DJ Lesson Advise on Mixing Old School Disco BY Ellaskins the DJ Tutor

0:00 Following on from the tutorial I did, mixing house into old school dis

Alright guys, following on from the tutorial I did, mixing house into old school disco. We're going to go from old school disco into another old school disco tune. In fact we're going to go into two old school disco tunes. I will give you the information on the LP I'm using. It's from Mastercuts. Two tracks, one is entitled Whistle Bump, the other one is entitled Magic Fingers. So we've got two different tracks we're mixing into Chicago. One has a steady 4-4 tempo, it also has 8 bars before the melody comes in. The other one is at a completely different tempo. This is the track 8 Magic Fingers. Have a listen.

Listen to my counting. I can count this in two different ways. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Imagine drum and bass.

Alternatively, we could count it in half time. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Have a listen to the Chicago track. Here we go. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Now if I wanted to, if I really wanted to, I could slow the Chicago track right down. But it wouldn't sound right. It would sound terrible. So, there's quite a few ways of mixing these two tracks in, which I'll show you in the second transition. The first one is with track number 6, which is the whistle bump. Like I said, we have 8 bars before the track comes in. So, now because we only have a beat on the whistle bump, I want to emphasise this track a little bit more. So I'm going to be more inclined to turn that one up and try and make it slightly overpower the Chicago track.

Go towards the end of that track. Listen to my timing. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Sorry, I went to track number 6, er, 8 there accidentally. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Bass out. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-5. On Chicago track.

2:38 Slowly start to bring the volume down

Now again, that transition could be done in many different ways, even though it's a very simple transition. We are counting 8 bars, slowly bringing the low out, but the main point is to emphasise more on the track coming in, because you only have a beat, so this is my opinion. I would bring the volume down slightly on the Chicago track, and you can do that over a period of, say, 20 or 30 seconds. You don't all of a sudden bring the volume down, because people are going to be going, oh, something's wrong. Slowly start to bring the volume down. You can do that by using the trim. You don't have to use the up fader. It's always good to leave the up fader up. Slowly bring the trim down. Make sure you're looking as well visual, as well as audio.

So visual, you need to check your trim and make sure the LEDs are tapping slightly higher on the one that's coming in. Oh, they're tapping in higher than the one... Should I say that's going out? You're bringing it out. Of course, because like I said, you want to emphasise more on... You want more emphasis, sorry, on this track. All right, we'll do the other transition now, which again, completely different time signature. Have a listen.

3:55 We have the DJM-2000 and we've got the effects unit on echo

OK, what I'm going to do here with this transition, I'm going to use the echo feature. So we have the DJM-2000 and we've got the effects unit on echo. So let's play Chicago.

Just going to tap in time with this. I don't think it really matters about the time signature or the time that the echo will echo, because we just want to sort of almost have this natural fade out of this track here and bring in the other one. So we'll go to a little bit more towards the end of the track.

We're just checking the LEDs here, making sure they're roughly about the same height. Which in turn will tell me that they're round about the same volume. OK, channel four on the echo.

So engage.

Now that was a bit cargo, cargo, cargo. I didn't like that. That wasn't long enough. I want more of an echo. So let's keep the volume up longer after I hit the on-off.

Just have a listen. If I just press that...

If I engage the echo... And bring the volume down straight away, we get a small echo. I want a longer echo. So once I've engaged the echo, I need to keep the volume up slightly longer and then bring it down, which in turn will give me a longer echo. Have a listen.

Just bring it along now where it just starts saying Chicago.

Tiny difference, but makes all the difference. Hope that's been a help. Don't forget. Information on these two tracks and the two CDs in the description. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.