Learning to DJ (w/ the 3345 Team)

Starting to mix : mixing the two tracks : example 1 mixing house records

Lets get creative and give you an example; say you want to do a treble-led mix in, then you will most likely need to pre-set your equalization on record 2 with the high at close to full volume, the mids at about –5dB and the bass at –12dB or more. What next?

1. Start the record 2 in sync. During the first half a period you will probably be adjusting the sync. Don’t worry, just do it quickly. If it takes you too long, wait for the next period to start cross-fading.
2. Gently start crossing the cross-fader towards the middle position over the next period (or 32 beats). You may want to do this faster or slower, it just depends how many periods you have for mixing. Listen to the live mix, if there is too much treble, then slowly start cutting treble from record 1. You may also want to cut some mid-range, but usually you don’t want to overdo this one, otherwise record 1 will loose its integrity.
3. Two periods (64 beats) have lapsed; it took one period to sync and another to bring the cross-fader to the middle position. You should be able to hear the second record on the live mix, but the beat of the first record should still be fairly clean, as record 2 has its bass cut by 24dB.
4. Now you can go a number of ways. If you are mixing house and on the upcoming period 4, there is a rolling beat on record 2, led by a strong beat, then try this; as record 2 approaches the end of period 3, within the last ‘bar’ (4 beats) do a hard-cut on the bass of record 1 and then, just before the first beat of the new period, turn up the bass on record 2. You will find that many DJs often use this technique, especially in house music, to avoid the phasing problem encountered with overlapping beats.
5. You’ve got record 2 playing in full swing, the equalizer is still in the middle and record 1 has its treble slightly cut (-2 to –6dB) and its bass hard-cut (-12 to –24dB). Use the length of period 4 to gently move the cross-fader all the way to record 2, so that record 1 is completely mute.
6. Once this is done, you can stop playback on deck 1 and remove the record. Place a new record and the game begins again.

The method in this example is called the bass-cut-in style. Where the bass of one song sounds at full volume while all the other frequencies are mixed and then the bass is cut from one track to the other.

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