Want to see hundreds of DJs attempt to break a Guinness World Record? Read on to find out how...

Fancy a Sunday afternoon’s raving, while witnessing hundreds of London’s best DJs attempting to break a Guinness World Record?

We’ve got ten pairs of tickets to give away for the huge #MixInLondon charity event, hosted by Dance Aid and sponsored by Casino.com, at the world-famous Ministry of Sound.

About the event

As well as four rooms of music provided by a true who’s who of London’s dance scene, the famous Ministry main room will host the World DJ Relay Record Attempt, where hundreds of DJs will attempt to break the current DJ Relay Record, which stands at 81 DJs playing a tune each in a single DJ mix.

Hundreds of DJs will attempt to break the current DJ Relay Record…

It’s all in aid of Onelife, a charity that focuses on youth development and mentorship through mixing and music. With high profile celebrities, DJ Magazine and some surprise guests all in attendance, it promises to be a great afternoon and evening out.

It’s all happening from 3pm to 9pm on Sun May 27 at Ministry of Sound, 103 Gaunt Street, London. Native Instruments is supplying Traktor gear to keep everything nice and digital (the official billboards are entitled “breaking records” – geddit?) and Digital DJ Tips will be there too.

How to enter

Are you in London on that day? Want a chance to win a pair of tickets and see a bit of history in the making (and maybe say hello to us, too)? Just head over to this update on our Facebook Page and add your name to the replies. If you’re one of the lucky randomly drawn winners next Wednesday (May 23), we’ll Facebook message you to let you know.

And if you can’t make it, don’t worry – the whole attempt will be streamed live online, with Digital DJ Tips promoting the stream on the day too.

Remember, to enter the draw to win a pair of tickets, just add your name to the replies to this Facebook status update, and leave Sunday May 27 free – we’ll Facebook Message the winners next Wednesday (May 23).

• Click here for more information on the event.

Have you entered to win tickets? Were you coming along anyway? Have you ever been involved in a record-breaking attempt of any kind? We’d love to hear your stories and plans in the comments…

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Busy DJ booths can be creative and fun places. If you know and follow the etiquette, you can help to keep them that way. Pic: Flavorpill

When you DJ with other people, you’re on a team, and that team has to play well together in order to perform effectively. The crowd doesn’t really care about the individuals as much as the whole. If all the DJs on a night can make it work as a team, it benefits everyone.

So if you’ve got a gig coming up where there will be lots of other DJs playing (especially where you all have your own gear), and you want to be sure you’re contributing to the whole and not treading on any toes, here are some time-won rules for being a good team player in the DJ booth:

1. Set up before the club fills and strike only when the club is done – Try never to “strike your gear” until the end of the night. It’s straight rude to the current DJ, and the people in the crowd will see your packing up as a sign that “the club is closing”
2. Bring back-up equipment and make sure it’s on and ready to go – Whether it’s a CD, a USB or just an iPod plugged through an Aux In, be sure to have a backup to cover any crashes
3. Understand which set you’re playing and what that means – As a team, you should be building towards goals: for instance, if you’re the opening DJ, you’ll be slowly building up the energy for the next DJ, in order to gently pull people onto the floor. Know where you’re meant to fit in with the whole
4. Know how long you’re on for and at what time you transition out… – It’s worth having a timer going (with an alarm) so you don’t run too long (or short). Try and ensure the next DJ is there at least two or three songs before their set (at least so they can hear the groove and read the crowd). Likewise, ensure that you’re two or three songs early for your set
5. Be considerate of the next DJ’s set-up – Know how the next DJ is going to operate in their set, so you can make it easy for them to take over. This is preferable to them entering a DJ booth with your gear piled all over their gear – gear which you helpfully unplugged right before your set because you couldn’t find any power sockets for your own!
6. Never interrupt a DJ while he’s transitioning between songs – Even if the DJ is late getting off their set, let them finish their mix before communicating with them
7. Don’t co-pilot the current DJ – Even if you know them (in fact especially if you know them). The DJ booth is almost always too small, and you getting in the current DJ’s way is likely to lead to them feeling smothered. Give them room to work just as you’d like to be given space yourself when it’s your turn
8. Never argue in the DJ booth – Have the discussion later if you need to. Probably best to let things cool down anyway, and ultimately the crowd doesn’t want to see DJs in heated discussion when all they want to do is dance

The bottom line…

Basically, a little communication and respect goes a long way. If you’re actually running the night, it’s good to ensure “someone in charge of the crew” actually supervises all of the above and makes sure all the DJs understand these types of rules.

A little communication and respect goes a long way…

But even if you’re just booked to play an hour or so at an event, this is your blueprint for making friends of your fellow DJs, and for ensuring you play your part in giving the public what they paid for.

• DJ ForcedHand is a DJ from from San Francisco, California. You can find him on Facebook and SoundCloud.

Do you regularly play with lots of other DJs? Have you ever been the victim of inconsiderate behaviour in the DJ booth? Any “rules” you’d like to add?

Now go to:
Over To You: Streamlining DJ Switchovers
11 Surefire Ways To Make Other DJs Hate You
Your Questions: How To Plug Into A Club Mixer

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The main screen of Cross DJ For iPad, showing a traditional layout but with a wealth of extra information too.

Ever since MixVibes showed an early iOS version of its well-regarded Cross DJ system at Musikmesse earlier this year, we have been eagerly waiting to bring you this review.

Finally, with the app due to hit the app store shortly, I’ve been able to spend a week of quality time with it. The press release boldly claims it to be the “World’s First Professional DJing App”. Similar claims have been made before by other DJ apps that have often fallen short of expectations. So given that the DJ app market is already competitive, does Cross DJ live up to the hype, and will it stir the competition up?

The main screen
CrossDJ is mostly a single screen app (with the exception of access to the music library and settings). Everything is easily accessible, focused around the familiar twin-deck layout with the mixer in the centre, and crossfader, cue, play/pause and sync buttons underneath, plus a wealth of information at the top. To a first-time DJ, the abundance of detail on the screen may confuse; however, I suspect after loading the first couple of tracks this will pass.

The display on Cross DJ feels particularly crisp and well defined.

The decks are neatly coloured yellow (left) and red (right). This becomes particularly useful when you look to the top of the screen at the waveforms and the circular four-beat progress display. As the track loads; the BPM is detected (to two decimal places), the waveform is calculated and the beatgrid is applied.

All of the track metadata is visible at the very top of the screen as well as the current pitch increment detail. Underneath is the zoomed-in waveform with beatgrid. The waveforms for both tracks are sandwiched together for a visual alignment of kicks, snares and other major peaks in the audio.

CrossDJ employs beatgridding to assist alignment of tracks during a mix. The beatgrid is shown on the waveform; a longer white line represents the position of the first kick drum, with three smaller markers indicating beats. The next white line shows the start of the next bar (four beats).

Track nearing end = flashing lights!

As the track plays, the circular beat-progress display rotates in the colour of the track. As the beatgrids for the two tracks become better aligned, the red and yellow lines on the circular display get closer until eventually they merge and become a single orange bar. The four-beat progress bar is something that Virtual DJ users, for instance, will be familiar with a version of; unfortunately it’s not a frequent feature on iOS DJ systems, which is a shame as it is a useful visual indicator.

Another nice touch is that when a track nears its end, the “Remain Time” field and summary waveform display both flash (thankfully, at the same rate as anything else that may be flashing on the screen!).

We’ve seen scrolling waveforms before on other apps; however the display on CrossDJ is particularly crisp and well defined.

We’ve seen scrolling waveforms before on other apps; however the display on CrossDJ is particularly crisp and well defined.

Below the beatgrids and waveforms is a section which either displays cue points (flag button), loops (anti-clockwise button) or beatgrid adjustment (last button). There are six stored cue points; when they are set you see colour-coded flags in both the scrolling waveform and the summary waveform.

The loop functionality is currently limited to on-the-fly looping with a “slip” feature that can allow the track to continue as if the loop button had not been pressed. The eight loop buttons are in increments from 16 beats down to 1/8. It would be great to see stored loop points available in CrossDJ in the future.

Beatgridding
The stand-out feature is the beatgrid adjustment. In general, Cross DJ does a great job analysing tracks, detecting the BPM accurately and identifying where the beatgrid should be placed. However, on those few occasions where it wasn’t perfect I could use the beatgrid buttons to manually identify the first beat of a bar and fine-adjust the gap between the beats in the grid. I haven’t seen this level of detail for beatgrid mapping on any other iOS DJ app so far.

The deck display is self explanatory and should be familiar to anyone who’s used DJ software before. The pitch increment can be set from 4% to 100%, with pitch nudge buttons at the bottom of the pitch control slider.

Swap turntables for X-Y pads...

Whenever I see an app that can adjust pitch to 100%, I’m always keen to hear how it sounds at slow speeds. With better quality playback, the audio should be smooth and consistent throughout the range without any glitching or digital artefacts. Only a few DJ apps achieve this and it turns out that CrossDJ is one of them. As the app is rumoured to shortly be being made compatible with MixVibes’ own U-Mix Control Midi controller, I imagine the scratch sounds that you’ll be able to get from the decks will be impeccable.

The effects mode
With Cross DJ you needn’t restrict yourself to the traditional turntable view; with a quick press of the “FX” button you get a generous X-Y pad for use with one of the 13 quality effects. An effect can also be applied continuously using the “Hold” button (arrow pointing down).

The “Bliss” effect is a handy white noise plus high-pass filter – useful for adding atmospheric whooshes to build-ups and break-downs. The “Brake” effect was also useful, sounding like a deck stop but also coming with a slip mechanism so the track continues as if the it hasn’t been slowed/stopped.

I’m not usually keen on rotary controls with a touchscreen interface; however the EQ and gain dials worked perfectly. Configuration of the app is limited to five items, including when the track end warning should start and split audio output (in conjunction with a splitter cable).

Music library access
Cross DJ really moves away from the pack when it comes to music library access. It’s a custom interface with access to iTunes playlists, a search bar at the bottom with a sort by button. The “Sort By” button gives you sorting in ascending and descending order on title, artist, album, genre, BPM, length, rating and track number.

Sorting within a playlist,

This is already above and beyond most other DJ apps. If you select “All Tracks” you get a number of additional buttons displayed at the bottom of the music library screen. These give you the power to set a default method for slicing through the entire music library. I had mine set to “BPM > Genre” which meant I had a display of BPM ranges that I could drill into and view the genres, drilling down further to the tracks.

You have the option of setting up to three tiers for this style of browsing. Ideally I’d like to see the comments field included in the metadata sorting and drilldowns; this would mean I could select a BPM range and then a harmonic key to return a subsection of tracks I could use.

You can use the “Analyze List” button for CrossDJ to bulk analyse the tracks on the screen.

Conclusion

Cross DJ has several distinguishing features that help raise it above most other DJ apps available. There is an undeniable feel of quality about the interface and the functionality within, which is unsurprising given MixVibes long history with DJ software and hardware.

With the introductory price set to be low (for a limited period only), CrossDJ is certainly well worth checking out, and even at full price it will remain excellent value.

If you have a first generation iPad, note that Cross DJ is only available for iPad 2 and upwards; however on a brighter note, there are plans for an iPhone / iPod Touch version later in the year.

Summary

We like:

• Extensive music library slices and sorting
• Detailed beatgrid adjustments
• Quality waveform display

We don’t like:

• No crossfader adjustment
• No key lock
• No storable loop points

Star ratings:

Product details:

Price: €7.99 (special launch price) – to increase to €14.99
Launch date: To be confirmed

What do you think?
Do you use Cross DJ on another platform? Do you use other iOS DJ software but feel tempted to give this ago? What do you think of the deck and FX views? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
Review: FutureDJ for iPhone & iPod Touch
Review: MixmoDJ for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch
Review: DJ Player 4.0 For iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch

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The Ultrasone DJ1s: A well-rounded, great-sounding DJ headphone.But how do they compare to the 'Pros?

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the Ultrasone DJ1 Pro headphones, and ended up real liking them. We also promised that we’d cover their little brother, the DJ1, soon. Today we’re doing just that.

Both models are from a German company that only makes headphones, and so as we stated in the DJ1 Pro review, they are far from “me-too” headphones. So we can guess they’re going to be good. The question now is, exactly how good are these compared to their Pro counterparts, and which would suit the serious digital DJ best?

First impressions

They come with none of the bells and whistles of the more expensive pair. The DJ1 Pros have spare ear paddings, a hard case, and detachable, interchangeable leads, whereas the DJ1s have just a soft bag accompanying them in their box. (There’s CD of classical music too. Mmmm.) At least the soft bag is kind-of custom, being material rather than the usual plastic, and embroidered with the company’s logo.

The DJ1 Pros actually look more like a studio headphone, whereas the DJ1s appear more DJ-oriented.

At first glance, they seem very similar to the DJ1 Pros, but you soon realise the differences. While they’re the same colour, and the same overall build quality (excellent), and they even have the same headband and earcup couplings, the actual earcups are different.

On the DJ1 Pros, the earcups are oversized and round, whereas on the DJ1s, they are oval and not so big. The leather is different too, being finer on the Pros. The single cable is coiled, and has a 1/4″ to 1/8″ adaptor on the end.

The DJ1 Pros actually look more like a studio headphone, whereas the DJ1s appear more DJ-oriented, which is reflected in the way the earcups rotate on the couplings; with the DJ1 Pros, vertical earcup rotation is limited to a pretty limited 30 degrees whereas with the DJ1s, you can rotate the earcups 180 degrees too, as well as backwards and forwards 90 degrees.

In use

These feel more like a pair of DJ ‘phones than their more expensive counterparts. They fit completely over the ear, but with not as much space left for your ear to “flap around” in. They feel tighter on the ear, too; good for DJing in that it offers more isolation, but not so good for long-term use, as they’ll be less comfortable than the looser Pros.

Technically, these phones have a lower impedance (32 ohm rather than 64 ohm) than the Pros, which in layman’s terms mean they’re louder. Again, this is good; while sounding marvellous, the DJ1 Pros aren’t the loudest of headphones.

On to sound quality then, which I’m happy to report is excellent. They seem bassier than the Pros, and I think this is probably due to the shape of the earcup and the slightly higher pressure on the ears.

Ultrasone makes much of the S-Logic technology that the company claims offsets the soundwaves to utlise the outer ear, make everything sound more directional and spatial. I am in no way qualified to comment on whether it works, but testing them with Agoria’s “Impermanence”, I was struck by the stereo imagery as well as the overall quality of the sound; deep, rich bass, a good “thud” on the kicks, and light, playful percussion with no hint of harshness.

Conclusion

These are lovely headphones for DJs. Sure, they haven’t got the detachable cable and earcups of the DJ1 Pros, but they’re actually better balanced for DJing, feature-wise.

These are closer to a "traditional" DJ headphone than the DJ1 Pros.

They apply just the right pressure for sound isolation. I suspect that (and the shape of the earcups) is why the sound is slightly more coloured – they certainly sounded bassier to me than the DJ1 Pros which I tested them alongside. This is what DJs ultimately want, in my view.

While the DJ Pros are the better of the two if you’re looking for one all-round set of headphones that will be fine for DJing as well as studio and relaxing, if the only time you every put your headphones on is for DJing gigs and practising your mixing, and you don’t think you’ll miss the bells and whistles, these are your better bet. The fact that they’re cheaper than the DJ1 Pros is a bonus.

Video

Summary

We like:

• Great all-round DJ headphone
• Excellent sound quality
• Loud

We don’t like:

• Cable not detachable or changeable

Star ratings:

Product details:

Weight: 0.6lb (0.3kg)
Price: US$115 / £108
Buy from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

What do you think?
Do you own these headphones? Did you make a choice between these and the “Pro” variant? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Now go to:
Review & Video: Ultrasone DJ1 Pro Headphones
How to Choose a Pair of DJ Headphones
Review: Behringer HPX6000 DJ Headphones

Look! How To Digital DJ Fast - Video Course

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Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
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Mixcloud gives you room for an image to promote your mix - but where should you go to find good free images?

Digital DJ Tips reader Kaan writes: “I’ve recently made my first mixtape and uploaded it on Mixcloud. when I was doing so, Mixcloud said I can choose a picture to upload. However, I didn’t had a suitable image on my laptop so I uploaded it without an image for now.”

“That’s what me leads to my question: Where can I find images for my mixtapes without getting in trouble with copyright etc?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Nice question. We use professional services to buy many of the pictures we use here on Digital DJ Tips, but there are a couple of tricks I know to find free images online, too.

If you go to Flickr you can specify in the advanced search to only use “Creative Commons” pictures…

If you go to Flickr you can specify in the advanced search to only use “Creative Commons” pictures, which are pictures that people don’t mind you using for free.

You’re meant to credit the photographers usually, and I’m not sure how you’d do that – maybe a quick picture credit in your mix description text. You can do a similar kind of search in Google Images.

But I’m sure our readers have more ideas, so I think this is a good point to throw it open.

So – over to you! We’d love to hear your tips about making your online music “look” good. Please share in the comments.

Now go to:
Why You Shouldn’t Post Your Mixes On SoundCloud
The Definitive Guide To Making a Mixtape – Part 1
5 Reasons Why DJs Should Make Mash-ups (Not Mixtapes) To Get Bookings

Look! How To Digital DJ Fast - Video Course

From Digital DJ Tips, four hours of online video to get you from beginner to first gig in just four weeks. Join the 1000s of DJs who've already benefited from this training. Click here!

Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
Sign up for our weekly email course for beginners now...

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Native instruments just launched their "Dual Brains. Wanted." careers drive to get new talent into its Berlin and LA offices. Many people who work for DJ companies are also DJs themselves.

Digital DJ Tips reader Rasmus writes: “I am in a sort of dire situation here. I am a very passionate DJ, not quite of age yet. Thing is, my parents are not too hyped about my passion; they think that DJing is in fact not a real career, and that I should most definitely have a ‘real job’ along with having DJing as a ‘hobby’ to do in my free time.

“I would like to have your advice/view on if DJing is (or can be) a reliable career, meaning that the income is somewhat consistent and the gigs ‘keep coming’. I know ‘DJing’ is somewhat of a broad field, but could you go into details of mostly mobile DJing and club DJing?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

In short, no. DJing is not what I’d automatically call a reliable career – unless, that is, you are an entrepreneur who is prepared to turn it into a small business. That means reading business books, learning about cashflow, marketing, revenue planning and so on. It’s what I did (and still do) so I know it works, but an awful lot of it isn’t DJing. You sometimes wonder where you’re going to get the time for your music, you’re so busy doing other stuff!

Mobile DJing is a great way to make a steady income, far more so for most than club DJing.

However, you could take a business course at college (to keep your parents happy and because it’s a smart thing to do), and always in the back of your mind know that when you graduate/finish, you’ll apply what you learn to making your own way in the music industry (which is what DJing is a part of, after all). It will be an awful amount of hard work, but it can also be immensely fulfilling.

Regarding your specifics, mobile DJing is a great way to make a steady income, far more so for most than club DJing. In my case, having DJed mobile for a few years, I started a club night with a friend, which got me properly into the industry, because I learned how it all works, got to know other DJs and agents, and learned how to run a small business as I went along.

Finally, many people in this industry have related day jobs. Think of any of the big pro audio companies who make the hardware and software we all use; I can guarantee you that 80% of their employees are also DJs. You could think about investigating the skills these companies are looking for, and taking a course in college with a view to getting a job with such a company while nurturing your DJing at the same time.

Do you want to work in DJing but have a steady career too? Have you managed to do this? What do you do as well as DJing? I’d love you to share your thoughts with Rasmus in the comments.

Now go to:
How To Promote Events & Throw Your Own Parties: Part 1
10 Common Myths About Wedding DJing
Over To You: My Family Don’t Want Me To Be A DJ!

Look! How To Digital DJ Fast - Video Course

From Digital DJ Tips, four hours of online video to get you from beginner to first gig in just four weeks. Join the 1000s of DJs who've already benefited from this training. Click here!

Learn to DJ Free - email course plus bonus PDF book
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Trouble choosing a controller? Get your free 162-page guide!
Grab "DJ Controllers: The Ultimate Buyer's Guide" at our Facebook Page.

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While it's usually highly inadvisable to mix a whole set from music you don't really now very well, that doesn't mean it's not possible, as we find out today... Pic: DJ Haus

Ever bought a hot new compilation of new tunes right before a gig, but been afraid to use it? While in general it’s considered risky business to mix music you are not fully familiar with, sometimes – for instance, in a warm-up, or to make an upfront mixtape – you may want to play not just one but a whole bunch of tunes you don’t know so well.

It’s almost invariably not the best idea. But if you do decide to play a set with music you’re not full familiar with, as a digital DJ you have many more tools available than you might realise to deliver a great sounding mix without knowing the ins and outs of the tracks. This article will give you some guidelines to get way more comfortable mixing unknown content.

(Incidentally, most of this information is equally relevant to DJing even if you know your material intimately – it’s just that while it’s often perfectly possible to “wing it” with material you’re truly familiar with, disregarding all of this, obviously when you don’t know the tracks as well, you really do need to use all the tools at your disposal…)

Especially with material you don’t know well, using key mixing is a godsend, so before we start, make sure you understand the rules of keymixing (read our 1-2-3 of Mixing in Key article for a refresher) and stick to them.

1. Prepare with your head

Smart DJs realise it all starts out with information. When you’re adding new music to your collection, make sure you spend that extra ten minutes to be critical and thorough on the metadata (tags) of your files before adding them to your DJ software database:

• Fix the track info – If the artist, title and remix are missing or incomplete, find the track on Discogs and use iTunes (if you use it), beaTunes or a tool like Jaikoz Audio Tagger to update the ID3 tags
• Sort your genres – Be critical here. Too many subgenres will mess up your ability to quickly search for a suitable track. Handpick the main genre you feel is appropriate for each new track
• Add BPM and key – Knowing the BPM and the key of a track are bare requirements for spontaneous mixing. Even though some DJ software is able to do its own BPM and key detection, it’s best to use a dedicated tool like Mixed In Key to update the metadata with the tempo and key, because even if you play a track your DJ software has never seen before, this ensures that the info is immediately available to you in your library when browsing

Immediately before you begin…
So here you are, you have all your tracks imported with accurate and complete metadata. At this stage, especially if you’re planning on mixing a whole bunch of material you don’t know so well, a bit of planning goes a long way.

Especially with material you don’t know well, using key mixing is a godsend…

Take a few minutes to think of what you want to achieve, the general build up and flow, optional change of (sub)genre and tempo, the interaction with the audience if applicable, and so on. With this in mind, pre-listen the intros of your fresh tracks.

If you use sync and beatgridding, now’s the time to look for any misalignment of first beats that could cause issues.

2. Plan with your eyes

With harmonic mixing especially, it is perfectly possible to perform long mixes without it sounding unnatural – as long as you know your tunes of course, so you can choose the best sections to mix.

But since you don’t know the music so well, the big questions are: What would be the best moment to start my mix? When are the drops? When are the buildups? How long is the intro of the other track? This is where a quick study of the waveforms of the tracks – or, as we like to refer to it, waveriding – will help you out immeasurably. For instance, take a look at the waveforms (bottom of the screengrab) of these two tunes:


We're interested in the waveform that shows the whole track; in this case, they are those at the bottom of the screengrab.

Here’s what we can deduce from the waveforms:

• Track 1 probably has a steady basic beat, bass only intro, drops, has a small build up and goes into full power followed by one more drop, longer build up, full power and build off
• Track 2 looks like a very gentle intro, steady opening with little drop, than long build up, full power, even longer build up and no true ending

When envisioning your mix, imagine the two waveforms on top of each other and keep any big difference in duration in mind (some software puts little lines at one-minute and five-minute intervals so you can see how long the segments you are looking at actually are in “real” time). For example, consider these:


The second buildup of the left track would be in sync with the first buildup of the right, both tracks “kicking in” again at the same time. It makes sense to to exit the left track immediately after the first buildup of the right track or right before the second buildup of the right track.

Of course in most software you won’t be able to see those two aligned like this when you’re previewing, and some software doesn’t even have parallel waveforms when you’re actually playing, so in those cases you have to estimate – but you quickly get a knack of working out how long segments are.

3. Mix with your ears

Ultimately it’s your ears that will take the decision when to start a mix. In most cases electronic music is very predictable. It is usually built up from patterns that contain eight bars of four beats, with these patterns repeating with variations. This predictability is nice for a dancing crowd and equally for the DJ.

If you realise you were a few bars too early or late you can just loop a bar on one of the decks to delay the track until your patterns line up the correct one…

Your biggest chance for getting the tracks aligned exactly as you’ve imagined it is to start the track at the point you estimate you should be starting with, not just with their beats but also their patterns in sync – just as you would anyway. But when you’re not familiar with the tracks, the usual counting in eight sets of four bars (“1, 2, 3, 4″ on the beat eight times) is especially important.

If you realise you were a few bars too early or late you can just loop a bar on one of the decks to delay the track until your patterns line up the correct one. As long as there are no vocals and not much other musical information going on, this can often be practically unnoticeable.

Once you got your second track started and in time, you can focus entirely on the mix. You’ve studied the tracks’ flow; you know when your exit is going to be. Now you can just be creative with mixing them together as you feel is most appropriate, using volume, EQ, filters – whatever your ears tells you sounds good.

Finally…

Finally, when mixing unfamiliar material, remember that simpler is nearly always better – best to get the tracks together tightly, professionally and with the minimum of fuss.

Also, always be aware that just around the corner there may be an element in one or other of the tracks that you’re not expecting that could make the mix start to sound wrong – so be ready to complete your mix if things start to go off at a less than ideal tangent!

• Jan Boerlage is a DJ and writer. Listen to his sets over on his Mixcloud page.

Have you ever been forced to play from someone else’s music, or for some other reason ended up DJing with a whole pile of track you don’t know? Do you enjoy doing this when practising, for instance, or to learn your new music? And tips and tricks you’d like to add?

Now go to:
Beginners’ Guide: The 1-2-3 of Mixing In Key
beaTunes 3.0 Review: No iTunes Required
From the Forum: What’s your #1 tip for using iTunes?

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