How to DJ by Tom Frederikse

Author:Tom Frederikse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

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TIPS

MAKE SURE YOU CAN AT LEAST PLAY A TUNE ON A DJ-STYLE CD PLAYER, AS THEY ARE BECOMING A COMMON FEATURE IN MANY CLUBS.

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TECHNIQUE

Let’s go back to basics for a moment. What is different about mixing with CDs in terms of technique? The biggest difference is the interface. Where you can manipulate records with your hand to find, say, a cue point, with a CD player cueing up is different altogether.

Most machines have two modes for cueing up, automatic and manual. In auto mode the player will automatically stop just a split-second (usually a frame, of which there are 75 frames per second) ahead of the first sound on the track. This is great for any situation where you don’t have to mix, but less than ideal for beat mixing or rhythmic drop mixing as the first sound of a track is often not the first beat. However, it is great for warm-up applications. Some manufacturers have systems whereby two CD players play one track each continuously, or alternately off two CDs, allowing the lazy DJ to provide ambience without being anywhere near the DJ booth.

Cueing up the CD manually has more in common with (the music production technique of) sampling a record. This is because using either a ‘jog wheel’ (a huge rotary controller), backwards/forwards buttons or whatever means of control you have available – different manufacturers have come up with variations on this theme – you will find the exact point just before the first beat, to the nearest frame. You then set this as your cue point, usually with a cue button. This makes drop mixing easy as you just have to hit play on the beat as you bring the crossfader over.

If you are cueing up the first beat of the first bar of a phrase, you will need to recognise exactly what the ‘attack’ of a drum sound sounds like. The ‘attack’ is the initial percussive impact of a drum sound, such as the ‘puh!’ just before or at the boom of a kick drum. At normal speed you would hardly be aware of the different parts of the sound, but when scratching or cueing up a tune digitally, you will be able to listen your way through the component parts of a sound such as a drum hit.

CDs also enable you to imitate a vinyl DJ’s technique. Some new machines can set multiple cue points in a track, allowing you to set your creatively-chosen cue points in addition to a point to start your mix from. By using the play and re-cue functions on your player you can then cut these excerpts into your mix.

Cueing Up

As for beat mixing, it is just the same as with records (by using the pitch-adjustment slider) with the exception that the initial drop mix is as described above. Some manufacturers have now introduced a record-shaped interface which allows you to control the CD as if it were a record, but this is really more to encourage scratching rather than to get DJs mixing exactly as they would on vinyl.

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