This method means that you play the same bar of drums over and over again, which may sound easy, but believe me, it isn’t. You can get easily flustered, get the timing wrong for the start of the bar, and make a pig’s ear of some- thing so simple-sounding.
TEAM LinG
When you’re happy with a using the whole bar, halve the time that one record plays before switching over. Then when you’re really confident, start to play the beat so that the first beat plays from the first record, the second beat from the second record, but wind back the beats, so you only hear the first two beats of the bar play.
Offsetting
By the time you can swap from beat to beat comfortably, you’ll want to create more complicated drum beats. Offsetting one of the records is a great and simple way to start. Begin by starting one of the tunes half a beat later, so instead of a simple Bass Snare Bass Snarefor the four beats of the bar, you now have BassBass SnareSnare BassBass SnareSnarein the exact same amount of time. The first bass is from the first tune, and the second one is from the second tune.
Leaving the cross-fader in the middle creates that run of beats, but closing the cross-fader off to one of the beats temporarily starts to chop it up a lot more.
Beats: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Sounds: B1 B2 S1 S2 B1 S1 S2 B2 S1 S2 B1 B2 S1
(Where the B is Bass, S is Snare, Bold is Deck 1 and normal is Deck 2.) This method is only the tip of the iceberg for cutting up the beat. The faster you cut between tracks, the different offset beats, and the different lengths of the beats you have to work with can all come together to make a really complicated beat. And that’s not even thinking about cymbals, hi-hats, and drum rolls!
Practice, dedication, and patience
Practice, dedication, and patienceshould make up your personal mantra for beatjuggling (and scratching as a whole). Record knowledge and manual dex- terity are extremely important, but you need to be fluent and tightwith the beats. You need to keep your scratch moves fluid and in keeping with the rhythm of what you’re scratching over, and if you’re beatjuggling, the beat you make needs to flow as though a drummer were playing it – that way, you’ll earn respect for your skills.
Part IV
Getting Noticed and Playing Live
TEAM LinG
In this part . . .
One morning you’ll wake up and realise that you’re meant for more in this world than DJing in front of your cat (and annoying the neighbours). You may sound great when played through a home stereo or iPod, but the time when you play to a packed hall or a club filled with like-minded people is when you really spread your wings as a DJ.
This part of the book leads you through making the per- fect demo mix, trying to secure work, and then what to do when you’re standing in the DJ booth with a thousand people in front of you wanting you to give them the best night of their lives.
Thisis DJing.
Chapter 17
Building a Foolproof Set
In This Chapter
Driving the rhythm
Selecting the right key for harmonic mixing Developing a style all of your own
After you’ve taken a look at the different ways you can mix your tunes together (refer to Chapters 12, 14, and 16), you need to start examining the tunes you’re using in the mix.
As well as looking a bit closer at why a tune can mix well with one tune but not another, this chapter covers developing your own style when DJing, rather than simply replicating all those who have come before you. No one’s saying that following the same fundamentals as other DJs is wrong, but if you can think about what you’re trying to do with the order of the tunes in your mix, you’ll be a lot better DJ than the one who mixes Tune A with Tune B just because they sound good together.
Choosing Tunes to Mix Together
The tunes you select, and the order you play them in are just as important as the method you use to get from tune to tune. The best technical mix in the world can sound terrible if the tunes don’t play well together and boredom can set in if you stick to the same sound, genre, and the same energy level (pace and the power of the music) all night.
In order to get a feel for what kind of tunes mix well with each other, you need to consider the core differences that make tunes different from one another (other than the melody and vocals and so on). The main differences are the driving rhythm, the key the tunes are recorded in, and the tempo a tune was originally recorded at.
TEAM LinG
Beatmatching – the next generation
Matching the pounding bass beats of your tunes is one thing, and after you get the knack, playing bass drums together is relatively simple and sounds good. However, the core driving rhythmis another rhythm that you need to consider and listen out for in the tunes.
A track is made up of the backing track(the drums, bass line, and any rhyth- mic, electronic sounds), and the main melody and/or vocals. The backing track is the driving force to the tune, and has a rhythm of its own that is sepa- rate to the pounding bass beats. A great example of this is the ‘duggadugga duggadugga duggadugga duggadugga’ driving rhythm in Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’.
If what follows sounds a little childish, that’s because it is. I remember it from school, so thanks to Mr Galbraith for making this concept stick!
When beatmatching bass drum beats, you only have to worry about the solid
‘thump thump thump’ of the tunes playing over each other. Now you need to listen out for the four driving rhythms: Ta, Ta-te, Ta-te-ta, and Ta-fe-te-te. These can be added to each other to make more complicated rhythms, but when two of them mix with other (from two different tunes) you need to be aware of how they may sound, and when considering what tunes to use in the mix, give thought to how well one core rhythm will play over another.
You get four beats to the bar. Each of the driving rhythm fundamentals occur on the beat (so you get four of each to a bar):
Ta– (sounds like ‘Baa’ in the line ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’):
Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Rhythm Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta Ta
Word Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa
Tais just a single sound on each beat of the bar.
Ta-te– (sounds like ‘Have you’ in the line ‘Have you any wool’):
Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Rhythm Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Ta-te Word Have you Have you Have you Have you Have you Have you Have you Have you
Ta-teis two sounds of equal length to each beat (though often one can be emphasised, making it more powerful than the other).
Sometimes, you don’t hear the tapart of the beat, and just hear the second, teportion; known as anoffbeat. This simple offbeat is a favourite bass rhythm for a lot of producers who want a powerful, stripped down sound to the tune.
Ta-te ta(it’s like saying ‘Lemonade’ on each beat):
Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Rhythm Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Ta-te ta Word Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade Lemonade
Ta-te tais very similar to ta-te,except that instead of two equal sounds, you get two quick sounds (which take up the same time as tain the ta-terhythm) followed by one sound that lasts as long as the tehalf ofta-te. Splitting the ta- te tarhythm into two, the halves are ta-teand ta(Lemonand ade). ‘Lemon’ is said very quickly, and it lasts the same duration as ‘ade’.
Theta-te-tarhythm is one of my favourites, it sounds great repeated on its own or when used to break up any of the other driving rhythms.
Ta-fe-te-te(like saying ‘Mississippi’ on each beat of the bar):
Beat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Rhythm Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te Ta-fe-te-te
Word Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi Mississippi
Four equal sounds to each beat give a powerful, hypnotic rhythm to the tune.
This sound is the ‘duggadugga’ rhythm I mentioned earlier for ‘I Feel Love’. It adds a lot of energy to a bass melody, and if a filter or a flanger effect is added to this rhythm (see Chapter 8), it leaves the dance floor in a trance.
Mixing with care
Mixing between similar driving rhythms can be a bit tricky. Ta-fe-te-te mixes in beautifully to another Ta-fe-te-te in the right hands, but if you don’t have the tunes precisely beatmatched, the four sounds fall in between each other, giving eight very messy sounds. The same goes for Ta-te ta, you need good beatmatching skills to mix two of these sounds together (or mix Ta-te ta into Ta-fe-te-te).
Thoughtaand ta-teare simpler and easier to beatmatch, they tend to be strong bass lines, and because they’re so strong, they don’t always mix well.
If the rhythm of one tune is ta, and the other is the offbeat te(that is, you don’t hear the tafrom ta-te), unless the tanote from one tune and the tefrom the other tune are very similar, the mix can sound strange, and out of tune.
TEAM LinG
Mixing taor ta-terhythms (including the offbeat part ofta-te) with either of the more complicated rhythms (ta-te taandta-fe-te-te) is a solution to this problem. However, this method will eventually stifle your creativity. If you need to go from a complicated driving rhythm to a simple one, then back again to a complicated one in order to progress through a mix, you will break up the flow of the set. That’s why spending time to refine your beatmatching skills is important, so that you’re happy mixing complicated driving rhythms.
Mixing from one driving rhythm to another can add a change in the power of the set. Going from a tacore rhythm to ta-te tacan make the mix sound faster and more intense, even if the beats per minute (BPMs) are still the same.
Changing from ta-fe-te-teto the offbeat version of ta-te(only the tepart) is an incredibly effective way of making the mix sound darker by simplifying and concentrating the sound from a frantic, four sound rhythm to a single sound- ing, simple, basic rhythm. When coupled with a key change (see the later in this chapter ‘Changing the key’), the effect can lift the roof off!
The same driving rhythm principles apply to the hi-hat pattern (the tchsss- sounding cymbals). Though most tunes tend to use an open hi-hat sound played in between each bass drum beat (the offbeat te), be careful when the patterns get more complicated. If you try to mix twota-fe-te-tehi-hat patterns together, and get the beatmatching wrong, it’ll sound dreadful.
Getting in tune with harmonic mixing
Your beatmatching may be perfect (see Chapter 12), your volume control may be spot on (see Chapter 14), and you’ve chosen two tunes with compli- mentary driving rhythms, but sometimes two tunes sound out of tune with each other. Harmonic mixingcomes in at this point, and is the final step for creating truly seamless mixes. Harmonic mixing isn’t an essential step of the mixing ladder by any means, it’s something you may think about only one out of every five mixes, but if you want to create long, flowing, seamless mixes, harmonic mixing certainly plays a very important part.
Every song with a melody has a musical key, and instruments and vocals play and sing their notes based around this musical key (and is why you hear people say ‘I’ll sing this in C Minor’). This kind of key may not unlock any real doors, but it does unlock vast chasms of creativity for you. DJs like Sasha, Oakenfold, John Digweed, and many others have all harnessed harmonic mixing to create smooth, controlled mixes that add an extra level of depth and skill to their styles.
Most DJs first approach harmonic mixing by accident, and then try to improve through trial and error. Trial and error is extremely important. Blindly following the musical rules that follow in this section of what key mixes into what is a bad idea. Like counting beats in Chapter 13, knowing how the key affects how well tunes mix together is important. More important is developing an ear for what sounds good when mixed together, rather than referring to a piece of paper, or rule that you read in an incredibly informative book.
However, we all need a little backup, and somewhere to turn to if we’re unsure what to do next. Which is where the principle of key notations comes in, and you have the choice of two systems to help you understand.
Brace yourself here, the terminology surrounding key notations may seem like a foreign language, but don’t worry, it’s not something to be scared of.
Traditional key notation
In the Western world, music has 24 different keys; 12 major, and 12 minor (whether they’re major or minor depends on the notes that are used to create that key), which is known as the traditional key notation system. Each key mixes perfectly with four keys, and mixes to an acceptable level with two other keys, as shown in Table 17-1.
Table 17-1 Harmonic Song Key Combinations
Key of Song Perfect Fourth Perfect Fifth
Playing Tonic (Sub-Dominant) (Dominant) Relative Minor
C Major C Major F Major G Major A Minor
Db Major Db Major Gb Major Ab Major Bb Minor
D Major D Major G Major A Major B Minor
Eb Major Eb Major Ab Major Bb Major C Minor
E Major E Major A Major B Major Db Minor
F Major F Major Bb Major C Major D Minor
Gb Major Gb Major B Major Db Major Eb Minor
G Major G Major C Major D Major E Minor
Ab Major Ab Major Db Major Eb Major F Minor
A Major A Major D Major E Major Gb Minor
(continued)
TEAM LinG
Table 17-1 (continued)
Key of Song Perfect Fourth Perfect Fifth
Playing Tonic (Sub-Dominant) (Dominant) Relative Minor
Bb Major Bb Major Eb Major F Major G Minor
B Major B Major E Major Gb Major Ab Minor
C Minor C Minor F Minor G Minor Eb Major
Db Minor Db Minor Gb Minor Ab Minor E Major
D Minor D Minor G Minor A Minor F Major
Eb Minor Eb Minor Ab Minor Bb Minor Gb Major
E Minor E Minor A Minor B Minor G Major
F Minor F Minor Bb Minor C Minor Ab Major
Gb Minor Gb Minor B Minor Db Minor A Major
G Minor G Minor C Minor D Minor Bb Major
Ab Minor Ab Minor Db Minor Eb Minor B Major
A Minor A Minor D Minor E Minor C Major
Bb Minor Bb Minor Eb Minor F Minor Db Major
B Minor B Minor E Minor Gb Minor D Major
It’s okay, no need to start worrying; calculating which keys combine best with each other is actually very simple. In Table 17-1, look at C Major, then look at the keys written next to it. It obviously mixes with a tune with the same key as its own (known as the tonic), but it also mixes beautifully with the three keys next to it, F Major, G Major, and A Minor. However, as C Major works really well with A Minor, you can also incorporate the keys that A Minor works well with. These key combinations from A Minor are acceptable rather than perfect, you have to judge for yourself whether they match well enough for what you’re trying to do (which is why it’s important to use your ears).
This chart is kind of mind blowing though, and is not easy to read. The minor/
major thing is a bit confusing if you don’t have any musical experience, and working out what mixes into what can take a while. Fortunately, Mark Davis at www.harmonic-mixing.comdeveloped the Camelot Sound Easymix System, which takes the confusion out of working out what key mixes with what.
The Camelot Sound Easymix System
The Camelot Sound Easymix Systemis an alternative approach that addresses the confusing layout and label names of the traditional key notation system (see Table 17-1). With the Camelot system each key is given a keycode; a number from 1 to 12 and a letter (A for Minor, and B for Major). Then all the keys are arranged as a tidy clock face, as shown on the Cheat Sheet at the front of the book.
The keys that mix harmonically are identical to the traditional notation, but rather than looking at a confusing table, you only need to look at the keycode for the key of the tune that you’re playing, then look to the left and right and directly above or below, depending on whether the key you’re referring to is on the inner or outer ring of the diagram.
So if your tune is 12B (E Major), you can mix it with a tune with the same key, with 11B, 1B from the same major family, but you can also mix it perfectly with 12A from the minor ring, and you can get a nice result mixing into 11A and 1A tunes.
Mixing tunes with compatible keys works perfectly if you play all your tunes at 0 pitch, and never change their speed, or if you have CD decks or turn- tables with a Master Tempo control that doesn’t change the pitch as you change the speed. But when you change the speed on normal CD decks and turntables, the pitch of the tune changes too, and the original key starts to change into a new one. When using the Camelot Sound Easymix System, for every 6 per cent you change the pitch, you need to change the keycode by 7 numbers according to their system (see the Cheat Sheet).
So if you have a 3B tune, and pitch it up to 6 per cent, it’s no longer a 3B tune, it’s now a 10B tune. Or if you pitch down by 6 per cent, it becomes an 8B tune. Move round the circle by 7 segments to see for yourself. A 6 per cent pitch change means that the 3B tune is no longer suited to 4B, 2B, 3A, 4A, and 2A. For a good harmonic mix, you need to choose tunes with a keycode of 11B, 9B, 10A, 11A, or 9A (when theyare playing at a similar speed too).
How accurate the eventual keycode ends up for these adjustments depends entirely on how accurate your turntables are. Use the calibration dots on the side of the turntable to see if it truly is running at 6 per cent. (Refer to Chapter 5.)
Harmonic mixing is a vast concept that can be bent/twisted/broken or ignored at will, and the extreme concepts of which could take up ten of these books. If you want to delve deeper into the theory of harmonic mixing, I strongly sug- gest taking a visit to DJ Prince’s Web site, which is dedicated purely to har- monic mixing, so visit www.djprince.nowhen the mood strikes.
TEAM LinG