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ARTICLE
Mixing For Mobile DJs
Mixing is viewed as an essential skill by many mobile DJs, and I am one of them. However, there are still lots of DJs out there who don’t think it’s necessary and others who reserve it for specific dance music sets. In this article I’m going to state the case for mobile DJ mixing and offer some pointers to get you started if mixing is a skill you’re yet to master.
What is mixing?
Mixing is simply a series of transitions from one track to another, without an embarrassing gap in-between. Good mixing essentially blends together a series of songs into one continuous piece of music, with no musical key clashes, keeping the pace constant and the volume at a uniform level.
Why should you learn to mix?
Well, in my view, it is essential to constantly pick up new skills and never to stop learning. I regularly hear of mobile DJs who put up the argument that they have never needed to mix, and their clients love what they do, so why should they bother? That to me is a terrible attitude, and it shows a shocking lack of a basic skill which is VERY EASY TO LEARN. Let's face it, a computer can do basic mixing, why can't you?! Actually, I'll come back to computers later...
Not only is mixing a basic skill that I think every DJ should have, it also makes for better parties! Let's take a look at what service you are providing as a mobile DJ. At most events you are probably playing a huge variety of different music to a varied age group with different musical tastes, and they are dancing to their choices, and a few of yours (you do find out in advance what they like to dance to don't you?!). When you play a song that a particular person – or group – likes, they’ll get up to dance. But when you then put on a different song – for another person or group – you run the risk of them sitting back down. The potential of this happening is increased if the music changes in a way that is jarringly obvious. However if you mix in time, you are more likely to keep the dance-floor full as the change from song to song is less obvious and there is no noticeable point at which people stop dancing, prompting the subconscious thought “do I want to keep dancing to this new song”. People are much less likely to leave the dancefloor if the music is continuous rather than stop/start. And isn’t keeping the dancefloor full central to our role as mobile DJs?
Tastes are also changing, and I think that these days many more clients expect their DJ to be able to mix. When I meet my clients for the first time and ask them what their concerns are, almost all of them are horrified at the idea of a mobile DJ who has to give a constant commentary on the microphone in between tracks. Why would any DJ want to do this? Maybe a few radio DJs don’t realise that they are at a dancing party and not presenting a radio show? Maybe others are covering their lack of skills by not mixing? I’m sure others have simply picked up the bad habit in the past from a dinosaur DJ who didn't know better!
I guarantee that your clients will love a DJ who can mix tracks properly. Let's face it, your audience have seen 'proper' DJs at work on TV, if not in clubs, bars, and at festivals. And this has been the case for years and years! Even those of you providing DJ services for 50th birthday parties need to embrace mixing. Just think about it. What music was around when today’s 50 year olds were out clubbing and partying in their late teens and early twenties? Yes, dance music, HOUSE MUSIC and HIP-HOP were huge! 50 year olds went to illegal raves!! So mixing is not just for the millennials getting wed or 18th and 21st birthday parties.
You will also find that once you learn how to mix, you will see your music collection in a whole new light. It will reinvigorate your love for music and inspire you to become more creative. Mixing also keeps you busy during gigs, so you won’t run the risk of getting bored. More than that, mixing is fun! This will be totally evident to your clients who will love what you do, become fans, and recommend you to everyone they know!
Finally, needless to say, this skill is in demand! I regularly come across clients who specifically want a mixing DJ for their party. Learning to mix well will give you another valuable selling point for your service, which can help you to demand higher fees for your work.
But my computer mixes for me!
I said I'd come back to this! Yes, I know that software is now able to beat match some music types automatically, and no doubt this will continue to get better. But software still can’t read the dancefloor or phrase music properly… yet. Software tools can be useful, but they are no substitute for learning and perfecting basic mixing skills.
Essentials
So, you’ve decided to give mixing a go, what do you need to get started? It's fairly simple really, you need two music sources which can be triggered instantly at specific points in a song, and a mixer which you can use to listen to the next track through headphones before you fade it up to go live. So, that's pretty much every piece of controller driven software and discreet component DJ system combination out there!
You will also need a very good set of headphones. Do NOT skimp on those, you will need to make the investment. They need to be good quality, comfortable, and the key thing is that they need to isolate the outside world – including your PA system – from what you are trying to listen to. Cheap headphones don't do this well, which will mean you have to turn them up too loud, and that can lead to tinnitus and other hearing issues. There are really two industry standards that do this job exceptionally well: the Sennheiser HD25 and the Pioneer HDJ-2000MK2. I know this from experience, having tried them all over many years! Whatever you do, don't be tempted to think that fashion items such as Beats headphones or radio/production cans will do the job properly.
Finally, you will need to get to know your music better. As a starting point, you need to know the BPM (Beats Per Minute) value of each track. This is the musical speed of the track and will tell you which songs can potentially mix well together. Thankfully these days this is calculated – pretty accurately - by all major DJ software applications. When I learnt to mix, I had to count the beats while looking at a stopwatch to deduce the BPM!
Music structure
Before you start to mix, it’s important to get a feel for music structure. First of all, you need to be able to identify the first useable beat in a song. This is not always obvious with party songs as some have unusual intros. For example, listen to ‘Valerie’ by Amy Winehouse or Michael Jackson’s ‘Don't Stop Till You Get Enough’. You wouldn't play either of these from 0 seconds! ‘Pretty Woman’ by Roy Orbison, on the other hand, is a great track to start with. The first four beats are just percussion which can be mixed over anything as there is no other musical content, only drumming. If your playback hardware or software allows looping, these four beats can then be repeated continuously while you mix them with the outgoing track. It's the same thing with the first eight beats of ‘Let's Hear It For The Boy’ by Deniece Williams.
Most pop and dance music is written and recorded in 4/4 time, which means that four beats make up one ‘bar’ and four bars make up one ‘phrase’. When you listen carefully to your music, you will find that musical elements such as basslines and vocals come in at the beginning of a bar, usually at the start of a new phrase. Club or 12" mixes of songs reveal this quite clearly as a track builds. And, of course, the same tends to happen in reverse at the end of a song.
I recommend listening to a variety of songs and learning to count the beats like this:
1234 2234 3234 4234
The highlighted 1st beat of each bar shows its position in the phrase. This will help you anticipate forthcoming changes in the music structure during a mix.
While most of the music we play as mobile DJs is in 4/4 time, it’s important to be aware that there are some exceptions. ‘3 Times A Lady’ by The Commodores is a prime example.
The running mix
What most people understand by the term mixing is actually one particular technique called a running mix. It is used extensively by club DJs, and can be utilised effectively by mobile DJs, especially if you use the tracks found on the DJ Beats releases from Mastermix [see panel to the side].
A running mix involves starting the drum beat of a new track playing as the previous song begins to come to an end. The first beat of the incoming track is started at the exact same time as the first beat in a new bar (and ideally also at the start of a new phrase) of the current track. The BPM of the two tracks must also match exactly, which is achieved using the Pitch or Tempo control on one or both of the music players. For a well-timed running mix, the first musical phrase (not just percussion) of the incoming track should start on the next beat following the end of the last musical phrase of the current track.
The chop mix
The easiest mix to perfect by far is a chop mix. This technique is often more useful in a mobile DJ setting than the running mix as it doesn’t require percussive intros and outros. It can also often be used more effectively to switch musical genres. This mix is all about timing, impact, and feeling the beat. It involves starting the new track and killing the audio from the outgoing track at the exact same time, on beat number one at the start of a phrase. The idea is to make a seamless, instant transition, which maintains the musical flow. This is so much better than the fade out / fade in approach that I have seen so many DJs use! My advice is to start by perfecting the chop mix [TIP: it's easier with slower songs with an obvious beat, such as R’n’B and Hip-Hop tracks].
What is mixing?
Mixing is simply a series of transitions from one track to another, without an embarrassing gap in-between. Good mixing essentially blends together a series of songs into one continuous piece of music, with no musical key clashes, keeping the pace constant and the volume at a uniform level.
Why should you learn to mix?
Well, in my view, it is essential to constantly pick up new skills and never to stop learning. I regularly hear of mobile DJs who put up the argument that they have never needed to mix, and their clients love what they do, so why should they bother? That to me is a terrible attitude, and it shows a shocking lack of a basic skill which is VERY EASY TO LEARN. Let's face it, a computer can do basic mixing, why can't you?! Actually, I'll come back to computers later...
Not only is mixing a basic skill that I think every DJ should have, it also makes for better parties! Let's take a look at what service you are providing as a mobile DJ. At most events you are probably playing a huge variety of different music to a varied age group with different musical tastes, and they are dancing to their choices, and a few of yours (you do find out in advance what they like to dance to don't you?!). When you play a song that a particular person – or group – likes, they’ll get up to dance. But when you then put on a different song – for another person or group – you run the risk of them sitting back down. The potential of this happening is increased if the music changes in a way that is jarringly obvious. However if you mix in time, you are more likely to keep the dance-floor full as the change from song to song is less obvious and there is no noticeable point at which people stop dancing, prompting the subconscious thought “do I want to keep dancing to this new song”. People are much less likely to leave the dancefloor if the music is continuous rather than stop/start. And isn’t keeping the dancefloor full central to our role as mobile DJs?
Tastes are also changing, and I think that these days many more clients expect their DJ to be able to mix. When I meet my clients for the first time and ask them what their concerns are, almost all of them are horrified at the idea of a mobile DJ who has to give a constant commentary on the microphone in between tracks. Why would any DJ want to do this? Maybe a few radio DJs don’t realise that they are at a dancing party and not presenting a radio show? Maybe others are covering their lack of skills by not mixing? I’m sure others have simply picked up the bad habit in the past from a dinosaur DJ who didn't know better!
I guarantee that your clients will love a DJ who can mix tracks properly. Let's face it, your audience have seen 'proper' DJs at work on TV, if not in clubs, bars, and at festivals. And this has been the case for years and years! Even those of you providing DJ services for 50th birthday parties need to embrace mixing. Just think about it. What music was around when today’s 50 year olds were out clubbing and partying in their late teens and early twenties? Yes, dance music, HOUSE MUSIC and HIP-HOP were huge! 50 year olds went to illegal raves!! So mixing is not just for the millennials getting wed or 18th and 21st birthday parties.
You will also find that once you learn how to mix, you will see your music collection in a whole new light. It will reinvigorate your love for music and inspire you to become more creative. Mixing also keeps you busy during gigs, so you won’t run the risk of getting bored. More than that, mixing is fun! This will be totally evident to your clients who will love what you do, become fans, and recommend you to everyone they know!
Finally, needless to say, this skill is in demand! I regularly come across clients who specifically want a mixing DJ for their party. Learning to mix well will give you another valuable selling point for your service, which can help you to demand higher fees for your work.
But my computer mixes for me!
I said I'd come back to this! Yes, I know that software is now able to beat match some music types automatically, and no doubt this will continue to get better. But software still can’t read the dancefloor or phrase music properly… yet. Software tools can be useful, but they are no substitute for learning and perfecting basic mixing skills.
Essentials
So, you’ve decided to give mixing a go, what do you need to get started? It's fairly simple really, you need two music sources which can be triggered instantly at specific points in a song, and a mixer which you can use to listen to the next track through headphones before you fade it up to go live. So, that's pretty much every piece of controller driven software and discreet component DJ system combination out there!
You will also need a very good set of headphones. Do NOT skimp on those, you will need to make the investment. They need to be good quality, comfortable, and the key thing is that they need to isolate the outside world – including your PA system – from what you are trying to listen to. Cheap headphones don't do this well, which will mean you have to turn them up too loud, and that can lead to tinnitus and other hearing issues. There are really two industry standards that do this job exceptionally well: the Sennheiser HD25 and the Pioneer HDJ-2000MK2. I know this from experience, having tried them all over many years! Whatever you do, don't be tempted to think that fashion items such as Beats headphones or radio/production cans will do the job properly.
Finally, you will need to get to know your music better. As a starting point, you need to know the BPM (Beats Per Minute) value of each track. This is the musical speed of the track and will tell you which songs can potentially mix well together. Thankfully these days this is calculated – pretty accurately - by all major DJ software applications. When I learnt to mix, I had to count the beats while looking at a stopwatch to deduce the BPM!
Music structure
Before you start to mix, it’s important to get a feel for music structure. First of all, you need to be able to identify the first useable beat in a song. This is not always obvious with party songs as some have unusual intros. For example, listen to ‘Valerie’ by Amy Winehouse or Michael Jackson’s ‘Don't Stop Till You Get Enough’. You wouldn't play either of these from 0 seconds! ‘Pretty Woman’ by Roy Orbison, on the other hand, is a great track to start with. The first four beats are just percussion which can be mixed over anything as there is no other musical content, only drumming. If your playback hardware or software allows looping, these four beats can then be repeated continuously while you mix them with the outgoing track. It's the same thing with the first eight beats of ‘Let's Hear It For The Boy’ by Deniece Williams.
Most pop and dance music is written and recorded in 4/4 time, which means that four beats make up one ‘bar’ and four bars make up one ‘phrase’. When you listen carefully to your music, you will find that musical elements such as basslines and vocals come in at the beginning of a bar, usually at the start of a new phrase. Club or 12" mixes of songs reveal this quite clearly as a track builds. And, of course, the same tends to happen in reverse at the end of a song.
I recommend listening to a variety of songs and learning to count the beats like this:
1234 2234 3234 4234
The highlighted 1st beat of each bar shows its position in the phrase. This will help you anticipate forthcoming changes in the music structure during a mix.
While most of the music we play as mobile DJs is in 4/4 time, it’s important to be aware that there are some exceptions. ‘3 Times A Lady’ by The Commodores is a prime example.
The running mix
What most people understand by the term mixing is actually one particular technique called a running mix. It is used extensively by club DJs, and can be utilised effectively by mobile DJs, especially if you use the tracks found on the DJ Beats releases from Mastermix [see panel to the side].
A running mix involves starting the drum beat of a new track playing as the previous song begins to come to an end. The first beat of the incoming track is started at the exact same time as the first beat in a new bar (and ideally also at the start of a new phrase) of the current track. The BPM of the two tracks must also match exactly, which is achieved using the Pitch or Tempo control on one or both of the music players. For a well-timed running mix, the first musical phrase (not just percussion) of the incoming track should start on the next beat following the end of the last musical phrase of the current track.
The chop mix
The easiest mix to perfect by far is a chop mix. This technique is often more useful in a mobile DJ setting than the running mix as it doesn’t require percussive intros and outros. It can also often be used more effectively to switch musical genres. This mix is all about timing, impact, and feeling the beat. It involves starting the new track and killing the audio from the outgoing track at the exact same time, on beat number one at the start of a phrase. The idea is to make a seamless, instant transition, which maintains the musical flow. This is so much better than the fade out / fade in approach that I have seen so many DJs use! My advice is to start by perfecting the chop mix [TIP: it's easier with slower songs with an obvious beat, such as R’n’B and Hip-Hop tracks].
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 83, Pages 54-56.
