Blue Streak

Hey all. I usually spin house and breaks but have recently been buying
a lot of downtempo (and hiphop and dub). I'm having a bit o trouble
mixing well.

For house and breaks everything is in the 125-135 range, so its easy
to blend. But the downtempo I have ranges from 80bpm to about 120; its
all over the place. I've bpm'd some records so I can quickly see which
ones I'll be able to beatmatch (I use the bpms as a guide for what
could be mixed in, not for beatmatching itself). However some more
experienced djs have discouraged me from doing so because they say it
limits your freedom (if you feel confined to only those records of
similar tempo) but more importantly that it prevents you from
developing really good beatmatching skills. Now the first part I think
I can handle, but the second I dunno. Do most down/midtempo djs bpm
their records because of the high variation or no?

Its hard for me to keep relative speeds in mind for all 40 or more
records. And most tracks are pretty short, so time is of the essence.

Also, any tips/tricks/sites about downtempo/hiphop mixing would be
appreciated.

Much obliged!

Gee

"Blue Streak" <bluestreaksf@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:63d46d7e.0401052215.2ce7cf19@posting.google.c om...
> Hey all. I usually spin house and breaks but have recently been buying
> a lot of downtempo (and hiphop and dub). I'm having a bit o trouble
> mixing well.
>
> For house and breaks everything is in the 125-135 range, so its easy
> to blend. But the downtempo I have ranges from 80bpm to about 120; its
> all over the place. I've bpm'd some records so I can quickly see which
> ones I'll be able to beatmatch (I use the bpms as a guide for what
> could be mixed in, not for beatmatching itself). However some more
> experienced djs have discouraged me from doing so because they say it
> limits your freedom (if you feel confined to only those records of
> similar tempo) but more importantly that it prevents you from
> developing really good beatmatching skills.

I couldn;t help but laugh at what these so called "more experienced DJ's"
have told you! And they call themselves more experienced!!??!! Well let me
tell you, they haven;t a clue. "limiting your freedom" PEH-LEASE!!!!!!
"Prevent developing good beatmatching skills?????? " How on earth are you
gonna beatmatch 90 with 120 BPM? You cannot! They haven;t got a
clue!!!!!!!!! Do not listen to bad advice.

Who are they playing for, themselves or the crowd? If you are a DJ crowd is
your main concern,not your freedom. But it;s also your good DJ reputation as
well. So how do you find a good middle ground. Do you want your freedom of
wasting time trying to mix Justin's Cry me a river (73 bpm) to some house
tune of 125 BPM only to realise it can;t be done? By then you have already
wasted say 1 minute of your time. Then you grab a box, searching for the
next record. Another 1 minute wasted. You get nervous, worried the tune
before will pass its mixing area(bridge), or worse run out, you panic and
make even bigger mistake. So yes if you want the FREEDOM of fu##ing up like
this, sure. Listen to these cr#p DJs. The only reason they are talking
rubbish like this is becuase they haven;t got a clue themselves how to do a
better job and they certainly don;t want you to be better then them in case
you steal their job.

In house, like you said you don;t have to BPM tunes. They are so boringly
similar to each other, my mum can mix them. But come to RnB and Hip Hop
world, that's when you distinguish a good DJ from a bad one. I am guessing ,
those "experienced DJ's" are real crap when it comes to mixing RnB and Hip
hop. Especially because they don;t BPM the tunes! So no, you are right and
they are wrong.

This is the excerpt froma post I sent to someone else, thought would be
appropriette to send here for you.Some of it will be repeating but don;t
have time to adjust. I'm quoting myself:

"House and garage are dead easy to mix,
as most tunes are between 120 and 130bpm, thus you can mix every tune with
every other without really counting bpm's. No brainwork required.
(Especially as every tune has million bars intro and a bridge, so you can
mix forever.)

But, say, you come RnB and Hip Hop world, the story is completely different:
current tunes bpm's vary from around 73bpm (Justin's -Cry me a river) to
around 115 bpm (again as it happens Justin's - Like I love you). Older RnB
genres like New Jack Swing and Breakdance were faster, ranging from around
105-120bpm, current ragga will range between 90 and 100bpm mostly. So mixing
RnB and Hip hop is much harder and requires a skill
and knowledge. What mixing RnB and Hip Hop makes even harder is that they
barely have enough intros and bridges to mix over. Thus making instrumentals
very popular.And counting bpm's essential. "

If you don;t count BPM's you end up wasting time trying to mix this tune
with that one. And with bridges being so rare in RnB and Hip Hop world, you
cannot afford to miss one chance you have to mix, unless you wanna be
branded a crap DJ, who plays tunes from begining to the end.Or the one who
can;t mix two tunes together. If you wanna be good you prepare. You BPM your
records. You sort them. Just like any job. You prepare.

It; s not like you can only mix 95 bpm with 95 bpm. You still have a range
of about +/- 6 bpms to mix with (otherwise it just sounds wrong). Yes if you
are not an RnB DJ as a standard, this will reduce the amount of records you
can actually mix, but then you can always scratch the next one in, or drop
it in. You can;lt beatmatch mix House and Hip Hop. Full stop. But you can
have a session of each.

Mixing RnB and Hip hop is a devine art, and House DJ's find it really hard
to convert and learn to mix it properly. So again, you were right,make your
job easier on yourself, and better for your crowd. BPM your tunes, find out
how little intro and bridge you have, then plan how to use it properly. RnB
requires brain. House doens;t really. With all due respect. House music
mixing - easy. RnB and Hip Hop - not.

For even easier life, I suggest you search internet for some
free bpm counter like I did (BPMcount.exe -this one does require additional
2 files: THREED.VBX and VBRUN300.DLL placed in the same directory to work.
Excellent program and bpm's are correct, unlike some others I tried),
download it and use it, much quicker then counting for a whole 1 minute!
Label your records. it might be time-consuming to start with, but it does go
quickly into your head.

Gee

Mo Saycool

"Blue Streak" <bluestreaksf@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:63d46d7e.0401052215.2ce7cf19@posting.google.c om...
> Hey all. I usually spin house and breaks but have recently been buying
> a lot of downtempo (and hiphop and dub). I'm having a bit o trouble
> mixing well.
>
> For house and breaks everything is in the 125-135 range, so its easy
> to blend. But the downtempo I have ranges from 80bpm to about 120; its
> all over the place.

Get TraktorDJ Studio (www.nativeinstruments.com) and you can adjust tempo by
up to 100%. Opens up a whole new world of genre mixing possibilities.

Blue Streak

Thanks for the reassurance. This is pretty much exactly what I was
thinking. The more I learn, the more I'm learning to just trust my own
instincts.

DopeHead

don't know about R'n'B or Hip Hop as I'm not into that type of mixing but
when it comes to groovy downtempo, lounge type (Dzihan & Kamien, Kruder &
Dorfmeister etc), the only real thing that can help you is do your "home
work" really well. That means listen to your tunes know them by heart,
distinguish the tune patterns and structure, and so you'll know the ones
that can be mixed. While with house/techno/trance sets you fill up your bag
and go to gigs and rely on the playlist the crowd "imposes" to you,
personally I think with downtempo u need much more preparation and u should
impose your style. Normally people won't dance to Funki Porcini style of
music, it's just ambient and chill out so they're more attentive to what you
mix and are more open minded to what the DJ has to offer.
Personally I find it much more difficult when spinning a lounge set than a
Tech'House one. It ocured to me to mix a house set without really being into
it (yeah boring gigs happens to all of us , but everytime I mix a lounge
set it takes me much more preparation.

laters

Blue Streak

"DopeHead" <theraver at noos.fr> wrote in message news:<3ffb3b44$0$5028$79c14f64@nan-newsreader-01.noos.net>...
> don't know about R'n'B or Hip Hop as I'm not into that type of mixing but
> when it comes to groovy downtempo, lounge type (Dzihan & Kamien, Kruder &
> Dorfmeister etc), the only real thing that can help you is do your "home
> work" really well. That means listen to your tunes know them by heart,
> distinguish the tune patterns and structure, and so you'll know the ones
> that can be mixed.

OK, I hear ya. Been doing this already. It takes a lot more practice I
find to string together a good set that flows well when spinning
downtempo. One surprising thing I'm finding is that it requires a
larger selection of tunes because there are so many different sounds,
vibes, and styles than with something like house. Given 40 records of
dub, lounge, funk, hip hop, miami bass, jazzy beats, abstract breaks
(tru thoughts, etc), chillout and whatnot I find it harder to program
them than looking at 40 house records. Practice, I guess.

BTW, do you bpm your records?

DopeHead

>
> BTW, do you bpm your records?

no I don't BPM records. BPMing records it's not a "do" or "not to do" type
of thing. Depends in personal tastes and maners. It's true that to most of
the beginners become victims of BPMs or mixer leds when it comes to mixing,
so yeah your friends did good on advising you to avoid BPMing. All I can say
is that, if you feel you depend too much on BPMs then drop it. If you feel
that BPM it will be a nice accessory for u and it won't affect how u build
up your set, then just do it. Personally i felt that it was not necessary to
lose time BPMing. Yeah it happened to me to mix up non-vocal tunes ranging
from ~100-140BPM playing around with master tempo and stuff. Surely you
won't be able to do this with popular tunes (timberlake and co) that
everyone knows, and the song will sound dreadful.


Laters