DJ Blind Mikey DJ tips
Over 5000 hours on the Pioneer CDJ’s shared with you!
So you want to be a superstar DJ? Wonder why your local nightclub or even the best ‘celeb’ club DJ’s are so naff? Then read Mikey’s latest blog, and find out how the straight talking blind DJ mixes, as DJ Mallorca Lee says ‘Like the big boys!’:
On
1st January 2011, Mikey developed an advanced beatmatching
technique, that is consistently able to produce precision. The following tips are still useful as are
the basis for the new one Mikey is now using.
Mikey
Tips:
The
following tips were created, after myself putting in 2 years and over 3000
hours in the journey to be a club proper mixing DJ. I am not saying the first year and a half were wasted, but if I
had followed my own tips, I would be a lot further on today, when I actually
did with step one, I very quickly picked it up and in a few months was creating accurate beatmatched sets, but only
another six months later, 5 hours per day, were the sets good, in respect of
beatmatching, transitions and audio level of the incoming mix.
1.
Don't climb before you can walk.
I know it sounds boring, and I made this
mistake, don't start creating sixty minute sets.
Take
2 tracks the exact same, a good idea is for them to have at least a 128 beat intro.
Have
them both in the same position on the pitch control, usually locked in the centre. Start them at the same point, they may be
slightly out, so move the platter and you should hear them coming into
beat. This is not a natural sound, and
when I first heard it, I thought, oh that sounds weird, that can't be right and
wasted months, when I had it quite early on. It sounds like a solid echo sound.
Unless
you can achieve the above and train your ears for the above sound, there really
is no point in carrying on.
I
don't know how many arguments I have had with people saying they used to DJ in
pubs, and it is all about feeling and they don't seem to grasp my emphasis on
beatmatching. I ask if they could
beatmatch, I never got a yes or no, but they went back to the feeling. No amount of feeling will create a perfectly
beatmatched set, initially it is all about training the ear, getting a ballpark
beatmatch, then fine tuning. The
difference between your average pub DJ catching the fade at the end of a track
and bringing in the next and the club beatmatching DJ, is the club DJ should be
able to have two different songs running for almost their entire length.
2. Get yourself some equipment, as you will be
doing it, well into the wee small hours, or may even get up first thing and take
a notion. But like your first
skateboard, this did not mean you could drop-in off a 18 foot half-pipe, before
falling flat on your face. So having
your decks does not make you a DJ, only thousands of hours of training will.
3. Choice of music,
A
strong 4 by 4 beat is probably the best to get started. Don’t try and mix with too much of a difference
in BPM’s at the start e.g. 130 electro house is not going to go into 150 hardstyle.
4. I like the Japanese concept of reverse
engineering. Go to clubs where proper
mixing is being done and watch how the DJ's do it. View tutorials on the Internet, watch and learn, DJ Recess has a
good website and is the author of DJ for Dummies. Get some of the tracks on the tutorials and try and replicate
what the DJ's are doing. It may not be clear
at the start what they are getting at, but later on, you will remember something,
as your DJ journey progresses, or rather is not progressing, and you try something
you heard before, but did not give it a go. Mikey picked up tips from various DJ’s who all gave valuable advice
and without them the mixing would not be as good today, as it is.
5. Once you can keep two full tracks going in
beat and in time, then introduce a third.
It will take another period of time to be able to place the incoming
track in the right place. A good
starting point initially is to take the first say 64 beats then match up with
outgoing 64 beats. Though once I
mastered this, I was able to keep going back and back into the track, so that
the incoming track finally comes in right where the action is. Getting the transitions right, can be quite
time consuming and frustrating, but once you get the nak, it is definitely what
will set your mixing apart from other DJ's who don't bother.
6. More beatmatching, sorry to have to go back
to this, but you may find that your transitions are sounding out of beat. This means more work needs to be done on the
beatmatching. When I first started I
could get two tracks in beat for 4 beats, and thought, ah that is it, well
there is a bit of work still to be done yet.
It is all about finetuning with the pitch control, and moving the
platter at the same time. I find that
when I only move the pitch control, I don't usually hear the beats banging
against each other, leave for another 8 beats or so, then fine tune again. Only when I have done this in my headphones
and the tracks are in beat for 32 bars, can I confidently start fading up the incoming
track, for a powerful sounding transition.
7. One of the best ways I learned was to record
and listen back to my sets. You may
think why bother, but only when listening back can you tell where you went
wrong. The good thing about listening
back is, you can tell you are getting better and it gives you the strength to
carry-on. You might think you are doing
a great mix, but when you listen back, you really hear the points for
improvement and it greatly helps with balancing levels of the tracks, especially
if you mix like me, and don’t use the monitors or the master mix switch on the mixer.
8.
Use your time wisely. No point in creating a sixty minute set,
listening back=2 hours for it all not to be in beat. Better to start with the 2 tracks, as means you have more focus,
and should improve quicker.
9. I have found, that it is usually easier and
sounds better, to have the incoming track, needing to be speeded up and the
platter turned round to the right, but this is not always possible, depending
on how I approach things. Try and
develop a technique and stick to
it. I find that if the playing track is
full fade and the incoming track needs to be sped up, and I adjust the playing
track by turning the platter anticlockwise to make it slower, you hear the
adjustment, but you could just try moving the pitch further up instead. This all takes a lot of trial and error, and
you may find half way through the 32 beat sequence, one track changes speed
slightly, that can upset the direction you have to move. This is the critical moment, and if full fade
and you made the wrong move, you will definitely hear it, even if you quickly change
to the right direction, hence it is a good idea to have the first 32 beats below
half fade, but nothing beats full fade all going in the right way and if the outro
only has 64 beats, you really need to get those beats in early, but with an 128
outro, you have more time, but if your beatmatching is not precise you will get
caught out at the end, and this will ruin your mix. if you are at full fade and you gently turn the platter, instead
of aquick flick, you may be able to tell what direction you should make the
adjustment without it sounding too much out, but I prefer the quick flicks,
that you would notice if you did it in the wrong direction.
10. Finally, you might be wondering what the
advanced precision beatmatching technique I have developed is, well if you have
trained your ear, have nerves of steel (as you'll need em for this one!) &
also follow me on Twitter (thrown in for the bargain), then I might just tell
you!
http://www.twitter.com/djblindmikey
Extra
things to consider:
Don't
be silly and play everything loud. I
actually don't use any monitors and mix entirely in the headphones, but this
did take a lot of listening back to, in order to be able to hear the mixing
into the transitions was at the correct level.
I also have custom-made earplugs made by ultimateearprotection specially
designed for DJ's, you may find that these help in beatmatching, as you hear
the beats crossing over really well, they can reduce the noise level in a
nightclub by 25DB, while not affecting your ability to mix.
You
may ask, how do I know when I have got it?:
You know you have mastered it, when you don't
have to listen back to your mixes, as you either know you did not make any
mistakes, or the mistakes you did make were just a wee blip. You can swap your fancy DJ headphones, for
the cheapest in the ear type and still get your set in beat.
The
"Big set"
So
you are finally ready to put together a mix.
But like a standup comedian, they usually start off with a 5 minute set
and work towards 10, 20 & upwards and onwards. For a DJ I would say start at 20, then 40, then 1 hour. How many tracks to select? Well if you want to play just back to back,
you could go for hours, but creating a mix, is entirely different, & takes
considerable skill, this sets the proper club DJ apart from the non-mixing DJ,
it could take longer to create a 20 minute fully mixed set, than it would just
playing 50 tracks one after another, the latter would be a bit like putting on
Ipod shuffle, no skill in that, OK I suppose if you only wannabe a human
jukebox in your local pub, but you’ll never DJ in a super serious House music
club, though having said that, some of the big headline DJ’s, don’t really have
the beatmatching and are cramming far too many songs into their mix, ensuring no
musical journey and no sound of any beats crossing over whatsover. Mikey thinks this sets a bad perception of what
mixing should be. If you want to hear proper
mixing then DJ Obsession in Scotland has genre splitting precisely beatmatched big
transitioned sets and is the resident Colours DJ. George Bowie on Radio Clyde on a Saturday night 6pm-10pm also has good
mixing as do Judge Jules (11pm-1am) and Kutz on a Saturday night with the harder
stuff (1am-3am).
Don't make the mistake of trying to cram in
as many as you possibly can, a lot of DJ's who do this, have already chopped up
the tracks in a computer package. It
can also sound a bit choppy, and there is little journey, but each DJ is
entitled to decide what mixing style suits them. I have developed a style that uses the entire track, but the
phrasing is such for the incoming track, that it is not long before you hear
the new track, and finally kicks in, with the old track out, right were the
action is. This can take a while to get
right, with counting bars and phrases, but worth it, as the mix will really
flow.
My
new rule, that I always seem to break! is also to try and have the pitch within
a reasonable range, if you need to put the pitch on extremes, then maybe it is
best to select different combinations.
If two particular tracks are taking ages to get in beat, then maybe,
time would be better spent trying something else, sometimes you can get tracks
going almost immediately. If you use
master tempo on the Pioneer decks for example, you will also hear the beats
breaking down, making it harder to beatmatch, this can depend on the song, with
some being more prone to do this than others.
All this should be done in your house, not live at a club, unless you
have been dj'ing in clubs for years and years, and know every phrase for every
track, then your set will take work and planning. It may take 5 hours for track selection. Another 4 for an 8 track, to get the
phrasing right, another 4 hours doing the set.
Maybe 40 minutes each day, then finally you should be able to perfect,
with only the most minor adjustment needed.
The whole process could take at least 2 to 4 weeks, and only then,
should you consider doing the set in a club.
Believe you and me, you will notice the DJ with perfect beatmatching,
phrasing, transitions and a set that flows, than the DJ that just turns up and
slams any song into each other, often just starting the new track, when the old
one ends, with no attempt to mix.
I
love the DJ’s who say, they play to the crowd on the night? What exactly does this
mean, if you know you are going to an Electro House night, you are hardly going
to play a Gabba set. I’ve heard this excuse
used too often, and it usually results in no beatmatched tunes, bad transitions
and tunes out of key, sure the “right” songs may be played, but the mixing suffers
and if you are booked for a particular night, you should know the right songs
anyway, and you will have a good idea what the other DJ’s will play if you have
read the lineup. Nothing beats a well planned
mix.
You may wonder what all this talk about harmonic mixing
is? And mixing in musical key? Understanding
the theory of the Camelot wheel may prove useful e.g. a track in A minor may go
with C Major, they both use the notes A C E and C E G. if you are just mixing beats you may get away
with out of key. Just as important is making
sure the new track comes in with some added engery unless you want a dip, also
watch the gain volume, as even an energitic rack, if not loud enough, will create
a dip in energy, but overloud and it will ruin the mix. Mikey generally relies on his natural ear,
that he has developed through listening to lots of different music and thinking
“oh those songs sound similar”, but only when they are mixed will you hear if they
clash. There are clashes they are clashes,
generally a wel beatmatched mix avoiding strong melodies and being gentle on the
fader, will hide any possible conflicts, but if you are mixing Ministry of Sound
powerful Hed Kandy or Electro House DeadMau5 and Fake Blood, or even the distorted
sounds of Hardstyle Showtek, you really need a keen ear. Mikey’s first method is to get a bunch of tunes
and just play em and try and work out what sounds good, if they bring an
instant smile to his face, then he knows they are a winner. He’ll set those two aside, then get another two
that go well, slowly he’ll build up the mix, sometimes the resulting combination
might sound a bit odd in places and he will try different combos, or get the keyboard
out and try and work out by playing along if the track is in A minor or A major
or B minor and the like, often it can be a subtleuble difference in the cords, that when combining the tracks
can make it more pleasing to the ear if properly selected. It only takes a few seconds for Mikey to know
if two tunes are definitely ain’t going to tie the knot, but sometimes tunes can
sound ok, then later on in the track, they divorce, so you may want to only play
at certain bits or remarry.
Mikey recently heard Stephen Henry the worldclass Scottish
Snooker player talking about the desire and ambition of the young snooker stars.
He said it was the folk that had the time
to put into practicing 4 or 5 hours a day and the commitment that would ultimately
win the titles. Like any sport like golf
or football, you do need some natural talent, but you also need the dedication.
Proper beatmatching, demands the hours.
Mikey has put in over 5000 so far, and he
hopes these tips will help you on your journey also.
Remember to follow Mikey on Twitter for exclusive lively
DJ banterL:
http://www.twitter.com/djblindmikey