DJ lesson 11: When to start your mix - and when to get out of it

One of the biggest challenges I remember learning to DJ was choosing the right moment to bring the outgoing track out of my mixes.

Do it too quickly and it sounds like you panicked.

Leave it hanging around too long and a surprise element can drop in that turns a great mix into a clashy one. At that point, you either grab your FX and try to disguise it, or you panic and cut. Either option sounds a bit amateurish.

That said, I personally prefer to hear a DJ being experimental and taking risks – even if the above happens from time to time – rather than banging out perfect, but soulless, pre-planned sets.

First and foremost, DJing should be about playing great music, just at the right moment. Do that and the crowd will love you - wherever you decide to bring tracks in and out of the mix.

Saying all of that, I’m here to give you advice. So here are some pointers on where to place your mixes…

Easy starter: mix into the outro

To keep life simple, try mixing the intro of your new song in on the first beat of the current song’s outro.

The outro? That’s when the meatier drums on the song disappear and it become more percussive. You’ll know the part of the song I mean, because it’s the moment the energy drops.

With this style of mix, you’ll have 16 bars or so of the outro to play with. And because it’s all quiet and low-energy, as long as you fade out at the end of a phrase (four bars of four beats), it’ll sound pretty tight.

With this type of mix, you create a kind of drummy interlude between songs, which is fine for keeping the energy at one level and letting your music choices do the work.

But if you want to keep building energy, or maintain it at a peak level, you’ll need to be a bit smarter with some of your mixes…

With all the mixing placements I’m about to discuss, you can either gently fade out with more of a blending style, or cut it on the final beat of bar, just as a big moment in the incoming song drops in on the beat that follows.

The no let-up, relentless mix

At certain times in your set, you’ll hit a point of peak energy that you don’t want to lose. When that happens, great DJs mix in a way where the real energy of the incoming tunes drops in, just as the chunky parts of the old song fall away.

To do it the classic and most rewarding way (watch house DJs on vinyl in the 90s like Erick Morillo doing this to perfection), you need to know your tunes inside out.

You’ll need to know how long the intro of tune 2 is. Let’s say it’s a slow-building 32 bars, with something melodic happening after 16.

Now, listen to tune 1 and find the big piece of action that happens before the tune’s outro – it might be a final breakdown or chorus. Now count from the start of that moment and see how many bars it is until the outro starts.

For ease, let’s imagine it’s 32 bars before the outro starts. So now you know that if you cue the new track on the first beat of that breakdown or chorus, the incoming song will hit its stride at the exact moment the outgoing tune drops into the outro.

Boom! The energy stays sky high and people start asking for your autograph.

Obviously you won’t always be so lucky with the counts. Let’s say your incoming song has a 16 bar intro, but the count from the start of the final section of your outgoing song is 32 bars. In that case, you’ll need to count 16 bars from the start of that section, then cue it on the first beat of the next bar to have the same impact.

With modern technology of course you can cheat a bit here. If you know your intro is 16 bars, you could create a 16 bar loop on the outgoing song and make it all happen that way.

While the impact is still good when you do that, it can’t beat the magic of two tracks organically fitting together like a Mitsubishi-branded jigsaw.

Creating longer epic blends

With vinyl’s popularity pretty high right now, let’s talk about more adventurous mixing, that feels particularly great when you’re mixing on wax.

Let’s say you have two tunes whose melodies are in key and which build really slowly, like prog house or more minimal styles. With these types of tunes, but only really if they’re in key, you can mix a bit more freely.

Watch some old Sasha videos from the early/mid-90s to see what I mean - or listen to his Ibiza Global Underground mixes.

He’ll drop a new song when the initial song is still getting into its stride. He does this because he has perfect pitch, knows his music inside out, and has total confidence they work beautifully together.

Often, those two songs interact together for minutes. One of the tunes will drop into a breakdown, while the other’s drumbeat gallops along on top of it, he’ll fiddle with the EQs to add power to different elelemnts, and no one on the dancefloor will know when one song’s coming in or another’s fading out.

Carl Cox used to do the same with three decks.

When you’re at home practicing, try to experiment with all kinds of mixing styles.

If you practice for long enough, you’ll hit on something that works amazingly for you. You’ll start to feel more comfortable with certain mixing styles and develop an instinct for putting songs together in the right way for the right moment.

Maybe you’ll start with long, groovy mixes early on to show off when you’re warming up, intro/outro mixes when the night’s building, and then pull out your super-tight, relentless energy mixes later.

The most important thing is to be aware of who’s in front of you, really watch the dancefloor closely, and do what feels right.

If you make a mistake, it doesn’t matter. As long as you’re enjoying it.  

Basically, just be yourself, because authenticity wins.

ONE FINAL TIP

 Here’s something that I consistently do when I mix, which adds impact every time. I saw Pete Tong do it in Miami and have been doing it ever since.

As you reach the point where you’re about to fade out the original song, drop the volume just a little on both faders. As you get more experienced, you might also add some FX.

Now, on the final beat of the bar before your new tune kicks in, fully fade out the old tune, then on the one of the new bar, push the fader on the incoming song back up the max.

It doesn’t fail to add impact.

Be subtle here, because even the smallest change in volume can make a surprising amount of impact.