1/12/2024 0 Comments House music bar![]() Another way of looking at it is that two sets of drums playing together won’t usually make the overall audio too “busy”.īut as soon as there are other musical elements present, you need to be careful. That’s because drums don’t really contain musical “information” – melodies and so on. When you’re mixing two tracks together, as long as they both only have drums playing, they’ll usually sound OK. Be careful when mixing anything other than drums Start mixing house music creatively, just like a pro: House Mixing MasteryĢ. If you don’t, it’ll always sound odd, and usually messy too. ![]() If you do this, things will be arriving and leaving in both tracks at the same points, making for a coherent mix. ![]() Your job, then, as a beatmixing house DJ is not just to hit “sync” and start your new track playing anywhere over the old one, but to make sure those sets of four or eight bars – also known as “phrases” – line up. Even if the “things” don’t arrive or leave right on that point (vocals notoriously often start a bit early or late), they still respect the underlying pattern. In house music, things tend to happen (drums arriving and leaving, melodies or basslines being introduced or removed, vocals starting and finishing, you name it) after four bars, or multiples of four bars (eight bars is particularly common). Hint: the first kick drum of any track is almost always a “one” beat – if you’re trying to get the hang of this, starting your counting from there usually works.īut the patterns go further than that. These “one beats” mark the start of musical “bars” or “measures”, and house music has four kick drum beats to every bar (hence the phrase “four to the floor”). Do you notice how every four beats, there’s a more “dominant” beat? If you count “one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four” to the beats, you’ll soon figure out that the “one” beat (or “downbeat”) is special, and find yourself counting “ONE, two, three, four, ONE, two, three, four”, naturally. Read this next: 8 Reasons Why Mixing Is Important For DJsħ Rules For Mixing House Music 1. So when it comes to house music, maybe above all other genres, mixing is paramount. This is partly what keeps the illusion of “one long track” going on the dancefloor. House tracks are constructed around pretty strict numbers of beats, bars and measures, too, meaning not only does a DJ have to mix to keep dancers dancing and the vibe of the night going, but they have to understand those rules. Tracks are designed to slot into DJ sets where that insistent “thud, thud, thud” bass beat is a given. Hence the need for a “crash course” in what makes a great house mix, which you’ll find in this article.Įspecially with house and its derivatives, mixing is important because the music is made to be mixed. In the past, as DJs spent months and years nailing the mechanics of beatmixing manually, they also had time to figure out slowly most of the things I’m about to share.īut today, when it’s perfectly possible to line two beats up within minutes of unboxing a DJ controller, new DJs aren’t afforded that time – hence they get frustrated because they know it sounds wrong, but have no idea why. “Complement and emphasise” in your DJing.Always know which track is dominating the mix.Use keymixing – but don’t be a slave to it.Pick the right places in your tracks to mix.Be careful when mixing anything other than drums.While today’s sync functions mean that with digital music, it is so much easier than it was “back in the day” using vinyl and even CDJs, these modern functions are never going to do much more than match the beats for you.Īnd while that may sound great at first, you’ll soon realise that simply lining up the track you want to play next, hitting sync, hitting “play” where you hope it may sound good, and going for it, simply doesn’t sound good.Īnd that’s for good reason – because even the most advanced DJ system cannot do any of the things I’m going to outline in this article for you – things that good house DJs do instinctively, but that you have to learn. Click here to download your free “house rules” posterįor those of us who got into this whole hobby marvelling at how DJs can seamlessly blend together a whole night’s-worth of music without dropping a beat, being able to beatmix house music well is an important goal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |