So you guys must have seen how DJs in India pretend that they are the überkool personalities? Well to be honest, here in America DJs are considered to be the guys who couldn’t get the chicks, or who don’t know how to dance.
The aim of this article is to teach you how to do simple DJing(and if you practice a bit, you can do better mixing then your local DJ on his 50K turntable).
NOTE: The aim of this article is to teach you how to do DJing for fun, I do not aim to create an army of computer geek DJs and attack the local Pubs and discotheques.
For the starters: You need to download this excellent DJing software called “DSS DJ”, its a very good software for learning and doing DJing. In fact when I used it, I even replaced my winamp with this to play my regular music. You can download its demo version. All the features in the demo version work except that it has a 30 minutes limitation. For the purpose of learning its fine.
http://www.myxoft.com/
Its a really small software and once you have downloaded it we will move to the next step and that is.
Acquiring some trance music: Now I am asking you to start with mixing trance music because they all have got a regular tempo and beats. There are many good trance artists in the market, my favorite being DJ Tiesto, and Paul Oakenfold.
Installation: After you have acquired the necessary stuff, we need to install this software and get started, I won’t be covering installation of the software so in case if you end up having some problem during the installation please contact the support forum of the software.
Configuring the software: First of all get yourself acquainted with the interface of the software; it’s a bit unique (like all the other DJ softwares, they all try to imitate a hardware turntable).
Then you will have to find the Menu Button(its in the center) and then select Configuration. In the new properties window, choose Audio Output tab. Now what we are doing here is that for DJing, we need to preview the song which is going to be played next, and since this previewing cannot be done on the output which is already being played for the people to dance, so we will have to listen to it on a separate audio channel. Usually its done by professional DJs to have a separate or a multichannel soundcard.
Now like most of the people I am assuming that you have neither, so I am suggesting you the wonderful workaround provided by this software. Its called Split Mode, where the cue(or preview) will be heard in one of the speakers and the master output will be heard in the other speaker. To enable this split mode you will have to click on the checkbox which says Split mode. After setting that up you can click on OK to exit the configuration page.
Simple Mixing: We will first start with really simple mixing, the crossfade mixing. Its just to get the feel, you wouldn’t wanna mix two songs like this. To start you will have to load a trance song in Deck A. You can do that by clicking on ADD button to add a new song to the library.
Once you have added a new song in the library you can load it in any deck but either dragging it to the deck (but I have heard the software to perform badly if you drag and drop a song,) or try the other way by right clicking on the name of the song and click on load in Deck A. Once you have loaded it in Deck A, you will have to find the crossfader knob.
This knob is horizontal (unlike all the other fader knobs), and its just under the VU meter. This knob controls the audio output from both the decks and how much quantity of each output should go to the Master speakers. Just bring that knob to the left most side (in the direction of Deck A). And press the Play button of Deck A (its labeled as Play-Pause).
If you are using the split mode (and I am assuming for the rest of the article that you are using split mode) you will be hearing this song in one of the speakers. This speaker is playing the Master output, when you play music in public, this is what they will hear. Now load another trance song in the Deck B, click on Play (of Deck B). As you can see you won’t be able to hear any sound. That is because this song is neither being sent to the master output, nor its being sent to the cue output.
To listen to this song you will have to click on the CUE button on the Deck B side. It turns RED to indicate that its on. Upon activating this CUE you will be able to hear the song on your other speaker. This is the cue output speaker; you and only you will be using this output for the purpose of previewing the song and the mixing which in a few minutes everybody is going to hear.
Now here comes the main part. Click and drag the crossfader knob from the direction of Deck A to Deck B. As you will be able to hear that the song loaded in Deck A is slowly faded out and song loaded in Deck B is slowly faded in. Well once you bring the crossfader to the other side; you are done mixing your first song. Congratulations.
Beat-Mixing: You must be thinking, “hey wait a min, that isn’t how professional DJs do in a club”, there mixing sounds so much better (well I admit the mixing you did in Step 5 isn’t how you should mix your songs).
Now how to make the mix sound better, well here we come on the next step, Beat Matching and mixing. Its very difficult to describe what is beat matched mixing of songs, so I will show it to you with examples. First example is of simple crossfading as done in step 5, second example is of beat matched crossfading which is going to be taught in this step.
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Xfade.without.beatmatching.mp3
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/XFade.with.beatmatching.mp3
So you can see how different they sounded. Of course the second example sounded much better. Now we come to the step, how to do beatmatching. You see in real world a DJ has to play the song on his vinyl on the right tempo (speed at which the song playes), once the song is in right tempo, that means the time difference between the two beats of song A is equal to the time difference between the two beats of song B, then the DJ has to match the beats so that beats of song A play at the same time as beats of song B so that the songs sound as one single song.
Once this thing is done, the DJ crossfades from one song to the other. Sounds really tough, but in the age of softwares, our job is done very easy by highly sophisticated algorithms for beat matching. We will do the same thing a DJ does, except without all the fuss about finding out the right tempo and matching the beats.
To do beatmixing, first load the song in Deck A, and bring the Crossfader to extreme left(so that we can hear only and only Deck A), then play Deck A, then load the next song in Deck B, turn on the cue button and play it. You will be able to hear both the songs simultaneously and they will be very out of sync.
First of all we need to put both these songs on the same tempo. To do that, click on the button on the Deck B which says A
Once this is done, in many cases you will find that you don’t have to do anything else and the songs seem to sound in sync, and you can simply crossfade them, but in most of the cases this won’t be the case. The songs although will have the same tempo, but their beats will still be unmatched. To match the beats, DSS DJ(and most of the DJ softwares) comes with a handy tool in hand, that is, Beats offset display. This display shows how asynchronized the songs are.
You can find it on each deck where the waveform is being displayed. It fluctuates when both the songs are being played. If this display is empty then the songs are perfectly beatmatched, if a red line appears then the songs aren’t beatmatched properly.
If the songs are in tempo then the red line displays but it remains static, and does not move too much, but if the songs themselves aren’t in the same tempo then the line moves from one direction to the other. To fix it, press the sync buttons (I have already shown you the AB button), once the tempos are matched, the red line will stop moving continuously (it might move slowly but its no big deal, it happens with songs with not a constant Beats per Minute or BPM). Once the needle is stable, we need to bring it in center. To do this, you need to locate the pitch bend buttons.
Now I am trying to use as less terminologies as possible, but still it’s better if you learn them for using other softwares (or even for hardware DJing). Basically what pitch bend does is, it slows or fastens the track till the time you keep it press, so that the track catches the beat of the other deck. It’s important to know which button to press +/-.
Good thing is, DSS DJ displays the button to be pressed in red. They blink with every beat. If plus sign is glowing then just tap plus sign, and you will see that the red needle for beats offset display comes closer to the center, you keep on tapping it till the needle is in center, if you tap more or keep on tapping the plus or minus button then the needle will move to the other side of the center, and you will have to use the opposite button (minus or plus) to bring it back in center.
Once the needle is stable in center, congrats the songs are beatmatched perfectly you will be able to notice it on the speakers. Now all you need is to move the crossfader knob to the other side slowly and smoothly. BINGO, you have just beatmixed your first song.
Other Mixing: After beatmixing your first set of songs, you will realize that its really easy to perform DJing, but wait a min, since you are using software so the beats are mixed and matched actually by the software (and I know the Hardware DJs are going to hate you and even insult you for that) so its really easy to mix and match two songs.
And this is the most difficult type of mixing for hardware DJs. For them it’s easier to do other types of mixing, which does not involves changing the pitch of the song. I am not going to teach you that, but just going to give you enough hints so that you can play and discover them yourselves. First one of them is, cutoff filter mixing.
To know what cutoff filter mixing you need to experiment a bit with the DSS DJ. Look for the large Knob, which says Filter. It’s just under the loop song button. Just try moving it around while playing a song. You will be able to handle the button well after a few times trying your hand on it. You must have seen this effect a lot of times done by a DJ.
Anyways, to mix two songs in DSS DJ (where there are separate knobs for both the decks, you need to decide first till where you will be turning the knob (because we need to have both the knobs turned till that common value). To do this, first play the first song and reach close to the position till where you want to crossfade, then turn on the second song and listen it in cue output. Start rotating the cutoff filter knob of the second song in either direction (one of the them is high and second is low), reach to the place where you can hear either only the beats (high cutoff) or only the very high frequency sounds (low cutoff).
Once you are there, start rotating the knob of the first song in the same direction and bring it till the position of second song, then either quickly bring the crossfader to the other direction, and start bring the cutoff filter knob to the off position (in DSS DJ its in middle), you will hear something like this
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Highpass.Xfade.mp3
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Lowpass.Xfade_1.mp3
As you can see for trance songs its better to crossfade with beat matching, but for other genre of songs with not a proper or constant BPM, (or for example songs with lots of vocals) try this cutoff filter mixing. Experiment with it, to discover new tactics. There is another type of mixing, although not very successful with trance songs. In this you just kill one common specific range of frequencies of the song and then crossfade and bring them back.
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Kill.Mid.Low.mp3
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Kill.High.Mid.mp3
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Kill.Low.mp3
http://www.merifiles.com/uploads/Kill.High.Low.mp3
You can kill either Low, Mid or High frequencies. The buttons to do that are located on rightmost and leftmost bottom of the DSS DJ screen. I haven’t done very good job for the samples, because this doesn’t really suits will all sorts of songs.
Advanced Software DJing: Well if you really are interested in software DJing, you can discover other softwares too, but DSS DJ works just fine. It provides pretty much all the standard features you are needed by any professional DJing software.
If you want to actually start DJing in the parties then I would suggest you to invest in the hardware (after you buy a full version of DSS DJ, because you wouldn’t want your music to stop after 30 minutes of play). What you can buy is a separate soundcard (in case if you are having a Desktop computer) or if you are having a laptop then you can go for a usb interface for additional software output like one of these.
In fact I would suggest you even if you have one of the desktops. After this the second accessory you can buy is a MIDI controller. A midi controller sometimes also known as control surface is a hardware input device with various knobs, faders and buttons using which you can control your music software.
I own an Evolution UC33 although the link takes you to UC33e (which is a later version of UC33), because the company has stopped selling UC33 model. You can buy a never used UC33 from ebay for cheap (under 100$). Of course there are many other options available to you for example Hercules DJ Console MK2 (there is a cheaper edition of Hercules also available on ebay, which has now been discontinued, but you can try it), Berhinger B-Control Deejay, Evolution X-Session
As you will realize that I showed you a Cutoff Xfade mix on step 7, well you won’t be able to do it like that only with a mouse. I know nothing will come below a 100$, but if you are interested then you should try getting your hands on a second hand MIDI controller if possible. And research your market as thoroughly as possible, try typing “control surface”, “dj usb”, “dj control” etc on Amazon and ebay.
I hope you enjoyed this article, Happy DJing, and next time a local DJ introduces himself to you as DJ something, try yawning.
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