’t want to create a poor mix and I don’t want you to create a poor mix, so be careful here.

Stage 3 – Introduction

So far you’ve been doing everything in your headphones. It’s now time to share your masterpiece with the crowd. Start to introduce your track out into the main monitors. How you do this is entirely up to you, slowly, straight into it, with some of the EQs reduced, the filter on, whatever works.

If you plan to play both tracks alongside each other for a while then make sure to keep an ear out for the phrases. You’ll want to completely crossover at the end of a phrase.

Stage 4 – Crossover

Ok, so here we are, enticing the crowd with what’s about to come (unless you jumped straight into the cued track and bypassed the introduction stage). You now want to kill off the original track and transition over.

Once again, there are different ways of doing this and we’ll be going through some of these over the next set of tutorials. In the video I will introduce the cued track with the bass frequencies killed and when the time is right, I’ll bring those frequencies back up and kill the main track completely. I won’t be using a crossfader for this as it doesn’t make sense to use it, I need both tracks to be at full volume when they’re playing together which the crossfader won’t do for me.

Until next time….

And there we have it, a very basic mix showing you in a concise format what is involved in a transition. Next time we’ll start looking at some ways to perform the introduction and crossover stages.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have a particular style when mixing tracks? If so, why not let us know about it in the forums, we’d love to hear from you.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Welcome back,

So you’ve decided to carry on to the next chapter of tutorials. That’s great, this will be an exciting chapter where we move away from beatmatching and get into performing a mix. Of course, beatmatching isn’t forgotten, you will be practising it every time you practise a transitioning technique.

The first instalment will be the boring one where we discuss the different headphone settings available on a mixer. It does need to be mentioned since a tutorial series isn’t complete unless all parts of the process are covered. Let’s get straight to it. As always, I go through the settings with music in the video so you know what I’m talking about.

Headphone settings

Every mixer is different so you may find variations to what I’m showing here and your own mixer. I’d expect these options to be available in some form or another on your mixer. Keep in mind that my mixer is the Allen & Heath Xone 42.

A – Cue Active
When a channel is set to be cued, this will light up showing us that we’re in cueing mode.

B – Split
With this enabled and the headphones on, the left ear hears the cued track you’re beatmatching while the right ear hears the track being played to the crowd.

C – Cue/Mix
If headphone split is off, you will hear both the cued track and the live track in both ears. This setting decides how much of the live track you hear. You can change the volume ratio to make it easier to mix. If headphone split is on, this does nothing.

D – Level
This is the output volume of the headphones. You want the sound to be loud enough so you can hear what’s being played. Most DJs mix with 1 ear on the headphones and the other ear listening to the live music in the room. They therefore want the headphone volume to be the same as the volume in the room.

E – Jack Input
The Xone 42 can have 2 headphones connected. There’s a slot for a large jack and a small jack (of course you can use adapters).

Beatmatching with headphones

Now that we are familiar with the different settings, we can use them to decide on a style for beatmatching. Practise these to find the one that works best for you. In fact, you may have an alternative approach that I haven’t mentioned here. Whatever works my friends, whatever works.

• Both ear mode – Disable split mode and put the headphones on your head to cover both ears. Set cue/mix to a level where you can hear both tracks equally, most likely 100%. Beatmatch as you did in the tutorials without headphones. This is my preference.
• Split headphone mode – Enable split mode so 1 ear hears the cued track and the other ear hears the live track. Some people find this easier to beatmatch as you can distinguish the beats better.
• Split live mode – Enable split mode. Keep the headphone on the ear with the cued track and take it off the other ear (some headphones have an adjustable piece that makes this easy). The idea is that you listen to the live track through the main speakers in the room. For this to work, you need to set the headphone level high enough that the cued and live track sound equally loud. This is the method many pro DJs use.

Of course, there is nothing stopping you from learning to beatmatch using multiple methods. In fact, doing that will make you better at the technique.

Until next time….

Ok guys, that will do for headphones. I suggest you play around with your mixer’s settings so you are 100% familiar with what you can do with it. Next time we’ll discuss the different stages of the transition and work on perfecting each stage.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have a recomendation for which type or brand of headphones to use? Do you have your own method of mixing using headphones? If so, share your knowledge in the forums, we’d love to hear from you.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi guys,

Ok, so where are we at? We’ve gone through beatmatching with the jogwheel and we’ve gone through the pitch riding process. Today I want to quickly summarize what we’ve learnt in this chapter and let you know my plan for the next chapter.

The structure of a trance track

We opened this chapter with a discussion on how to break a trance/dance track down into the phases that make up the full track. We have an intro that builds up until we get to the meat of the track. This leads into a breakdown where we lose ourselves in the track. Following this is the build up and then we’re back into the meat of the track, the heart pumping big time. The track slows down at the end and finishes.

Read more here.

Beats, bars and phrases

This led us nicely onto another way of breaking a track down, i.e. breaking it into components of time. We identified a beat as something that you can nod your head to. 4 beats make a bar and 8 bars make a phrase. Why did we discuss this? Because we want to beatmatch at the correct beat of the bar and transition at the correct bar of a phrase.

Read more here.

Pitch, tempo and key

That’s right, the theory isn’t over yet. This section explained to us that tempo is the speed that the track is playing at and pitch is the frequency (so a female voice has a higher pitch than a male voice, usually). There was also a brief mention of key but as I explained back then, this is a more complicated subject and we will come across it way in the future when we go through advanced techniques (which I’m yet to learn myself).

Read more here.

BPM counters

This lesson elaborated on beats and told us that beats per minute (BPM) is the measure used to determine the tempo of a track. The tempo is important because when you beatmatch, you are getting the tempos of the 2 tracks the same (or more than 2 tracks if you’re a pro).

The CDJ1000 I use has a built-in BPM counter which is cool. I mentioned that you shouldn’t rely solely on a counter as they aren’t accurate 100% of the time.

Read more here.

Cueing

This was our first lesson on the beatmatching process. We talked about cue points and how to set one up on the first beat of the bar. This makes it easier for us to mix. If you’re very good at beatmatching then you can get away with needing to set a cue point. I’ll explain this in the video with an example.

Read more here.

Releasing

Once we have a cue point, we hit play on the incoming track so the first beat of the bars line up for both tracks. Of course, they’ll go out of sync quickly if the tempos are different, but you must learn to release properly or be able to correct yourself quickly if you’ve released too early or too late.

Read more here.

Jogwheel beatmatching

This lesson taught us how to make jogwheel bursts either clockwise or anti-clockwise in order to find out whether we need to speed the track up or slow it down. The idea is that if we need to accelerate the track to keep it in line with the other track, we must increase the tempo. It is an important lesson so please review it again if required.

Read more here.

Pitch riding

Our final instalment gave us another useful tool to beatmatch that didn’t rely on jogwheel adjustments. The same principles apply, i.e. we want to accelerate or decelerate a track to determine what to do with the tempo. With pitch riding, however, you do this solely using the pitch/tempo slider.

Read more here.

Until next time….

Our next chapter will be all about transitioning from one track to another. Beatmatching alone doesn’t make a good mix. If we don’t transition in the right place, at the right time and in the right way, the crowd will want to throw tomatoes at you.

In this chapter we will talk about the use of headphones and the controls related to that, the eq switches, filters and various techniques you can use to transition. Exciting times ahead.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

You know it would be great if everybody who watches my videos and reads the tutorials shared some info about themselves. I’d love to hear from you in the forums. Let us know who you are, where you’re from, what your equipment is, what problems you’re facing and need help on, what advice you can give to others, and so on. If you guys need me to clarify any of my lessons before I begin the next chapter, just let me know in the forums and we can work together to grow at the same pace.

If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi all,

I hope you’re well. This week we’ll be talking about another way to beatmatch. In fact, this technique can also be used to make corrections if you release too late or too early.

Let’s recap

So far we have learnt to beatmatch using the jogwheel. We make little adjustments forwards or backwards to work out whether we need to slow the track down or speed it up. Once we make the corrections we change the tempo in the same direction using the tempo slider (also known as the pitch slider). This process is repeated until the beats are no longer getting out of sync.

We also made an analogy to cars. If track A is slower than track B then we need to accelerate it so it is travelling faster than track B. Once A catches up with B we can slow it down to the same speed. It was the jogwheel adjustments we made that were accelerating and decelerating the track.

So what is pitch riding?

This refers to making speed adjustments solely using the pitch slider. In other words, we won’t be touching the jogwheel throughout the beatmatching process. The idea is that if we know track A is slow, we increase its tempo to be faster than track B until it catches up and then we slow it down. It is the same thing we did with jogwheel adjustments but this time we use the slider to do it. Here is the step by step process:

• Track A is playing slower than track B.
• Release track A and listen to the beats getting out of sync.
• Speed track A up with the slider quite a bit until the beats are in sync again.
• This tells us that track A is currently playing faster than track B since it caught up, so quickly slow it down before it goes too far ahead. We don’t want to slow it down to what it was before, just a little faster than that.
• If we slow it down too much, then speed it up again until the beats sync up and once again slow it down a little bit.
• If we don’t slow it down enough and the beats go ahead of track B, do the reverse, i.e. slow it down quite a bit to decelerate track A and then speed it up.

If the above is confusing, watch the video and you’ll see what I mean. The idea is to speed up and slow down until you find the perfect tempo. During the process you’re reducing the range within which you speed it up and slow it down as you fine tune the match.

Until next time….

Well guys, that’s it for beatmatching so let’s put it to the test. Next time I will review everything we’ve learnt so far and beatmatch a few tracks together.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Beatmatching is the hardest part of the learning process that amateur DJs find. If you have any tips that may help others, feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If you have any stumbling blocks, put them up there and hopefully we can work together to get them resolved. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi guys,

I certainly hope you’re enjoying this whole learning process. Let’s dig a little deeper this week and beatmatch 2 tracks at very different BPMs. We are now getting to a point where it is difficult to teach and explain things in words. It’s therefore important that you watch the video as below I will just be giving an overview of what I do in the video.

The actual process of beatmatching is the same when the BPMs are very far apart. The issue here is that once you’ve released on time, you will get out of sync straight away and won’t have time to make jogwheel adjustments to determine which way to adjust the tempo. This is where you must really listen to the music and feel the beats. The skill you need to learn is the skill of being able to hear which track is the slow one and which is the fast one without requiring any adjustments. Let’s take a look at the process involved.

• Play track 2 and leave it running.
• Make sure track 1 is a lot slower than track 2 and get the cue point set.
• Now play track 1 and try to hear the beats of both tracks together. You need to be able to hear that track 1 is slow since in a real situation you won’t know beforehand whether it is or not. One method is to tap your feet to the rhythmyx of track 2 and listen to track 1 to determine which is faster.
• Now that you’ve determined that track 1 is slow, cue it up again and increase the BPM quite a lot.
• Play track 1 and try to make jogwheel adjustments like we did in the previous tutorial. If you are able to sync up the beats with jogwheel adjustments then beatmatch like you already know how. If you are still too far away from the desired BPM then stop, make a big adjustment and start again. You want to get near enough that you can beatmatch using the skill you’ve learned already.

In the video I will be beatmatching tracks at completely different BPMs. I will also show some methods you can use to determine which track is faster than which. These are:

• Tapping of feet or nodding of head
• Changing the bass frequency
• Jogwheel bursts

Until next time….

Before continuing on, you really need to spend a lot of time on the past few tutorials until you start getting a hang of things. Keep practising and the skill will come to you in time. The next thing we’ll look at is an alternative beatmatching technique called ‘pitch riding’ which doesn’t rely on making jogwheel adjustments.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Beatmatching is the hardest part of the learning process that amateur DJs find. If you have any tips that may help others, feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If you have any stumbling blocks, put them up there and hopefully we can work together to get them resolved. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi there,

Hopefully you’ve been practising and are able to release a track on time. If you found yourself making corrections with the jogwheel then be happy to know that you’ve already begun the beatmatching process. Today we will expand on this idea further. Don’t forget to watch the video as it makes life a lot easier when you see me do this for real.

Let’s go back to our car analogy from last time but with a difference.

Here we have 2 cars with beats that aren’t aligned. We’ll call the left car track 1 and the right car track 2. This time track 1 is travelling faster than track 2.

We can nudge the jogwheel backwards to slow down track 1 temporarily. They will then be in sync.

Because the BPM of track 1 is slightly higher than that of track 2, it won’t be long before we are in the same situation again with track 1 ahead of track 2.

If we have to continue to slow down track 1 via the jogwheel again and again, this tells us that track 1 is travelling faster so we must reduce the BPM of track 1. Once this is done, we can again monitor the situation and make jogwheel adjustments. If we still have to slow down track 1, reduce the BPM even more. Keep on going until we no longer need to make adjustments.

If we go too far by making track 1 slower than track 2, moving the jogwheel backwards will worsen the situation (you’ll hear more galloping). In this case you’ll need to nudge the jogwheel forwards, indicating that you must also increase the BPM.

This my friends is beatmatching.

Beware of syncing the wrong beats

One thing to note is that you need to make sure you keep the correct notes in sync on both decks. In other words, the 1st beat of the bar in track 1 should play at the same time as the 1st beat of the bar in track 2. Let’s say you release track 1 early or track 1 is playing slower than track 2. In either situation you hear the galloping effect and you must accelerate track 1 to catch up with track 2. However, if track 1 ends up getting further behind, the galloping will go away and it will sound like the beats are in sync again. They aren’t, we know have the 1st beat of the bar in track 1 playing at the same time as the 2nd beat of the bar in track 2. Although the beats are in sync, the bars aren’t. Only through practise will you know when this is happening.

Until next time….

Practice this but keep the tempos of the tracks close together so you can learn the technique without making it too difficult for yourself. Next week we will go a little deeper and match tracks that are at completely different BPMs.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Beatmatching is the hardest part of the learning process that amateur DJs find. If you have any tips that may help others, feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If you have any stumbling blocks, put them up there and hopefully we can work together to get them resolved. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Happy new year,

I hope you’ve had a decent break and are motivated to create a great 2010 for yourselves. It’s time to crack on with the beatmatching tutorials so this week we will look at what I call ‘releasing’. To others this is part of the cueing process but none of that is important, what really matters is that you know what it is and how to do it.

What is it?

Recall that last time we cued a track by finding the 1st beat and setting a cue point on it. The next skill you’ll want to learn is to play the track so the beat starts at exactly the same time as the beat on the track that’s being played. Think of it like this. Track 1 is a car in the left lane and track 2 is a car in the right lane. When both cars are beatmatched at the same BPM they will be travelling at the same speed. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the beats are aligned and everything will sound great. Let’s take a look at what’s happening on the road in front of my house:

Both cars are travelling at 20mph and so have the same tempo. However, they aren’t side by side. This would sound like the beats of track 1 playing slightly ahead of the beats of track 2 and you’ll hear a galloping effect.

We want to align the beats and make sure they stay aligned.

The approach

To do this, you need to learn how to release the track on time and align the beats up if the release is slightly out. As always, watch the video to understand what is being said here. The steps we’d take are:

• Start with 2 dance tracks that have beats and are playing at the same tempo. If you have a BPM counter, use it. If not, other options are to play the same track on both decks or if using MP3s, use software to calculate the BPM. We don’t need the tempos matched exactly, just enough so we can go a few bars before things get out of sync.
• Now cue track 1 to the 1st beat and let track 2 play.
• By now you should know how to count beats and bars. When track 2 is about to play the 1st beat of a bar, press play on track 1. If done right, the beats will start in sync. Keep cueing and playing track 1 until you get the hang of this.

Jogwheel correction

Don’t worry if you don’t release exactly on time. I tend to release a little late most of the time but then I correct myself quickly using the jogwheel. Around the edges of the jogwheel you have a movable part which you can move forwards and backwards.

When you move this forwards (clockwise) it will accelerate the BPM until you let go. The faster you move it, the greater the acceleration and therefore the higher the BPM. In our case we know that the BPM of both tracks are the same so there’s no need to change anything at the tempo control. Going back to the car analogy, we simply want to reduce the gap between the cars until they are level and then let them run at the same speed. We do this by accelerating or decelerating temporarily.

If you released late, you will want to make little nudges forwards. If you released early, you’ll want to make nudges backwards to decelerate the track temporarily and allow the other track to catch up. As you practise this over and over again, you’ll start to get an idea whether you released too early or too late. It can be difficult for a beginner to know this just by hearing the beats. I myself am not always good at this so I tend to make a guess. I’ll nudge the jogwheel forwards and if that makes the beats sound further apart I know I’ve gone in the wrong direction. In the video I’ll purposely release late and early to show you what I mean.

Until next time….

Practice the ‘releasing’ process. Next we will be looking at correcting the BPM when both tracks are running at different tempos.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Beatmatching is the hardest part of the learning process that amateur DJs find. If you have any tips that may help others, feel free to share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If you have any stumbling blocks, put them up there and hopefully we can work together to get them resolved. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi all,

I’ve just got back from seeing my family for Christmas and I think I’ve had enough food for a month. My mum actually made a few things for me to freeze too, mums will always be mums.

Anyway back to business. Last week I went through BPMs and showed you the built-in counter available on the CDJ. Today I want to talk about cueing a track ready for beatmatching. As always, it is advisable to watch the video to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Cue points

Think back to when we first went through the CDJ’s features. Back then I briefly explained a cue point as being a place in the track that you want to get to quickly. The CDJ has the ability to have a main cue point and an extra 3 hot cue points (in the top left, A, B and C).

When we are beatmatching, we won’t get the tempo correct the first time. It is therefore advisable to set a cue point at the part of the track we want to start mixing from. Once we have the BPMs the same, we can go back to the cue point and perform the real mix.

Auto-cueing

When we’re mixing, since we want the tempos of the 2 tracks to be the same, we need a way to identify whether they are the same. Keeping in mind that there are 4 beats in a bar it makes sense to play the first beat of the bars at the same time for both tracks. To do this, we want to set our cue point at the first beat of the bar so when we hit play, the sound starts on the first beat.

The CDJ has a feature called auto-cue which can be activated and deactivated by holding down the ‘Time mode / Auto cue’ button for a few seconds.

When auto-cue is set and you browse through the tracklisting, the CDJ will find the first beat of the bar and set the cue point on it. More often than not this is accurate. We can find out whether it is by pressing play and sensing whether it’s accurate.

Manual cueing

If the CDJ hasn’t been able to find the first beat of the bar (or if you want to mix in from somewhere in the middle of the track) then you must set the cue point yourself. Do so like this:

• Play the track and get to where you want to stop.
• When you get to the beat you want to stop at, press pause.
• It is in the pause state that you set cue points so press the cue button. Watch the LCD display in the center of the jogwheel when you do this to notice the little red bit moving. This indicates the cue point.
• To fine-tune the point, while it is paused move the jog wheel around. What I do is move it back and forth at a fast enough pace that I can hear the beat. At the very beginning of the beat hit the cue button again to set the cue point at this location.
• Test it out by playing the track, hitting cue to rewind back to the cue point then playing the track again.

In the video things will become clearer as we do this for a few tracks.

Until next time….

I hope you guys are having fun so far. Now that we’ve got the cue point set where we want it, next week we will expand on this and match the tempos of 2 tracks.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have a different approach to setting cue points? Share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi guys,

Now that we’ve gone through some theory, it’s time to get going with the mixing. The first thing we’ll look at, and the most important, is how to beatmatch. Let’s start by revisiting the term BPM and how it is used in the beatmatching process. In the video we’ll also look at the CDJ’s built-in BPM counter and another tool that can be used to help with beatmatching.

What is BPM?

Think back to when we discussed beats, bars and phrases. We defined a beat as being something that you can nod your head to, such as a kick drum. We also counted 4 beats in a bar, so 1234 1234 1234 and so on.

Now let’s say you count the number of beats per minute. This is BPM. It’s important to know this because BPM is the measurement used to define the tempo of a track and this varies per genre. For example, trance is mostly in the 130-140 BPM range.

Using a BPM counter

A counter is a tool that calculates the BPM of the sound signal being played at that moment in time. Ideally you want to learn how to mix without relying on a BPM counter. Professional DJs can rely on their ears to match beats without knowing the BPM of the tracks. However, a counter will help you get close enough in beats that all you need to do by ear is fine tune the match.

The CDJ1000 has a built-in BPM counter which is pretty accurate. In the following image it has detected the track to be playing at 138 BPM.

Once in a blue moon it might mess up completely (if the track is complex) or it might take a while to finish off its calculations before you see a reading. In the video I will try out a few tunes so you can see how quickly it detects the BPM and how the pitch/tempo control changes it.

Using the pitch percentage for beatmatching

Bearing in mind that the BPM of two trance tracks will be similar, it is possible to use the pitch setting to get a close BPM match if you are using a deck with no BPM counter. For example, if the pitch setting of one track is 1.3% then you want to set the other track to something near this.

Think about it mathematically. If the track being played is at 140 BPM and the second track is at 135 BPM, the second track needs to be sped up by 3.6%. I will go through this in the video.

Organizing your tracks

Although you can change the BPM of a track during a mix, some tracks don’t sound right if their tempo is modified too much. Something you can do is organize tracks by grouping those in a similar BPM range. If you mix using MP3s you can use software to identify the BPM. A tool I find useful is the freely available MixMeister BPM Analyzer. You simply point the tool at a folder of MP3s and it will find the BPM of them all and store the values into the ID3 info of the files. You can even print out a full list of the tracks and their BPMs.

Until next time….

We’ll look into the first step of beatmatching next time, cueing a track. This basically means finding the first beat of a bar and setting a cue point on it.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

What do you think of the CDJ’s built-in BPM counter and has it improved in time through model upgrades? Share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi there,

This is the final instalment of music theory, I promise. We will finish off by finding out what is meant by pitch, tempo and key of a track. Although I’ve touched on pitch control on a CDJ in the past, in the video I will show it to you again and explain how it affects the tempo and key of a track.

Tempo

Let’s start with the easy one. The tempo of the track is the speed of the track. When you listen to music in different genres, you’ll notice that some are slow and some are fast. Music in the same genre tend to all be at a similar tempo.

Recall from a previous tutorial that music is broken up into beats, bars and phrases. The tempo of a track is measured in the number of beats per minute, shortened down to BPM. You may have heard of hardware or software BPM counters, these simply measure the beats per minute of your track so you know the tempo it is playing at. Trance tends to be between 130-140 BPM.

Why is this important? Well, if you’re going to mix 2 tracks together there will be a point when both tracks are being played to the public at the same time. If they aren’t at the same tempo (therefore the same BPM) then the beats won’t line up nicely with each other and it will sound awful. In the video I’ll quickly show you how horrid this can sound.

Pitch

In music theory, pitch represents the perceived fundamental frequency of sound. In other words, the BFG would have had a low frequency voice and hence a low-pitched voice. Somebody who has inhaled a helium balloon will have a high frequency voice and hence a high-pitched voice.

Key

This is a complicated subject in its own right so I won’t go into too much detail. All I will say is that changing the pitch of a track changes its key. We will discuss this more when we talk about harmonic mixing in the future. For now, keep in mind that it is a good idea to have the tracks you want mixing together recorded in the same key or in keys that sound well with each other.

If you want to get a head-start in this topic, do so at the harmonic mixing guide.

Let’s put a spanner in the works

Ok, back to tempo. Whether you’re mixing CDs, vinyl or MP3s, the equipment used will have a tempo control.

Recall that I said tempo changes the speed of a track. When producing music, changing tempo means just that, changing the speed without affecting the frequency and is commonly referred to as ‘time-stretching’. To change the frequency without affecting the tempo would be ‘pitch-shifting’.

However, for some reason in DJing terminology changing the tempo actually means both pitch-shifting and time-stretching. When you slow down the tempo, not only will the track slow down but the frequency will lower as well like when a track has been slowed down to a halt (we shall do this in the video using the ‘vinyl speed adjust’ knob).

If somebody can tell me why in the DJ world this function was decided to be called tempo when it does more than change the tempo of a track, I’d love to hear it.

Until next time….

Cool, we’re all done with theory. Onto beatmatching next time. We are slowly but surely getting there.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have different definitions for pitch, tempo or key? Share your thoughts by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Ready for more music theory?

I’m sure the answer is yes. I hope you did the homework session and broke your own tracks down into its separate stages. This time we will be focusing on how the music is structured within these stages. We will do this by discussing beats, bars and phrases. As always, play the video on the right to help you listen to examples showing you what I’m talking about.

What is a beat exactly?

I will start with a diagram that people who have studied music theory will be very familiar with.

Don’t worry too much about the symbols and lines. All you need to know is that this represents some notes that are being played. When you listen to a dance track, think about the start when the drums kick in. There is a distinct bass drum (commonly called a kick) that is in time with the track: dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum.

Each ‘dum’ is a beat and when you’re appreciating music by nodding your head or tapping on something, you’re keeping in time with the beats. If you don’t know what I mean, watch the video, it will all become clear.

What is a bar?

A group of beats can be collated into what we call a bar. The actual number of beats contained within a bar varies with different styles of music. With dance music you will get 4 beats in a bar (I’ve yet to hear a track that deviates from this rule, if you know of one I’d love to hear it).

In the diagram above, there were 4 beats displayed so these define a single bar. As an exercise play a dance track of yours and count the beats. When you can do that, count them in fours like: 1234 1234 1234 1234.

It is important to be able to listen to a piece of music and identify the 1st beat in a bar so you continue counting beats correctly. This will come naturally to most people. If not, listen carefully to all the sounds you’re hearing, there is sometimes something different about the 1st beat. When something about the track changes, the change happens on the 1st beat (like a crash symbol being played). You also tend to get snare drums or claps at beat 2 and beat 4 of the bar.

Let’s get more technical

I just want to point out that a beat isn’t the smallest note that can be played within a bar. If you listen to your track again during the ‘meat’ phase (see previous tutorial for definition of this), you will count the bass kick at every bar yet you may also hear hi-hats happening twice as fast. These are half the length of the normal beat so you get 2 hi-hats for each bass kick.

What is a phrase?

The final thing I want to talk about is a very important one to understand when it comes to mixing. You now know what a bar of beats is an that it is important to count bars correctly to mix 2 tracks together (which we will do when we talk about beatmatching in the future). What you have to keep in mind is that you can’t just mix any bar of track 1 to any bar of track 2. Just like beats are grouped into bars, the bars themselves are grouped into phrases.

When it comes to trance, a phrase consists of 8 bars. When listening to the track, just as it is important to identify the 1st beat in a bar, you should be able to identify the 1st bar in a phrase. Earlier I mentioned that when something changes in a track, it happens on the 1st beat of the bar. Well, it tends to happen on the 1st beat of the 1st bar of a phrase.

Confused? Watch the video.

Until next time….

I hope this post made sense to you. It may be that I’ve made a simple topic more complicated than it needs to be by not explaining it very well. If so please let me know. We will conclude our session on music theory next time by discussing pitch, tempo and key.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have a useful method to count beats bars and phrases when you mix? Why not share the tip in the forums by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Welcome back my fellow music-lovers,

You know, I keep un saying I will be more consistent and quicker with my posts and videos. Once again it has been a couple of weeks since my last post so my apologies for that. I’ve been crazy busy redesigning the site as you can see. It’s a lot better right? I think it looks more professional, the homepage is better with forum posts and my twitter tweets on there. I’ve also added a review section where I will choose a featured product and write a review about it. You can add comments directly to the review to share your experiences.

Enough said, let’s get down to business

Last time I gave an action plan of how I wanted to progress going forwards. I wanted to start with some theory so we can get the boring stuff out of the way. I think it’s important because if you’re reading this, there’s a possibility you don’t know about the components of a track and it’s important to get everybody on the same wavelength before we continue. I will be going through some tracks in the video so you can put what you read here into reality.

The structure

You’ve heard many tunes in your life and you will be familiar with the structure even if you don’t think you are. Think about when you nod your head to tunes. Think about when you’re on a dancefloor and you know the right time to throw your hands in the air and the right time to get those magic feet moving. It’s not because you’re copying other people (you probably can’t see them after all those drinks), it’s because you are instinctly aware of what should happen where during the lifecycle of the track.

Now don’t get me wrong, not every track is exactly the same. However, when it comes to dance and trance, there is a common pattern and it goes a little something like this.

• Stage 1: Intro – This can be a string or pad section to ease you into the tune or it can directly start with a basic drum beat.
• Stage 2: Enticement – As time goes on, the beat gets more complex, for example it starts with bass kicks, hi-hats get added, a snare or clap gets added and so on. The beat is enticing you to continue listening.
• Stage 3: The Meat – Now the track is in full swing and the synth lines are getting your mouth watering. You are experiencing the meat of the track.
• Stage 4: Breakdown – Oh now, what just happened? It’s ok, you’re experiencing the ‘hands in the air’ phase where all the beats stop and you’re left with some sort of pad or vocals. Pure heaven.
• Stage 5: Build Up – We are about to go back into full swing and the beats seem to be getting faster (which they aren’t the tempo isn’t changing, just an increase in the number of beats per bar, more on that next time).
• Stage 6: More Meat – I don’t need to explain what’s happening here, your feet are going wild.
• Stage 7: Comedown – The track will slowly lose sections and become lighter as we approach the end.
• Stage 8: Finito – The track has ended. Usually the beat just stops and a synth note carries on for a bar or two.

As I mentioned earlier, this can vary and the length of each stage can vary. It is however a very common structure followed. Here’s an exercise for you, listen to some trance tracks you own and break them down into these individual stages.

I will get you started by doing this for a few tracks in the video on the right.

Until next time….

Now we’ve got that out of the way, in the next session we’ll be looking into beats, bars and phrases. Exciting times to come.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you know of any trance tunes that don’t fit the structure mentioned here? I’d like to hear about them. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Although the CDJ 2000 is now released, it will be quite some time until the 1000 MK3 model is phased out. This has been an industry standard for a long while. It would be surprising to go to a club and not see a couple of these in the DJ booth.

Feature Overview

There are too many features to discuss here so I’ll stick to the ones I consider worth mentioning.

• MP3 capability – This great since you can carry around a lot more tracks on a CD packed with MP3s. You can group music into folders and subfolders.
• BPM counter – Most of the time the built-in beat counter works accurately. Of course, a DJ should never 100% rely on a BPM counter however it is a useful tool for getting within the correct pitch range.
• Looping – I find this feature very handy. Just think of the situations when you don’t have enough time to mix in the next track. Now you simply create a loop and you have all the time you need. You can even adjust the loop start or end point.
• 3 Cue points – Another cool feature is the ability to store and quickly go back to parts of a track. You can even set loop areas as cue points. Standard cue points are lit in green, loop cue points in yellow.
• Vinyl mode – The jog wheel can be used to scratch, change tempo, reverse spin and pause the track. There is the ability to change the resistance of the jog wheel.
• SD card – You can store loop and cue points for your tracks on the card which you insert at the front of the deck.
• Adjustable pitch – There are 4 settings: 6% (pitch slider changes tempo at increments of 0.02%), 10% (increments of 0.05%), 16% (increments of 0.05%) and wide/100% (increments of 0.5%).

Quality

The fact that it is used in clubs and played for hours on end everyday says it all. I’ve never had a CD jump, heard a rattle or had problems playing any of my self-burnt MP3 CDs. This little baby is robust and hardcore.

Looks

The MK3 model looks a lot like its predecessors if looking at it from a distance. It has a more colorful display and in my opinion just looks damn cool.

Sound

Of course, the quality of the sound your hear is determined by a whole load of factors such as the mixer, cables, monitors. Some say it is a cleaner, crisper sound than a turntable produces. I can’t comment on this myself as I haven’t made the comparison. All I know is that it emulates scratching quite well and like all CD players is limited to 16-bit 44.1khz audio.

Ease of use

Once you get the hang of the functions and how to operate them, using it is a breeze. A month after buying this I was still finding useful functions I didn’t know existed so read the manual fully for details. The placement and the size of the buttons/sliders make this model a user-friendly one indeed.

Value for money

The price of the MK3 has varied over the years but hasn’t really come down much. I bought my pair back in August and they cost me £1100 each then which is still the average price of them nowadays. If you see them considerably cheaper, make sure you check whether VAT has been added on. Bottom line, although expensive, it’s definitely worth the mula for its quality.

Would be nice

More cue points would come in handy or am I just being greedy? Actually the Technics SL-DZ1200 has 4 cue points so I can say what I’d like, I am giving the review after all.

What else, I suppose for those vinyl turntable lovers out there, a spindle would make you feel at home, as would a spinning platter.

Overall verdict

I give this a 5/5 for its high quality, superb range of functions and ease of use. Of course, had I waited a few months I’d have probably opted for the 2000 model but I’m happy with what I’ve got. I shall do a review on the 2000 model at some point in the near future.

Hello again,

I hope the previous videos and tutorials have been of use to you guys. Now it’s time to get down to business and find out what being a DJ is all about.

It’s important for me to take small steps initially and not get too much in the deep end straight away. I was practicing a few techniques earlier to help me create an action plan for how I want to progress over the next month or so. This may change, however I need a starting point so let’s roll with the following plan.

Musical theory

• The components of a dance track
• Beats, bars and phrases
• Pitch, tempo and key

Beatmatching

• What BPM is and the usefulness of the CDJs built-in BPM counter
• Cueing a track
• Matching beats with stop/starts
• Matching beats with jog wheel
• Matching beats with pitch riding

Transitioning techniques

• Where in the track we should being to mix
• Blending with eq switches
• Killing 4th beat of track whilst sampling the cued track
• Cutting straight into the cued track every 4th beat
• Killing the power before the track goes mental
• Slow the track to a halt then jump into the cued track
• Cut straight into the cued track
• Loop the main track to give time to bring another one in
• Spin the main track backwards before transitioning

Until next time….

Ok, that’s a comprehensive list and we will get started on it next time. Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first, i.e. the musical theory. I’ll try to make it as fun as possible by explaining things through good tunes.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

If you would like to add to my list then please let me know in the forums by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi there,

Last time we went through the options and features available on the CDJ1000 MK3. This time I’d like to spend time getting to know the mixer. I have an Allen & Heath Xone 42 mixer which will have some features that won’t be available in others and will be missing features that others have. However, all mixers have a common set of features so you’ll benefit from this post and the video on the right no matter what mixer you’re using.

Following is an image showing the mixer with the different features explained in brief. In the video I will show how the features modify the music being played.

1 – Mic options
This is where you would plug in a mic and set the volume, etc. I haven’t used this and don’t intend to as I don’t have a mic.

2 – Channel input gain/volume
The buttons and sliders in the centre of the mixer are repeated 4 times, once for each input channel. This allows you to connect for example 2 CDJs and 2 turntables at the same time. Actually, if you recall from the video where I showed you the back of the mixer, each channel has 2 inputs and there’s a button under the gain knob you can press to switch between the 2. You can therefore attach 8 devices to the mixer but can only play back 4 at a time.

When you’re playing a channel, you can use the gain knob to set the volume level of the sound before it comes into the mixer. You might be wondering why do this since there’s an output volume level and a slider for the channel output volume too. The idea is that when you’re mixing live, you want to guarantee that the tracks you’re mixing have the same volume. In other words, if the output volume (point ‘7′ below) is at 100% for both channels, they should sound as loud as each other. This won’t usually be the case since not every track is recorded at the same level and mp3s themselves could be manipulated and have their amplitude altered. You can therefore use this input gain setting to make sure the track you’re about to play will be at the same volume level as the one already being played. You can use the VU meters or check it with headphones and cueing. When we get into mixing I’ll go through this in a video.

3 – Channel EQ
Let’s talk a little music theory. Every sound you hear has a waveform which has its frequencies. Put simply, the lower-pitched the note, the lower the frequency. Here we have 3 EQ knobs: low frequency, mid frequency and high frequency. You can use these to get rid of or enhance sound at a certain frequency. For example, if you wanted to get rid of the bass, turn down the low frequency knob.

4 – Chanel filter toggle
Following on from this, there is also a feature called the ‘filter’ which is something that manipulates sound frequencies. As well as cutting/boosting certain frequency ranges with the EQ, you can also cut the frequency below a certain point or above a certain point. See ‘15′ for more info.

5 – Channel FX amount
This mixer doesn’t have built-in effects such as echo, reverb. There is a way to attach an external FX unit and this setting decides how much of the sound signal will be sent to the FX. The setting ‘dry’ indicates that none of the sound is sent and ‘wet’ means all of the sound is sent. On the right is a red button labelled ‘xfx to filter’ and when this is on it sends the signal coming back from the FX unit into the filter.

6 – Channel cue
Press this to hear the channel in the headphones. This is how you would mix the next track by cueing it in the headphones and getting it ready.

7 – Channel output gain/volume
Use this to set the output volume of the channel. Some people always have these at the top and use the crossfader to mix. I prefer to use these instead of the crossfader.

8 – Headphone split
This is a cool feature. With this enabled and the headphones on, the left ear hears the cued track you’re getting ready while the right ear hears the track being played to the crowd.

9 – Headphone cue/mix
If headphone split is off, you will hear both the cued track and the live track in both ears. This setting decides how much of the cued track you hear compared to the live track. You can change the volume differences so you can mix them better.

10 – Headphone level
This is the output volume of the headphones. You want the sound to be loud enough so you can hear what’s in the headphones. Most DJs will mix using 1 ear with headphones and with the other ear they’ll be listening to the live music in the room. They therefore want the headphone volume to be the same as the volume in the room. When I had a go I found it difficult to do it this way and preferred to put the headphones on fully.

11 – Headphone jack
The Xone 42 can have 2 headphones connected. There’s a slot for a large jack and a small jack (of course you can use adapters).

12 – Main speaker output
In the top-right is the sound output section. The VU meters highlight the level of sound. How they work changes depending on whether a track is cued and whether we’re in split mode. We can go through these differences some other time. The 1st option here is the main output level which determines how much sound goes out to the main room.

13 – Booth output
The 2nd option sets the output level to another set of speakers. Usually the DJ will have a set of speakers close by and these will be known as the ‘booth speakers’. If you recall from a previous video, I’ve sent my booth output to my PC speakers so I can use this to turn those on/off.

14 – Filter resonance
I briefly mentioned the filter feature earlier. There is a property of frequency called ‘resonance’ where the sound at a particular frequency is sent back to the input to produce a powerful effect. In the video you’ll hear what this does. The setting ‘mild’ is a tiny amount and ‘wild’ is full on.

15 – Filter type
When you turn the filter on, you’re deciding which frequencies to switch off. This is done by choosing a cutoff frequency and then deciding the behaviour of the filter with these 3 settings.

HPF – all frequencies higher than the cutoff get through, everything below it are removed
LPF – all frequencies lower than the cutoff get through, everything above it are removed
BPF – all frequencies around the cutoff get through, everything else on either side are removed

16 – Filter cutoff frequency
Set the cutoff frequency with this. Turning it all the way to the left (anti-clockwise) will kill off all frequencies if we use ‘LPF’ and so we won’t hear much.

17 – Crossfader (xfader) toggle
I prefer not to use the xfader and luckily this mixer has a way to switch it off. When the LED lights, the xfader is off. If we switch it on, you can see on the left next to each channel there’s an ‘xfade’ button. These decide which channels should be mapped to the left side of the xfader (the ‘X’) and which should be mapped to the right side (the ‘Y’).

18 – Crossfader
With the xfader on, you can set the channel output volumes to max (point ‘7′ above). Then when the xfader is all the way to the left, you will only hear what is coming from the channels you mapped to the ‘X’ position. As you move the xfader to the center, the channels in the ‘Y’ position come up to full volume and the ‘X’ ones slowly reduce volume. As you keep moving the xfader all the way to the right, the ‘X’ channels have their volume reduced to nothing. For mixing dance music, this isn’t needed. It is a useful feature if you’re wanting to do some beat juggling, also known as ‘turntablism’ where you see DJs switching from 1 track to another very fast whilst scratching the vinyl.

Until next time….

This was a brief introduction to the features on the Xone 42 mixer. It is difficult to read about features and know exactly what they do. That’s why I’ll show you in the video how they affect the music. I think I’m done with introductions now. Next time I’ll start to beatmatch and learn to be a DJ. Get ready to laugh.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Is there something I mentioned that isn’t quite right? If so, let me know in the forums by clicking on the icon below. You can also share your thoughts on what is the coolest or worst feature of the Xone 42 mixer compared to other Allen & Heath mixers or those from a different manufacturer. A lot of people get the CDJ/DJM-800 combination so it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the DM-800. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hello again,

I’d like to spend a bit of time getting to know my CDJ1000 MK3. Following is an image showing the deck with the different features explained in brief. In the video I actually play some music and test these features out so you can see how they affect the music.

1 – Hot cue points
A cue point allows you to set a point in the track that you want to come back to. Here we have 3 placeholders, A, B, C. Use these to store cue points and come back to them quickly.

2 – Text mode
Alternate between showing a waveform of the track, showing the track name, album name, artist name.

3 – Time mode / Auto cue
Tapping the button alternates between showing the elapsed time of the track and the remaining time. Holding the button down for over a second alternates between auto cueing (the track pauses on the 1st beat when you go through the tracklisting) and not auto cueing (the track starts playing when you go through the tracks, so like how a CD player works).

4 – Looping
Loop points allow you to set start/end points in the track that continue to repeat over and over again until you exit the loop.

5 – LCD display
This displays the track’s waveform (basically a bar graph showing the volume level of the track and various points), text information, track time, pitch and a few more things.

6 – Folder search
The MK3 plays MP3 CDs so this allows you to navigate through the folders you’ve put on the CD.

7 – Memory cue/loop points
These buttons are used with the SD card that you can slot into the front of the CDJ. When you create loops or cue points for a track, it saves these on the SD card so it remembers them automatically.

8 – CD lock
This stops you from accidentally ejecting a CD when the Eject button is pressed.

9 – Eject
Time to change CDs.

10 – Vinyl speed adjust
This mimics the behaviour on vinyl turntables when you switch the power off or turn the power on. The turntable comes to a halt and speeds up gradually, not straight away. This setting gives you control on the speed of acceleration/deceleration.

11 – CDJ/Vinyl mode
You can change how the jog wheel behaves (explained below).

12 – Tempo range
You can set the upper and lower limits of the tempo slider button with this. If you want a huge range, choose ‘Wide’, for a small range choose ‘+6′.

13 – Master tempo
When you change the tempo of the track, you aren’t just changing its speed, you’re also changing its pitch/key. If you wish to change the speed without affecting the pitch, switch on master tempo. In essence you are just time-stretching the audio. Unfortunately the CDJ can’t do it the other way around where you keep the speed the same but change the pitch (called pitch-shifting). This is possible with some FX units and also with the Pioneer DJM-800 mixer (a feature called harmonic tuning).

14 – Tempo slider
Change the rate at which the track is playing. Without this, mixing tracks is pointless.

15 – Tempo reset
This sets the tempo to what it would be if the slider was at position 0. It’s a quick way to reset the tempo back to the tune’s original.

16 – Outer jog wheel
When paused, moving this rewinds/forwards the track. In CDJ mode you also hear a stuttering effect of the beat you’re on whilst paused. When a track is being played, moving this speeds up or slows down the tempo slightly until you let go.

17 – Inner jog wheel
When paused, moving this rewinds/forwards the track. In CDJ mode you also here a stuttering effect of the beat you’re on whilst paused. When a track is being played and you’re in CDJ mode, moving this speeds up or slows down the tempo slightly until you let go. If you’re in Vinyl mode, touching this pauses the track (and as mentioned earlier, you can use the vinyl adjust to change the rate of deceleration and rate of acceleration as soon as you let go to start playing again).

18 – Jogwheel LCD display
This shows a circle and where in the track you are with a rotating bit. You can see the cue point here also, making it easy to identify its position near a beat.

19 – Play/pause
I don’t need to explain what this does.

20 – Cue
A cue point as described earlier allows you to set a place in the track you can come back to quickly. A good use of the main cue point is to find the 1st proper beat in the track so when you’re trying to beat match, you can restart again and again until you get the tempo right. To set a cue point, make sure the track is paused then hit cue. You can use the jog wheel to fine tune the cue point, something I’ll show you in the video. You can also keep your finger on the cue button to start playing the track. When you let go, it just goes back to the cue point (so the same as pressing play followed by cue).

21 – Search
Keep your finger on these to rewind or fast forward through the track. If you also rotate the jog wheel at the same time, you go through the track super fast.

22 – Track search
Same thing but for tracks.

23 – Direction
You can flick this switch to play the track in reverse.

Until next time….

This was a brief introduction to the features on the CDJ. Next time I will be doing the same for the Xone 42 mixer. There is a standard set of features on all mixers so don’t worry if yours isn’t an Allen & Heath Xone 42.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Is there something I mentioned that isn’t quite right? If so, let me know in the forums by clicking on the icon below. You can also share your thoughts on what is the coolest or worst feature of the CDJ1000 MK3 compared to other CD decks. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi guys,

This week I’m going to show off the equipment that I’ve purchased and also explain how I have put it all together. Hopefully the pictures and the description will make sense. If you’re not reading this on the site (e.g. in an RSS feed), I suggest you view it on the site so you can watch the accompanying video.

Decks

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
When I was contemplating buying DJ gear, I already had in mind CD decks rather than turntables. Nowadays CDs, MP3s and laptops are quite common when it comes to mixing. Pioneer’s CDJs are an industry standard and common in nightclubs so I opted for these. At the time I bought them, a couple of months back, the latest model was CDJ1000 MK3. The crazy thing is, this cost me £1100 each (from www.djstore.com) which I think has gone up during the recession, I’m pretty sure they were cheaper in the past, maybe someone can correct me.

Mixer

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
It was a tough choice deciding which mixer to buy. The one that is commonly purchased with the CDJ is the Pioneer DJM-800. This is what I used when I went down to London for a tutorial session and it seemed like a funky piece of kit. It has built in effects which sync to the beats and a feature called harmonic tuning which allows you to change the pitch of the tune without the tempo (we’ll go into this when we do some mixing). There is quite a price tag to it as well, at the time I was looking it was around £1500, now a couple of hundred or so less.

After taking advice from a few friends, I decided in the end to opt for Allen & Heath’s Xone 42. I’ve read many reviews and heard over and over that Allen & Heath’s sound quality is better than Pioneer’s when it comes to mixers. Although this mixer doesn’t have special effects built in, there is a way to plug an external FX unit into it. And most importantly, it cost me £468 from Guildford sound & light, much cheaper. When I become handy with the tools I currently have, I will think about getting an FX unit, it isn’t required just yet and it probably won’t be worthwhile for trance tunes anyway.

Monitors

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
Initially I wasn’t going to bother with purchasing studio monitors. The decks have been set up in my little office where I have decent speakers attached to my PC with a subwoofer. I was going to use these, but then thought I’d get an extra set just for the ‘DJ corner’. Because I wasn’t too fussed about sound, I decided to find the cheapest things I could that had decent enough reviews. I ended up with Skytec monitors (also from Guildford sound & light). To tell you the truth, they are ok, but they don’t have much bass to them. They do get very loud though, I can’t remember the watt setting on them but it’s quite a lot. I have a solution to the lack of bass too, which I will explain when I talk about how I have set things up.

Headphones

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
I wasn’t too concened about headphones at all. I have a few lying around but with parts missing, so thought I’d at least get something that can do the job. As I was already purchasing items from Guildford sound & light, it made sense to me to get them from here. I ended up with the Sennhesier HD205 headphones which have a rotating earcup (although it’s easier to just take the entire earcup off the ear to be honest). I find these have great sound quality and when you put them on they shut off the outside sound pretty well, even if the music is playing loudly.

Connecting things together

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
In the video I will go through the actual connections between the CDJs, mixer, monitors and headphone. It is easier to explain it all in video. These 2 pictures will help make sense of what I’m talking about. This one is the reverse side of the CDJ showing an RCA cable attached to it.

(Click on the image to show a larger version)
This looks like a jungle but it isn’t too bad. View the larger image to see in more detail what’s going on. Other than the connections to the monitors and CDJs, I’ve also got a connection going to my PC and a connection coming back from the PC. The connection to the PC is so I can output sound not only to the monitors but also to my PC speakers (which have a subwoofer giving me good bass). The connection from the PC is so I can play something on there (I use Winamp) and I now have another channel I can mix in with the 2 CDJs, hence making a 3-tune mega mix, yeah man. I explain more in the video on the right.

Until next time….

Well, hopefully you got some useful information from all of this. Next time I will play some tunes and go into detail about the individual knobs, sliders and buttons on the CDJ. If you guys want me to talk about something specific, just mention it in the forums.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Is there anything I mentioned that you don’t agree with or wish to add to? Do you have a different setup with your equipment? If so, chat about it in the forums by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Hi all,

I’m such a huge fan of trance. I remember my 1st Euphoria album back in ‘99. It was advertised as being “for the mind, body and soul” and it really was. I had found the genre of music that I could really relate to, the type of music that affected me on an emotional level. The albums kept getting better and better that year and the next. What I enjoyed about these compilations was that the tracks were mixed so the entire album would take you on a journey. Over the years I’ve heard many different styles and techniques for mixing and that has made me want to try out these techniques and come up with a few of my own.

The other project I will be working on at the same time is to learn about music production so I can make some quality trance. Check out my other site at www.maketrance.com.

My first attempt at DJing

A couple of months back I decided to try it out and see whether it was for me before I bought some equipment. I went down to London and purchased a 5 hour session for a couple of hundred quid. I took down some CDs with me full of MP3s. The equipment I was practising on was the Pioneer CDJ-1000 MK3 and the Pioneer DJM-800 mixer.

Man was I terrible with my 1st effort at beatmatching. I picked the skill up pretty quickly though and with some tweaks from my tutor (every 5 seconds) I was producing some decent noise.

Next I had to learn how to transition between tracks. There are many ways to do this (which I will be learning over the coming months). My tutor told me of a method where I count 8-bar phrases and use the low frequency EQ knobs to switch over from 1 channel to the other.

I have to say I was having a lot of fun. I picked things up very quickly and was ready to make my 1st mix CD. This is when things got tricky as I had to now use headphones to mix. Anyway, the recording had started so there was no going back. I began to lay down the tunes and the end result was pretty decent, I’d certainly buy it myself. Maybe I’ll end up putting the mix on the site some day so we can talk about what was good and bad.

What’s next for me

My aim is to create mixes that people will listen to and feel deep within. My dream is to play in big clubs. In fact, I was in Ibiza back in July and one of my best nights was with Tiesto at Privilege (an amazing club, check out some pics on Google). I could picture myself up there blasting the trance and watching as the melodies take people to a higher level, just magical. I’d have my own unique style of mixing, blending the melodies so well that people wouldn’t even know the track had changed.

Until next time….

I think this is enough for this post. Next time I will be describing my equipment and how I have set it all up. After that I’ll just wing it. If you guys want me to talk about something specific, just mention it in the forums.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, just sign up to the mailing list in the top-right (you’ll have to validate your email address to confirm you’re a real person).

Forum topic of the week

As this is my 1st post here, the forums are going to be empty. Why not start off by discussing your own experiences of DJing and what you’re hoping to gain out of following me on my journey to learn the skills. We can also talk about some DJs we like to listen to and the styles of mixing that appeals to us. Click on the following forums icon to go straight to this week’s thread. From there you can also create new threads. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts. If there are any technical issues with signing up to the forums, contact me, the link is in the header.