Become a Home DJ Now 2 - Mixing House Tracks

Cue in, fade out
So let’s get to the actual mixing in of 2 tracks. I will be using the free Kramixer for this session (download linked in part one), and tracks will be 2 very famous house tracks. One is Love is gone by David Guetta, and Armand van Helden’s My My My. There is not only one way you can do it, in fact this is where your individual creativity as a musician or artist can come out. It should just not sound unnerving to the listeners, that’s all. This means even a sudden move into the next track is not a problem, there are techniques in which you can mix in two tracks within few seconds. So let’s see how we can mix these 2 tracks in.

I have put Love is gone on left channel and My My My is waiting in line on right. The first step is the basic but most important one, in which the DJ has to identify the BPM of the tracks. On kramixer you have to click Determine BPM, and click with your mouse. Love is Gone is at 128 BPM, while My My My is 130 BPM. You don’t have to be bang on accurate, as the tracks will have to be sped up or down accordingly to match the beats. Some software will have a sync button that will automatically calculate BPMs and sync the tracks together, but that is cheating - there is no fun in that.

At 31 seconds remaining on Love is gone, we have the last measures of the beats, thus it's time to bring in the next track. Here we have plain beats in the beginning of My My My, thus the best thing is to loop 4 bars of it. How do we do that? Every software will have a loop button; this is derived straight from hardware DJ decks. Here we have to click start and stop loop exactly, so it sounds like a continuous stream of beats, but you the DJ will know that you are actually playing a small section of the song again and again to mix in.

Next one can go to the effects section and filter off the high frequencies of the cued track, there are knobs or faders for that. This facilitates easier camouflage of bringing the new song in seamlessly. After My My My is looped on, hear it on your headphones, or hear both songs together, and nudge it using the fader (see encircle) slightly, to match exactly with the beats of Love is gone.

Then once synced, you will hear a homogenous beat, and not 2 separate songs. Slowly turn the central pan fader(see circle) towards the right, because we are ending Love is gone on the left channel and going to My My My on the right channel. While doing this also try and smoothly open out the filter, somewhere mid way on the pan. Then as about one or two bars of Love is Gone is left, unloop the My My My track, so it goes on and progresses into the whole song. By now the filter should be opened , and the fader must be more towards the right, and gradually when the left channel track is over, the fader must be on the right totally, thus bringing in the new track.