adstone1237
I just started playing around with virtual DJ, and I wanted to take a crack at trying to create myself a continuous mix that I was planning on listening to. Luckily enough, one Dubstep song I had was running at about 140 BPM which was about the same pace as the trance song I was playing before it. The transition wasn't too hard, though it probably could be smoother that something I guess I will learn to do a little better as practice. My initial thought was "oh my God, I might actually have a song to transition from the trance into my drum and bass!"
The problem is, the ultra runs at a fairly slow pace, despite its saying it runs at about 140 BPM. Most my drum bass runs at about 87 BPM which is very very hard to transition smoothly as I'm probably missing a process I'm not aware. Which is why I've come here to seek help in what I could do to make this a lot more smoother simply pressing the sync button doesn't help as that really affects the pitch and makes it sound really distorted and out of place. There is even Ned drum steps on which I've been meaning to download for quite some time open that would help bridge the gap (Rusko - everyday Netsky remix), but unfortunately that also runs about 87 BPM.
also, my opening song that I wanted to start my mix with runs around 122 BPM with really no trailing DJ friendly wind down topic transition to my next song which runs at around a more common 128 BPM. I find the transition talk to mix, having to sacrifice the final chorus in order to attempt a smooth transition although the distortion in pitch is very evident. I don't have a fancy audio card or anything like that so I can pre-listen to it and make it sound just right in just my headphones, so I feel very rush to release the track on time without winding down too much.
so I will close with this; what should I do to close this broad gap in BPM? How do DJs wind down (or wind up in some cases) to these kind of songs?
oh, and I'm using virtual DJ free home edition.
The problem is, the ultra runs at a fairly slow pace, despite its saying it runs at about 140 BPM. Most my drum bass runs at about 87 BPM which is very very hard to transition smoothly as I'm probably missing a process I'm not aware. Which is why I've come here to seek help in what I could do to make this a lot more smoother simply pressing the sync button doesn't help as that really affects the pitch and makes it sound really distorted and out of place. There is even Ned drum steps on which I've been meaning to download for quite some time open that would help bridge the gap (Rusko - everyday Netsky remix), but unfortunately that also runs about 87 BPM.
also, my opening song that I wanted to start my mix with runs around 122 BPM with really no trailing DJ friendly wind down topic transition to my next song which runs at around a more common 128 BPM. I find the transition talk to mix, having to sacrifice the final chorus in order to attempt a smooth transition although the distortion in pitch is very evident. I don't have a fancy audio card or anything like that so I can pre-listen to it and make it sound just right in just my headphones, so I feel very rush to release the track on time without winding down too much.
so I will close with this; what should I do to close this broad gap in BPM? How do DJs wind down (or wind up in some cases) to these kind of songs?
oh, and I'm using virtual DJ free home edition.
Posté Sun 15 Jul 12 @ 10:42 pm
drewwicks9
Try: - A different transition (Scratching, Effects like Break or Backspin), A different song in between the two with a BPM that works better. Or wait for a good break in the song and Crossfade it quickly and to make it smoother, try using some Hotkeys placed on vocals or take some samples from the DNB and use them while you are getting ready to crossfade or while you crossfade. Hope that helps!
Posté Mon 16 Jul 12 @ 1:54 am
adstone1237
well I did record my mix, so I suppose I could put it on the respective forum and ask members what I could do better in those specific transitions.certainly not call it very silky smooth or anything like that, I could tell when I was beat mixing it.
Posté Mon 16 Jul 12 @ 11:17 am
synthet1c
you can't mix those bpm's as they are too far apart, your two options are cut it in or distract people and fade in the new track.
If you cut you just line up the incoming track on the down beat then pause the outgoing track and press play on the down beat. If your lucky enough to get both a dnb/drumstep and dubstep/breaks mix of the same track I usually make the change on the first beat of the main breakdown, It usually takes a few seconds to realize there is a new bpm but it doesn't matter as no one is dancing anyway ;-)
The other way is distraction, you can use effects, samples or your voice to take peoples attention away from the beat for a moment. I like using "rollit2", "echodoppler" or a pioneer efx1000 pitch echo to sample a section and pitch it out.
If you can beatmatch you can also do the ultimate trick to go from
(dnb/drumstep 180bpm --> slowed dubstep/breaks 135bpm)
(dubstep/rave breaks 140bpm --> slowed moombah/party hiphop 105bpm)
the idea is that the stepdown is 3/4 the size and 3/4 is the magic fraction of all dance music, so using a loop or roll effect you can successfully change on beat by adding a little skippyness to the rhythm that everyone loves, but again you have to be confident with beatmatching as there is no sync safety net and this is very unforgiving if you mess it up, but epic if you pull it off.
You can map your keyboard with "loop 0.75" to engage a 3/4 loop or if you upgrade to Pro/basic/broadcaster you can download any of the roll plugins to make it easier.
Honestly though I think you should focus on the basics first until you can beatmatch by ear before trying this stuff as it takes a while before most can really hear what they are doing beyond just semantic knowledge.
If you cut you just line up the incoming track on the down beat then pause the outgoing track and press play on the down beat. If your lucky enough to get both a dnb/drumstep and dubstep/breaks mix of the same track I usually make the change on the first beat of the main breakdown, It usually takes a few seconds to realize there is a new bpm but it doesn't matter as no one is dancing anyway ;-)
The other way is distraction, you can use effects, samples or your voice to take peoples attention away from the beat for a moment. I like using "rollit2", "echodoppler" or a pioneer efx1000 pitch echo to sample a section and pitch it out.
If you can beatmatch you can also do the ultimate trick to go from
(dnb/drumstep 180bpm --> slowed dubstep/breaks 135bpm)
(dubstep/rave breaks 140bpm --> slowed moombah/party hiphop 105bpm)
the idea is that the stepdown is 3/4 the size and 3/4 is the magic fraction of all dance music, so using a loop or roll effect you can successfully change on beat by adding a little skippyness to the rhythm that everyone loves, but again you have to be confident with beatmatching as there is no sync safety net and this is very unforgiving if you mess it up, but epic if you pull it off.
You can map your keyboard with "loop 0.75" to engage a 3/4 loop or if you upgrade to Pro/basic/broadcaster you can download any of the roll plugins to make it easier.
Honestly though I think you should focus on the basics first until you can beatmatch by ear before trying this stuff as it takes a while before most can really hear what they are doing beyond just semantic knowledge.
Posté Mon 16 Jul 12 @ 1:13 pm
adstone1237
I kind of feel like I could be doing this a lot more efficiently if I had an actual mixing board instead of my mouse hastily rushing across the screen trying to tune everything in perfect sync. Unless there are some hotkeys that I missing for crucial functions such as cues, or even cross fading with the arrow keys would be nice. Now if I had some dials for the lows, mids, and highs...
Posté Mon 16 Jul 12 @ 1:59 pm
Mikey_With
Really,you don't need anything as fancy as a controller, I picked up a cheap soundcard and Numark M101 mixer, and it made VDJ come alive. Leaves one hand free for crossfading, while the other fiddles with the software. Suddenly, mixing became much more creative! Alternatively, for now, stick with one genre?
Posté Tue 02 Oct 12 @ 4:01 pm