alrighty- i'm no expert, but i'll spill some thoughts on my limited experience:
typically in trance styles, you are looking at a 4/4 type beat, which is a bass drum hitting on each beat as you count, boom-boom-boom-boom. so yes, you are correct on this. however, when spinning records, there are two main things to be concerned about. the first is matching the tempo, the second is matching the positions of the songs. tempo needs little explaination - the boom-boom-boom-boom for both needs to be the same. however, this is best set up while you are also roughly preparing to melt together your two songs. vinyl is great for this because you can "see" the music as lines on the record, so you know where the song changes, buildups are, etc by watching the spaces on there, and more importantly you know where the song ends. for me, i am all about the counting, but i dont' count in fours. a lot of people count in eights, and that is probably what is most natural for trance. i had a guy advise me when i first started out on using 32 and 64 beats and i have always appreciated this - it helps! after you get better, count 8 instead but keep track of how many times you counted 8 before the last song changes. hrm... let me see if i can explain this without sounding like a moron. with trance you can listen to a song and typically there are major and minor changes in the song structure at certain intervals. sounds like i'm talking out of my ass? ok - pick any well known song you like and listen to it - any type of music. if you know the song really well you can see how it is split up into different parts. in a more traditional approach, songs are written with a chorus, verses, and a bridge. the chorus being the main riff, verses perhaps a more melodic deviation from this, and a bridge to break up the monotony - some songs have bridges that i actually enjoy more than the rest of the whole song! but anyways, trance is written the same way. i like to think of the different parts as themes, but call it wahtever you want. the more mainstream the music is, the more it'll follow a chorus, verse, bridge approach, and less typical stuff will just have several themes that go back and forth, and usually a main one. aphex twin is not an example of a typical song structure approach - paul van dyk is, tho. ok, so on some singles there may be a 32 beat interval at the beginning of just a kick drum to make it easier for you to match it up and bring it in, others just jump right in to the main theme. on ones that have no beat at the beginning, you will have to experiment a bit. the easier ones will at least start some type of percussion right away - a light highhat or something rather than a bass, and even more rarely, if you time the exact moment the song starts (your tempo will already have to be matched) and you drop it in perfectly, it'll match up when the beat kicks in. however - it takes mad skillz to be able to match up stuff before any percussion kicks in unless you know the song really well. i'd suggest just mixing in at a later point when the beat first starts or at least not bringing in the bass until you are sure that the songs are matched up. practice, practice, practice, and know your songs well is all i can say. it is pretty damn impressive, tho, when someone brings in a new song with just a nice melody on top of the old one and then later one you hear the beat kick in - takes some sharp attention and luck to get that to work out - especially if you are 32 or 64 beats into a song mix before the bass kicks in. ok - so what to be aware of is that a theme is usually followed for about 32 beats (sometimes 64, which is usually just the same 32 beat theme but each one slightly different - an added/subtracted layer of drums/bass/or melody or a modified layer is typical) and then changes to something else for 32 and then back. more (rarely) complex songs are 8 or 16 beat themes slightly modified every other one, but there you still have 32 or 64 - it's just the 8/16 beat theme 2 or 4 times in a row. if there is a bridge or a breakdown/buildup, this is usually 32 beats, 64 for others and sometimes 96 or 128 beats for the ridiculously long buildups. listen to some songs and see if you know what i'm talking about here. when starting off and learning, i used to count all the way to 32 or 64, but now i just always count in 8, but i keep track of how many times i count to 8. now don't get lost here: if i count to eight 4 times, then i know that a song change is coming up, and if i counto to eight 8 times, then i know a major song change is coming up (thats the best part to bring in a new song). if i'm queueing up a record on one side and i've got the tempo matched, i wait for the song thats coming through the main speakers to get to a point where a major change in theme is about to occur, as in a breakdown/buildup, or another 64 beat repeat of the major theme. then i have my other record ready to queue up, and you start counting the last 8 beats of that 64 or 32 beat theme, and then drop in your other one's first bass hit with the first bass hit of your current record. now you have both records playing at the same tempo, and hopefully both matched up with compatible parts of the songs. if you read on denise's site, she describes this pretty well. seriously - go read it right now: http://www.dj-d.com/biography/biography.html what's probably fucking you up is dropping in your second record while your first is right in the middle of a 32 or 64 beat theme - no good! very un-smooth stuff like that is especially bad for trance styles where you want it to melt most of the time. nrg, hh, dnb, etc, allow for more abrupt cuts and transitions becuase the music can have more staggered/unusual beats and transitions - trance - esp psy/cyber/prog are more melodic and structured and so smoother is better. so the easiest way to melt them together is to bring in the next record at the beginning of it's theme as teh other one is fading away. there are unlimited techniques of doing this with fades and cuts and whatever else - i'm no expert, but starting off you are best with just a simple technique of bringing in the other one with a nice fade. soon after you'll learn to use the eq to bring in sections at a time. professional dj's use the eq a *lot* - go watch a professional dj at a club and see them twiddle the knobs around contantly - i specifially bought an Allen & Heath Xone 62 mixer because it has the eq split into 4 parts rather than the standard 3 on say the Pioneer, etc - if you want to experiment, bring in different parts of the song in at a time - the bass only, or high parts only, or mid parts only bring in parts gradually, or quickly - see what it sounds like? endless possibilities... anyways, you can also bring it in at unusual parts of the songs, or cut over instantly, or drop the bass and cut it in for the next one, filp it back and forth, etc, etc. as you start to get better, you wont' have to count beats anymore, you can just hear/feel/anticipate the changes in the songs - for some people this is natural, and for songs i know pretty well i dont' have to count - but i still do sometimes for stuff i'm not as familiar with. trance and other electronic genres are probably the easiest to work with because the structure is pretty consistent. hope this helps. .oOo.oliver.oOo. ps. here's one last thing someone told me and i've always felt it was to my advantage (be aware this is pure opinion and there are hundreds of dj's who would wholly disagree so do waht you like): once you drop in your record, *don't* touch it again! don't touch the record or platter at all. use *only* the pitch control to match the beats. this is a real bitch to get used to cause you *want* to touch that record, and there is some psychological thing where you feel *cooler* if you touch it - almost proving to yourself and everyone else that YES - I AM DJ-ING. dont' do it! practice not touching the record- force yourself to use the pitch control. people will be more impressed if your transition is smooth than seeing someone up there flailing around with the records. for trance especially, smoothness is key, and i guarantee that if you use the pitch control early, you will get away with many more mistakes because it is harder to hear tempo changes with the pitch control vs. touching the record. plus there's always a chance to press too hard and whoops! lost your whole beat there and it's a big trainwreck while you line it back up or worse start all over. with the pitch control, your mixing will be smoother, you mistakes will be quieter, your turntalbes will be happier without you pressing down on them all the time and fucking with the platter, and last but not least your records will be cleaner cause you won't be putting your grubby ass fingers all over them all the time. but again there are many who like to touch the record, and for other types of mixing/beatmatching/juggling and all that crazy hiphop/qbert/mix master mike stuff you *have* to touch it. but for trance, don't do it. hell - i guess the best thing would be to know how to do both, but i mainly mix trance/dnb/hh/nrg/etc so touching the records have little advantage. i guess if you dont' have technics, too, you might have to adapt other ways, but with technics the pitch control is all you need. pss. congrats on learning this, btw! hope you are having fun, cause that's what is most important. start recording yourself and listen to yourself to learn your mistakes and then give out demos to your friends and you will be headlining with the best of them someday. ppss. dont' you know typing in all CAPS is naughty?? ;) On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, DJ Euphoric wrote: > HEY GUYS, > IVE GOT A TECHNICAL QUESTION... > I STARTED SPINNING PSY ABOUT 2 WEEKS AGO, BUT I CANT SEEM TO GET A HOLD ON > HOW THE BEATS ARE LAID OUT...IN WHOLE, IT SEEMS LIKE 4 BEATS PER > MEASURE(DONT KNOW IF THATS THE RIGHT WORD)...BUT IM NOT SURE BECAUSE ITS > KINDA JANKY WHEN I TRY TO MIX...AND EVERY SONG STARTS WITHOUT BEATS... > IF YOU SPIN PSY OR KNOW ANYTHING THAT COULD HELP ME OUT, WRITE BACK. > JAY > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com > "The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." - William Butler Yeats
