Thank you Phil, after teaching myself on a tight budget and starting to become a little bit disillusioned with my progress and frustrated at my having to use streaming services that, in my mind it seems, offer only short tight difficult busy tracks, rather than buying music which in my mind provide perfect never ending magical mythical mix frendly masterpieces, this video has saved me. You have restored hope and given me a second wind. Your skill is obvious but your energy, enthusiasm and no nonsense approach is an inspiration. This just got me back on it and for that i say thank you. Excellent stuff.
Phil this was great! I’ve been doing weddings and freestyle Dj ing since 1999 and I was able to get some new information from you. Especially about organizing and mixing. I love how you say it. It makes sense. It made me realize know matter all the bells and whistles you still need to read the crowd. I did purchase the wedding Dj class and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Have just joined and received the 2 books. Massively appreciate it and will help me as just started my digital journey with an FLX4 after using 1210’s before. 👍
Sync button is fine. I still prefer to not sync it because it sometimes do weird things I don’t want to, but in a rush I will activate and deactivate just to get the bpm quickly matched. Love your analogy about not using cars because cars are cheating 😂
I keep finding old videos where you explain in a perfect fashion things that I have been trying to discuss and/or explain for 25 years with mixed results. No pun.
Extra tip for Rekordbox users: you can enable phrase analysis for your tracks. It basically shows a ribbon under the waveform with tags for chorus, intro, outro etc. I don't know how it is in Rekordbox 6, since I still use 5, but beware, it's very inaccurate and you most likely will need to adjust it. (pretty easy, can be done from the grid adjust tab)
If you know the song, you should be able to tell where everything is by looking at the waveform. You can just cue point a few key areas you may want to get to quicly like the drops, start of buildups, specific words to a vocal if you're into that. . .
Hi. Great lesson here ! As a novice i'm glad to say that i knew most (if not all) of these things ... but there are two things that you forgot to say (because you are speaking to novices like me). I know how to prepare a song, to set cues and loops, to prepare mini sets, how to quickly go from one song to the next but i'm not yet a good DJ for two reasons, two things that i don't do that much and that are foundamental as well: 1- often update the library !!! You need to have the new songs that someone will surely ask. Updating library often will take a little weekly time, doing it only the day before the gig will be a massive work if you want to prepare songs properly. 2- Practice !! You may have the best songs and you also may know how to mix those but if you are not trained some error and mistakes could happen... (An "error" means that you do something wrong and silence will come instead of the next song or when you push the cue in the wrong way so you shift the cue point in a terrible position ..... or when you wait one bar more and you get out of the song when the second verse was just started) ... and the crowd's enjoying and fun (and your own feelings) could fall to ground level and you will have to strart again from zero to get them "yours".
10:33 no, in Traktor, to this god forsaken day (I last checked a few weeks ago), that is a lacking feature You can use the different kinds of cue points to kind of work around this but it's very limited and also can create side effects (like fade in fade out cue points...) but a fundamental feature like choosing a color for a cue point is not available in Traktor. I like how the NI forum team even had the audacity to ask the feature requester for a user story as to why that is important to him. I would phrase it this way. "As a DJ who sees what the competitors have implemented years ago, I would like NI to give at least one f*ck about features that are industry standard, so that I am not fundamentally disappointed every 10 minutes in Traktor despite it being a great software overall"
I'm a complete amateur DJ, and my 3-4 years, I've only been working with short songs (indie electro, indie dance, new funk/nu disco, hip hop), and always thought I was doing it wrong. Within 5 mins of this video, I realised I'm doing it just fine. So, thank you for this! Only thing is that I work without a laptop (more fun for me), and hence, keep a physical sheet of paper with all my cue points written down (as I like to bring back previous songs & loop certain sections over other songs, and, there are not enough cue points for fun ideas, per song, on my MCX8000). Secondly, with SO MUCH music out there (I mean, it's an abyss), would using indie tracks, as opposed to commercial or super popular songs, in your tutorials not be possible? I am sure that there are 1000's of good...no, brilliant indie artists/composers/beat makers who would allow you to use their music without the fun police shutting you down, as it would mean free promotion & appreciation for their work...? I know I would. Just curious about this.
Yeah, it would Dave. Currently the major record labels are getting really on top with use of their music in public, so maybe we should try harder to do assemble a pool of indie producers whose music we could use.
If you had your upcoming song starting with a pick up measure and say it starts on the 3rd beat of the bar Could you either do the fade out strategy or the cut but cut in on the 3rd beat giving the new tune chance to slot in nicely
Hi Phil - so as a mobile wedding Dj - would you still use smart sync ? And would you Maintain sync on track Load ? I go back and forth between these settings over past year or 2. Sometimes i don’t realize the sync is still on later in the night and then i put a song on a deck and the BPM is playing say: real slower and I realize i have to hit Shift & sync two times to turn off completely! Am i just screwed up in the Head >LOl 😂
Hi Phil - Although I have already purchased the new 'Mixing for Mobile DJs...' course I have only just watched this video about using 'Radio edits'. One thing I have noticed creeping into the new course - and this video - when talking about key-mixing, is your use of the term 'semi-tone'. As a non-musically trained DJ/non-musician, can you explain what this is, especially in relation to the Camelot wheel system of key-matching? Is it simply one number up/down from the track you are currently playing (ignoring the A/B suffix to the number)? e.g. moving from, for example, 7A/B to either 6A/B or 8A/B ??? Thanks.
A semitone is one NOTE up or down. If you engage key shift on DJ gear and press the "+1" button, and the song gets a note higher, that's a semitone. (Or if you have keylock turned off and speed a song up approx. 4% on the pitch control - that's a semitone rise in pitch, too. However, it is definitely NOT 6A to 7A for instance - that isn't how that notation works.
Unrelated but isn't Take On Me 86 bpm and As it Was 87 bpm? I know the whole thing with halfing and doubling the bpm but just wanted to bring that to your attention. When I let Serato analyze those files it did the same but when I redid the grid I realized that it was doubled. I've found that songs don't get much faster than 140 bpm and anything more, you can assume it's a software error. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish if the song is really 60 bpm or 120.
Practically, it doesn't make any difference, as you can sync half/double songs together as if they were the same BPM. To me, the two tracks mentioned are fast songs, hence I prefer the fast BPM choice. An 80-90 BPM song is to me a slow track, hip hop etc. But as I say - doesn't matter when it comes to beatmixing!
One thing is, not ALL Radio Edits/Versions are what everyone wants to hear/know. A good (in fact, the best) example is Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”. These days, you DON’T hear the Radio Version (the 1988 remake single that’s more uptempo) any more, you only hear the 1987 album version, which itself is a remake of the 1982 song. While the ‘88 single isn’t bad, it’s not the version people wanted. (Why it’s called “1988 Radio Remix” is beyond me.)
Sorry Phil, I don't agree with you on the use of sync. I do a lot of radio edit mixing and I use a lot of vocal intros, straight in to the chorus at the end of a chorus ...3,4,1..., and they don't start on the 1. If there's a silence before the vocal, sure you can use a silent 1st beat to get the vocal right, but often I have to start the vocal as if I would sing along. The easiest way to do that is to do it manually, but it takes some understanding and practice to get the timing right. Looping is also something I try to avoid using radio edits, as there's rarely even 1 beat to loop without parts of the vocal. 1 tip: If you've been doing chorus to chorus mixing with a lot of energy for a while, there's nothing wrong taking the energy down starting a song with a well know vocal that will build up the energy again. If there's a instrumental intro before vocal, I start that with the fader up, set a loop on a 1 beat word on the outgoing song and drop the the mid as I use the hp filter, dropping it out slowly like an echo, letting the instrumental take over just before I do the switch over to the vocal in the new song. A typical song I use this way is One Direction - Story of my life. Always get the girls going crazy, and skipping the vocal intro in this song would be wrong. The whole transition is 32 beats (15 sec), but gives you that silent moment before the energy kicks of again. Finally: I don't care if DJs are using sync to get the music in beat, BUT don't suggest i takes a lot of time setting a manual mix on modern gear having analyzed music. It's literately a couple of seconds, at most, if you have the skill. AND, if you only use sync and expect the latest gear and suddenly there's a couple of the first gen CDJ-2000's in front of you, and you suddenly can't play songs in beat even if your life depend on it, you're done.
Wow, so I won't watch your videos and talk about the good tips anymore of you are so worried about a SoundCloud link. It was literally all example of what you talked about, not a plug. These DJs want to learn right? Oh I forgot only on your terms buying you're courses right... .
You can use the Sync button, bur learning thenold.way is a skill so if something goes wrongy ou know the mechanics and how to fix it instinctively. Inuse sync while live remixing with remix decks or 3 or 4 decks. But oldnhouse music and freestyle are a tough deal to accurately beat grid every song. So you'll need to be able to chase beats. Its a skill not to be forgotten or discounted because of technology advances. Be spinning sice 83 allot has changed but I love using vinyl DVS withbmy pitch controls, but DJs should know the history and the techniques regardless ofnhownold it shows how rounded we are, I can picknup any real records and no software and rock like on PC.... just saying. Not madness its skill, abilities and know how. Just saying. But love your videos and help you provide
Thank you Phil, after teaching myself on a tight budget and starting to become a little bit disillusioned with my progress and frustrated at my having to use streaming services that, in my mind it seems, offer only short tight difficult busy tracks, rather than buying music which in my mind provide perfect never ending magical mythical mix frendly masterpieces, this video has saved me. You have restored hope and given me a second wind. Your skill is obvious but your energy, enthusiasm and no nonsense approach is an inspiration. This just got me back on it and for that i say thank you. Excellent stuff.
Thank you John, I am really glad this has got you back on track!
I took all his classes, Phil is awesome! I learned so much from this guy. Get his courses, you can thank me later. Thank you Phil, you are the best!
Cheque’s in the post! Seriously though thanks for this, so glad to have helped you - Phil
Phil this was great! I’ve been doing weddings and freestyle Dj ing since 1999 and I was able to get some new information from you. Especially about organizing and mixing. I love how you say it. It makes sense. It made me realize know matter all the bells and whistles you still need to read the crowd. I did purchase the wedding Dj class and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thanks, Scott!
Amazing I'm a teacher myself and it's easy to see how passionate you are . Hence your success ❤
Thank you so much!
Thanks Phil for another great show! Always so relaxing while listening to your voice, always helpful, stay awesome :)
Glad to help Solaris!
You read my mind 😂. I've been trying to figure out tricks to mix these short tracks for the last couple of weeks
You can do it!
Have just joined and received the 2 books. Massively appreciate it and will help me as just started my digital journey with an FLX4 after using 1210’s before. 👍
Welcome to the community, Ed!
Sync button is fine. I still prefer to not sync it because it sometimes do weird things I don’t want to, but in a rush I will activate and deactivate just to get the bpm quickly matched. Love your analogy about not using cars because cars are cheating 😂
Yeah, it is there if you want it - that's my point
@@digitaldjtips yes. I am saying I agree with you.
I keep finding old videos where you explain in a perfect fashion things that I have been trying to discuss and/or explain for 25 years with mixed results. No pun.
You're welcome!
U da man Phil!! amazing channel
Glad to help
Extra tip for Rekordbox users: you can enable phrase analysis for your tracks. It basically shows a ribbon under the waveform with tags for chorus, intro, outro etc.
I don't know how it is in Rekordbox 6, since I still use 5, but beware, it's very inaccurate and you most likely will need to adjust it. (pretty easy, can be done from the grid adjust tab)
Thanks for the tip!
If you know the song, you should be able to tell where everything is by looking at the waveform. You can just cue point a few key areas you may want to get to quicly like the drops, start of buildups, specific words to a vocal if you're into that. . .
The Mobile DJ Course will be my next purchase.
🙌
Hi. Great lesson here !
As a novice i'm glad to say that i knew most (if not all) of these things ... but there are two things that you forgot to say (because you are speaking to novices like me). I know how to prepare a song, to set cues and loops, to prepare mini sets, how to quickly go from one song to the next but i'm not yet a good DJ for two reasons, two things that i don't do that much and that are foundamental as well:
1- often update the library !!! You need to have the new songs that someone will surely ask. Updating library often will take a little weekly time, doing it only the day before the gig will be a massive work if you want to prepare songs properly.
2- Practice !! You may have the best songs and you also may know how to mix those but if you are not trained some error and mistakes could happen... (An "error" means that you do something wrong and silence will come instead of the next song or when you push the cue in the wrong way so you shift the cue point in a terrible position ..... or when you wait one bar more and you get out of the song when the second verse was just started) ... and the crowd's enjoying and fun (and your own feelings) could fall to ground level
and you will have to strart again from zero to get them "yours".
Thanks for sharing! Of course both of those things apply to all DJing, not only radio edits (the subject of this tutorial)
Great video. Most songs up until the early 1970’s topped out at 3 minutes
That's true! there was that "bit in the middle" when pop songs got longer, till recently.
10:33
no, in Traktor, to this god forsaken day (I last checked a few weeks ago), that is a lacking feature
You can use the different kinds of cue points to kind of work around this but it's very limited and also can create side effects (like fade in fade out cue points...) but a fundamental feature like choosing a color for a cue point is not available in Traktor. I like how the NI forum team even had the audacity to ask the feature requester for a user story as to why that is important to him.
I would phrase it this way.
"As a DJ who sees what the competitors have implemented years ago, I would like NI to give at least one f*ck about features that are industry standard, so that I am not fundamentally disappointed every 10 minutes in Traktor despite it being a great software overall"
They do have special "marker" cue points though which nobody else has, to be fair to them.
I'm a complete amateur DJ, and my 3-4 years, I've only been working with short songs (indie electro, indie dance, new funk/nu disco, hip hop), and always thought I was doing it wrong. Within 5 mins of this video, I realised I'm doing it just fine. So, thank you for this! Only thing is that I work without a laptop (more fun for me), and hence, keep a physical sheet of paper with all my cue points written down (as I like to bring back previous songs & loop certain sections over other songs, and, there are not enough cue points for fun ideas, per song, on my MCX8000).
Secondly, with SO MUCH music out there (I mean, it's an abyss), would using indie tracks, as opposed to commercial or super popular songs, in your tutorials not be possible? I am sure that there are 1000's of good...no, brilliant indie artists/composers/beat makers who would allow you to use their music without the fun police shutting you down, as it would mean free promotion & appreciation for their work...? I know I would. Just curious about this.
Yeah, it would Dave. Currently the major record labels are getting really on top with use of their music in public, so maybe we should try harder to do assemble a pool of indie producers whose music we could use.
I would love to send you some of my music to use in videos. Cheers loved the videos.
If you had your upcoming song starting with a pick up measure and say it starts on the 3rd beat of the bar
Could you either do the fade out strategy or the cut but cut in on the 3rd beat giving the new tune chance to slot in nicely
either!
Probably add to the list of tips, which is probably a given anyway is to practice,practice,practice..
Yeah of course! :)
Does that controller works with serato dj pro
Hi Phil - so as a mobile wedding Dj - would you still use smart sync ? And would you Maintain sync on track Load ? I go back and forth between these settings over past year or 2. Sometimes i don’t realize the sync is still on later in the night and then i put a song on a deck and the BPM is playing say: real slower and I realize i have to hit Shift & sync two times to turn off completely! Am i just screwed up in the Head >LOl 😂
I’d have smart on but not to maintain on load
Hi Phil - Although I have already purchased the new 'Mixing for Mobile DJs...' course I have only just watched this video about using 'Radio edits'.
One thing I have noticed creeping into the new course - and this video - when talking about key-mixing, is your use of the term 'semi-tone'. As a non-musically trained DJ/non-musician, can you explain what this is, especially in relation to the Camelot wheel system of key-matching? Is it simply one number up/down from the track you are currently playing (ignoring the A/B suffix to the number)? e.g. moving from, for example, 7A/B to either 6A/B or 8A/B ??? Thanks.
A semitone is one NOTE up or down. If you engage key shift on DJ gear and press the "+1" button, and the song gets a note higher, that's a semitone. (Or if you have keylock turned off and speed a song up approx. 4% on the pitch control - that's a semitone rise in pitch, too. However, it is definitely NOT 6A to 7A for instance - that isn't how that notation works.
Great Video for beginners (and others l guess) Phil,,
Glad you enjoyed it
Unrelated but isn't Take On Me 86 bpm and As it Was 87 bpm? I know the whole thing with halfing and doubling the bpm but just wanted to bring that to your attention. When I let Serato analyze those files it did the same but when I redid the grid I realized that it was doubled. I've found that songs don't get much faster than 140 bpm and anything more, you can assume it's a software error. It's sometimes difficult to distinguish if the song is really 60 bpm or 120.
Practically, it doesn't make any difference, as you can sync half/double songs together as if they were the same BPM. To me, the two tracks mentioned are fast songs, hence I prefer the fast BPM choice. An 80-90 BPM song is to me a slow track, hip hop etc. But as I say - doesn't matter when it comes to beatmixing!
Gotcha, thanks. Love your stuff!
Did virtual DJ give you my way of djing because this is how dj hecknatic teach me how to dj back in 2006 😮 and yes this is how i do mobile dj djing
Great :)
One thing is, not ALL Radio Edits/Versions are what everyone wants to hear/know. A good (in fact, the best) example is Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again”. These days, you DON’T hear the Radio Version (the 1988 remake single that’s more uptempo) any more, you only hear the 1987 album version, which itself is a remake of the 1982 song. While the ‘88 single isn’t bad, it’s not the version people wanted. (Why it’s called “1988 Radio Remix” is beyond me.)
Good point! Let's rephrase that as "the most popular version".
@@digitaldjtips I still don’t know why David Coverdale needed three different versions! (Well, the slight lyric change not withstanding.)
Virtual DJ now matches the key for you automatically when you load the track.
Good to know, would have to test it to see if it does it the way we teach though.
That's what she said 5:35
hi phil i have update my mac bookk pro (x el capitan) noww i cant get ddj rb driver.can u help
👍👍👍👍👍👍
Sorry Phil, I don't agree with you on the use of sync. I do a lot of radio edit mixing and I use a lot of vocal intros, straight in to the chorus at the end of a chorus ...3,4,1..., and they don't start on the 1. If there's a silence before the vocal, sure you can use a silent 1st beat to get the vocal right, but often I have to start the vocal as if I would sing along. The easiest way to do that is to do it manually, but it takes some understanding and practice to get the timing right. Looping is also something I try to avoid using radio edits, as there's rarely even 1 beat to loop without parts of the vocal. 1 tip: If you've been doing chorus to chorus mixing with a lot of energy for a while, there's nothing wrong taking the energy down starting a song with a well know vocal that will build up the energy again. If there's a instrumental intro before vocal, I start that with the fader up, set a loop on a 1 beat word on the outgoing song and drop the the mid as I use the hp filter, dropping it out slowly like an echo, letting the instrumental take over just before I do the switch over to the vocal in the new song. A typical song I use this way is One Direction - Story of my life. Always get the girls going crazy, and skipping the vocal intro in this song would be wrong. The whole transition is 32 beats (15 sec), but gives you that silent moment before the energy kicks of again. Finally: I don't care if DJs are using sync to get the music in beat, BUT don't suggest i takes a lot of time setting a manual mix on modern gear having analyzed music. It's literately a couple of seconds, at most, if you have the skill. AND, if you only use sync and expect the latest gear and suddenly there's a couple of the first gen CDJ-2000's in front of you, and you suddenly can't play songs in beat even if your life depend on it, you're done.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts DJ Peter
Wow, so I won't watch your videos and talk about the good tips anymore of you are so worried about a SoundCloud link. It was literally all example of what you talked about, not a plug. These DJs want to learn right? Oh I forgot only on your terms buying you're courses right...
.
No idea what you're talking about Eric?
Eric seems a bit drunk 🤔
What a wrong way of teaching djing… basically not mixing… all the respect for other videos but not this one.
Thanks for your feedback Fabio, we would argue this is far from "wrong", DJing and mixing are not the same thing.
This is bul***t - only theory. Show in practice your theory! Show how you mix radio edits!
You can use the Sync button, bur learning thenold.way is a skill so if something goes wrongy ou know the mechanics and how to fix it instinctively. Inuse sync while live remixing with remix decks or 3 or 4 decks. But oldnhouse music and freestyle are a tough deal to accurately beat grid every song. So you'll need to be able to chase beats. Its a skill not to be forgotten or discounted because of technology advances. Be spinning sice 83 allot has changed but I love using vinyl DVS withbmy pitch controls, but DJs should know the history and the techniques regardless ofnhownold it shows how rounded we are, I can picknup any real records and no software and rock like on PC.... just saying. Not madness its skill, abilities and know how. Just saying. But love your videos and help you provide
All true words, which is why our flagship DJ courses ALWAYS start with manual beatmixing
@@digitaldjtips great lessons and work you guys do