Ok make fun of me all you want..

[scue]

I scratch all of the time.. never mixed before.. I started today with some hip-hop and it's a pretty good feeling when you get it mixed good. So, my question is... how do you do transitions to make it a solid mix?

I'm doin ac over inst.. what are generally some common ways to blend tracks? btw, no I don't plan to make a career or do any parties with it. It's just fun..

thanks

[Toxxin Ephekt]

Go ask, Mofo X and Wood, they do it for a living.

[angst]

Originally Posted by rdsml

I scratch all of the time.. never mixed before.. I started today with some hip-hop and it's a pretty good feeling when you get it mixed good. So, my question is... how do you do transitions to make it a solid mix?

I'm doin ac over inst.. what are generally some common ways to blend tracks? btw, no I don't plan to make a career or do any parties with it. It's just fun..

thanks

Hip hop is usually quick blends or drops so you don't run into problems with vocals clashing.

For a lesson on how to mix hip hop, check out my homeboy Audio1's mixes.

http://www.djaudio1.com/music.html

[nabs]

i could never figure out hip hop mixing or anything, its always been very confusing to me.

[firestar]

I'd say hiphop/grime is the hardest genre to mix, i mean not just drop and cuts track, but to truly mix together.. especially acapellas over-top.

You know what made me learn quick? Start with the acapella and mix in the track, sounds easy but it's not at all. but it helps you learn the art of pitch shifting pretty quick.

[dj_soo]

Originally Posted by Toxxin Ephekt

Go ask, Mofo X and Wood, they do it for a living.

^ i wish i could just mix records for a living :-\

it's all about counting and knowing your tracks.

There's so many options to choose from: You can do quick 8-16 bar blends, you can do quick drop-ins, quick scratch-ins, you can do long blends of acapella's and instrumentals, you can do long blends of instrumentals into vocal tracks, you can rock doubles and extend breaks, or take doubles and mix the vocal into the instrumental or vice versa... and much more.

First thing to do is learn to beatmatch which is actually pretty difficult playing hiphop since tempos range anywhere from 60 bpm to 130 bpm. What helps is to actually figure out the bpms of all your records and actually label them and sort them by bpm) I wish I did this). You're probably better off grabbing like 4 or 5 records of some electronic genre since it's generally guarenteed to be in around the same tempo.

After you figure out how to beatmatch, it's all really about counting. Most hiphop tracks have an 8 bar instrumental intro and an 8 bar chorus so that's basically what you want to blend, but some tracks have like 2-4 bar lead ins to a vocal drop, additional bars throughout (rather than the traditional 8-bar structure) or only work if you do a quick drop in. Just experiment and see what works.

Sometimes it's as easy as stopping one track and going "wikka wikka wikka" *drop* :)

[miss.myra]

Originally Posted by mofo-x

it's all about counting and knowing your tracks.

exactumondo!

if you want to play hip hop music, you have to learn hip hop music and really really fall in love with and obesess over all your tracks, I can agree to some extent that it's not as easy to mix as other genres, but nothing goes smoother than two tracks that just fit together nicely in the short time that you do have to blend your tracks.

Also, what Terence said about grabbing some electronic tracks that are the same BPM to play around with too (like royksopp's "so easy"), there are a lot of sets I really like that have these really nice long mixes with hip hop mixed with some downtempo or other electronica.


Anyways I'm probably the worst dj ever which doesn't make me very good for advice, but I'm pretty good at being a nerd about music I like :P

[dj_soo]

^ that's where doubles help a lot, you can do a long mix with an instumental, and then transition to the vocal track afterwards. It's just very expensive after a while...