DJ Lesson on Mixing from One Genre to Another Drum and bass to House

0:00 Is how to mix two completely

Alright guys, in this tutorial what I'm going to show you is how to mix two completely different genres together. Not only are they completely different genres but they're completely different BPM. Now let's imagine that you are playing after another DJ and they're playing a completely different genre that's in a different BPM zone. For example they could be playing hip hop which is 190 to about 110 and you're playing house which is... 1-25, 1-40 or let's get even more eccentric and mad. You're playing house which is right about 120 odd and you're going in a drum and bass which is 170 to 180. Well it's pretty much impossible to mix those sorts of genres unless you know what you're doing. Hopefully with this technique I can show you not only how to mix them perfectly but also

How to take the whole feel of the connection of the two genres together so there's a steady flow. Now at the moment if we look at the track on the left hand side, both of them are taken from the CDPool August releases. On the left hand side it's on this side here, Underground releases August 2015. It's track one from disc one, a track entitled Low Frequency. There will be a link to CDPool in the description. On the right hand side... From the club series August 2015, it's track number three from disc one, a track entitled Peanut Butter Jelly. So what I've done, I've set that low frequency center point at 172 BPM, exactly the same with the one on the right, the peanut butter, and that is at 127. So completely different BPMs. Now they're both at plus and minus 16.

2:20 And I'll show you

On the low frequency 2, as far as it will go, it'll go to 144. Bring this up, it'll go to 147. So in a way we can mix them like this because all I've got to do is bring this one up slightly, take that one down so they're roughly 146 and you could do a mix. Now just imagine that we're going from the low frequency track which is drum and bass into the house. That's going to be... It won't work, because I will explain and I'll show you. When you go from the likes of drum and bass into house and you have to speed the house up quite a bit, when you have to start slowing it down, it doesn't sound as good as if you slow the house track down and speed it up. Why? Well, imagine this. You're playing a high energy house track.

Very fast and furious, and all of a sudden you start to slow it down. Well, you don't want to lower the vibe. What you want to try and do is enlighten the vibe, bring the vibe up. So from going from the likes of a drum and bass track, which is full on, lots of energy, lots of percussion, the last thing you want to do is go into a house track, then slow the house track down. So I'll try and give you a demonstration there. Low frequency, have a listen. And now listen. Not much of a difference, but we're slowing the track down. The better option is to hit on the wide feature. Now, the wide feature is a little bit more difficult to mix with. You've got to be pretty good. I would class this probably as an intermediate DJ lesson because when you go into wide mode, the pitch now becomes 100%.

5:04 I haven't got headphones on

Faster or slower so for example at the center point it is 127 if we bring the pitch all the way up to the top it will be 254 slow it down it's going to be zero demo that it stopped where 254 alright so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to now not have to bring the pitch down so far with low frequency I'm going to maybe put it to, there we go, put it to 163. Okay so half of 163, 56, 82-ish. Alright so what I'm going to, oh there you go, we're roughly at 82 anyway. So I'm now going to bring that to 82. Now this, now here's the deal, this is going to start to sound a lot slower. So with the mix now, the house track will seem a lot slower. But once the low frequency track has been taken out, you can then not only bring the speed up on the house track, but you're also increasing the vibe and the energy, which is far better than the mix we had earlier on. So now I haven't got headphones on. Should I put headphones on? Nah, sod it. So let's have a listen. So what I'll do, we'll play a little bit more of the low frequency so you get a good idea of what it sounds like.

7:45 Time, half sorry

Just, we'll go to about sort of there-ish. There. We're pretty much now at the correct speed of the house track. Alright, so... Oh, I'm in the red there slightly. So what's the philosophy behind all of this? Where is this going? Alright. The first mix we did, yes, we could mix the two tracks at plus or minus 16. Of course, the only way you can mix a slow track with a fast track is if it's half time or double time. Now there wasn't that much difference between the... I'll start again. OK, when we were at plus or minus 16, I was able to mix them. I had the house track slightly faster and I reduced the speed. Alright, what I'm trying to emphasise here is the difference in feel and vibe when you do then have half time on the house track. Because what you're doing is by mixing in half time and then bringing the speed up on the house track, you're not only able to mix it in time, but when the drum and bass track...

Eventually fades away, you can start to speed up the house track so you're giving more vibe and energy to the room. Now give it a go. This was a bit of a demonstration. What I'll do now, I'll put my headphones on this time and I'm going to try and do a better mix and let's see if we can get that slightly better in time. So we'll go back to track one, the low frequency. I'll zip it forward a little bit. And I'm just, again, you know, when you're on the wide feature, you have got to be so careful because if you think about it, when you're on plus or minus 6, 10 or 16, you know, small movements and you're only increasing or decreasing the speed very slightly. When you're on wide, a small movement like this...

10:05 Luckily I didn't have my ears on it there

Is pretty much the equivalent of a movement like that if you're on sort of 6, 10 or 16. All right so if I look there we're at all right 152.6 so if I just go to 153 that will make it easier 154 then half sorry yeah half of 154 is 50 60 70 sorry 50 60 75 So let's go to 77 here. Now again, I'm going to only use the readout as reference. I'm going to hopefully try and use my ears to get it perfectly in time. See, even that's not getting exactly in time. 177.4, lower it too much, it's sort of 76. So, I've got that ready. I don't know if you can hear that in the background. Oh, bloody hell! Luckily I didn't have my ears on it there. Okay, so... Okay, there you go. Now lastly what I will say is that what I did there is the timing was in alright it was very very slightly offbeat but the phrasing was correct so as soon as the phrase ended on the drum and bass tune the break started here

On the peanut butter track so again if you get your phrasing correct then of course you know what happened here is that one faded away the beat finished here we went into a break which meant that i could not only increase the vibe but i could increase the vibe in the right place so without a beat in the background we're just increasing sort of a break which in itself will not only enhance the mix But, I've got the red up again, but also it gives less emphasis on the actual kick speeding up as well. I hope that's been a help. Check out the link in the description and also if you want any Skype lessons one-to-one by myself, Jonathan, DJ Tutor, then check out the email in the description and send us a message. Practice and enjoy. Thank you very much.

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