The Art Of DJing: Lena Willikens - Mixing Out Of A Difficult Track
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2020
- Lena Willikens demonstrates different ideas for non-beat-matched transitions.
Read the full feature on RA: www.residentadvisor.net/featu...
Tracklist:
Evol - Ideal Acid / Side B
DJtadi Feat. DJKR - 7 diamond lines (version 2)
Thomas P Heckmann - The Sound Of Colour
Fred Giannelli - Glum
Juam Ramos - The Problem With Ambiguity And Finding Space
Monte Cazazza - First:Last 
Видеоклипы
this track sounds like downloaded demo of acid-house loop pack
There is no recognizable pattern in the track so literally anything can be played after and no one would notice the transition lol
It's a megamix
Its not about the track
Lmao
For real 😂
I love the vocal addition, changes the whole mood, taking the focus away from any obvious transition. True blend.
Please when the dj is mixing can you show what she is doing on the mixer and not just her face!
She only hit the play button and turning the bass in.
Its not really about the mixing as much as it is about the thinking behind it
She just push buttons. Nothing special 🤷🏻♂️
thought I wasn't the only one
just backspin tha shit out!!
I wish all people complaining and leaving negative comments here would count with half of Lena’s courage and humbleness. They’d sweat petrol to get out of that medley.
Good luck, haters!
I think the key is I wouldn't have been playing it haha
You could do a whole 2h Set with that Acid "Track". Two decks and loop the shit out of it.
my man! I like that thinking :) would be sick
A man after my own heart there
There's about 10 banging tracks in there!!
so good. thank you Lena. Thank you RA
Interesting tutorial. Its about choices and empathy with your audience more than technique
So many different vibes in all those transitions. She's my favorite dj at the moment, absolute master of the craft. Selections are absolutely insane.
the acid trak by evol is meant to ridicule, so if u find it terrible - that's just fine,
i understand this choice as a nice bad trip story, one can find itself in a loop of playing too hard acid tracks & needs a way to get out,
fun tutorial
woah thats an evol track? whats the title?
nevermindjust checked hhh
this is what I call ~content~. love it and respect!
- ’tis quite vexing to see that some people cannot keep their negativity for themselves. Expressing oneself is a right (by default), but - Verdomme Zeg - keep your rubbishy comments and opinions for yourselves, and please don’t contaminate the whole good vibe RA and the DJ are giving/showing here.
If you find yourself an expert, good for you, if you find this an utter waste of time, just carry on and save yourself some time by - not spreading your toxicity all over the internet -.
I seldom comment on RUclips, but this is the most depressing and saddest comment section I’ve witnessed so far.
Anyway, ... thanks for the upload and the good vibes. For the haters, find yourselves a Sauna to chill out!
Peace, ...
Well said
Bravo
Oh I see, people are not allowed an opinion? Or perhaps just not one that differs from your own?
It's called feedback and regardless of how it is verbalised or communicated it is genuine and very valid. Perhaps you'd rather live in a grey world but not I.
Andrés Celis brother I don’t know you but I’d just like to thank you for your comment. I genuinely fear this is a losing fight but it’s worth it! Keep preaching the love, there are so many out there who feel the same way as you ♥️
dylan vasey That’s so OBVIOUSLY not his point and I feel incredibly sad if you genuinely can’t see that, my brother. Peace ✌🏾
Since the very beginning, DJing has not been about transitions. It's about track selections, understanding emotions behind and building up their own stories. If you don't understand what she is talking about, you have no clue what is your mission behind the decks.
Building up those stories can be about how you make the transition as well. It's all part of DJing. Balancing all of those things makes a great track selection even better.
So if you go to a rave with good songs but the transitions are abrupt and out of phase you’d still rate it a 10/10? Because that to me is 6 or 7 at max, I love it when it seems like one ever changing melody and not a sloppy radio
youre right but also she is definitely talking about transitions too
ok boomer
Nothing to do with mixing tracks together?
NOTED! I am creating a folder of vocal heavy tracks/intros should I ever run into this situation. 😅 Great lesson. It's humbling to see masters of their craft finding themselves in difficult situations!
4:58 this is my favorite. I think it keeps the weird vibe going but it’s a less disjointed track and is something you can dance to. I like if there’s a disjointed off kilter track that then goes into something weird but hypnotic and not disjointed. We need cohesive tracks to dance to
There's only 1 way in and 1 way out, up to you the progression off approach. Great upload RA
"Relieve people from their pain" 😂
Ah yes, the oldest Dj trick in the book. The pain releaving transition.
Best believe my pain be relieving!
yeah the acid sample pack song caused me a lot of pain
Creating tension and release is fundamental to DJing and what separates a great DJ from a mediocre one. What she's talking about here is that the megamix track is very hectic and therefore creates a chaotic and tense mood. (The tension created by the megamix track is not the same kind of tension that a hypnotic loopy track has, but more unnerving due to its unpredictability.) As a DJ you can decide if you're going to create more tension by mixing to another weird track that clashes with the megamix, or to mix to something pleasant and harmonic that takes the crowd out of the tense feeling that track has created. The tension felt by the dancers is a kind of pain, though those who are less self-aware might not recognize it, and a lot of people don't care.
I would have been happy with second. Admirations for pushing forward with additional creative ways of transitioning.
Absolutely awesome work
I love this series!!!!!!!!!
- Willikens and Ivkovic: pound for pound the best DJing on the planet
- Some of you wish you could've pressed pause in 2006
- If you're sad she didn't do elaborate technical mixing I've got some rad guitar solos for you
- Wearing Bodysong Spring 2020 is an extraordinary flex
- Back to your caves everyone
You sound like a front row Boiler Roomie
@@omnirhythm thank you
sherbertskrrrt
I woulda gone in with a straight up 4/4 stomper but I like the chaos strategy.
A 4 or 8 bar loop with effects to next track wouldve been fine 🤷🏻♂️
Tom Kaos [Official] i was thinking exactly the same, creating loops and precise cue points before the set and then enjoy playing with it without the hassle of the « acid mix » changing measures and times and fuckin up the mix 😉👌🏻
Perhaps you should have your own series? Explaining the finer details of mixing to the world
rossworth When youre trying to mix 2 totally different tracks, your best bet is to Not do that, or bpm match and find a loop that hits great with other track 🤷🏻♂️
boring tho
Great vid !
anyone know the track mixed in at 2:10?
It's 2nd in the track list
Get stingray on the show! Master of transitions. Also pretty fun to have him play some vinyl
That fit is RIDICULOUS... soooo sick😤
She so looks like my supervisor at work! 😄I only wish she was though, she'd be cool to hang out with and clearly knows her stuff
😎👌🎧
Very useful! Often find myself painted in to a corner that I can't escape from by beat match.
Anyone knows the beautiful track she blends in at 3:50 ?
Thanks!
Shazam Amigo, Thomas P. Heckmann - The Sound of Colour
@@N1clasBerg The description, amigo
ADDING MORE CHAOS.
would be awesome to see one with Objekt!
I saw dixon making matchmaking transitions between songs that are 110 and 120, that's pretty amazing at least for me. He did it at ibiza.
Really helpful to use spoken word type tracks to mix out of a song like that. She's absolutely right that it distracted my ears. But it will be a bit tougher with vinyl and just two decks to get back out of the vocal track. Any ideas?
Plug your headphones into the microphone Jack and start mc ing your own set
I do this somewhat frequently, but the key is you must have the NEXT track kind of already lined up to transition out of the spoken word. Usually I'll keep it under my arm whilst I'm mixing out of the vocal track.
works okayish if you have a track with a beatless intro that fits the spoken word vibe, but you have to prepare for that, ie experiment with different cue points and speeds before you walk down this path in an actual mix.
Just have elite technique
Interesting conversation, that sounded like a 90’s acid megamix. Being that it’s unpredictable of what the next sound I would have mixed out on the 1 but you did a very good job.
I would have put the chaos track on a 4/4 loop and faded it to something with a beatless intro... but with such a messy track i feel like anything would work, people won't really notice the transition.
Alessandro Reginato same
I dont understand this megamix, its not realy a difficult track its more a random skipping through the acid folder and recording it. Not sure if this is the best example. Anyway I like the way how she is describing her thoughts about the solution finding process.
Scratch out of it on the 1 😀, make the chirps nice and tight with the kick drum ooh lala 🤗
You are like Robert Rauschenberg; a brilliant sound collage artist.
What the name of the track that starts at 1:49 in the video?
This "mad 'miga" mix. Them words caught me the first time 😂😂 Im guessing 'miga is Amiga, as it sounds like a tracker mod sample pack.
Nice!!!
Without fail, a cigarette while mixing
Always
I like her ideas about just changing rhythms and riding the mix until the transition takes place...
What's the problem to make a one bar loop and mix it like a normal track? Am I misssing something? :)
She could, and probably does often, but so does 99% of DJs. The aim of this series is to search a bit further, explore different techniques. Her tricks here are very basic and works well, yet few people use them.
It's very strange that track. It's not bad though. Would be useful as a sort of sampler on a 3-4 channel mixer
That song gives me anxiety man, fark
First Time I see Lena not smoking!
Just don't play such a horrible track in the first place, that would be my advice haha
Agreed!
It's a gem for some people. For example I can't wait to play it in a b2b set with a friend just for laughs. I can't wait to see his face lmao
Hahaha snap
sometimes part of the art is muddying the water though, and showing you can get out of it, shows character in a DJ
Agreed, thought the main objective was to send the crowd on a journey, not a fit 😆
I just wouldn’t play the damn track to begin with lol
that is tough, my 1st thought was to beat match it (since tempo was similar) and then just do a quick fade over 1 measure, it would prob sound terrible ahhaha
i respect her perspective and i think itrs supposed to be "general" advice but if you got youself a "bad" track you have to listen to it carefully and adapt yourself to it- so, in my opinion, that track is so inconsistent that you can mix in n out super quickly with any other breakbeaty acid house track in that same vein until you recognize some new consistency with the new track and just super quickly cut the older one
no need to user the equalizer just volume faders fast chops
3:29 Never saw anybody transition with the trim knobs. She kinda blew my mind right there.
Depending on the mixer and whether you got long faders or rotary.. Trim, gain can be a lot smoother less noticeable. I feel like some mixers especially newer ones seem to punch in or drop too fast from 6-10.. Rotary always seems way smoother.
Sound Vandal yeah but gain isnt like a rotatory fader. Its gain and it affects the audio signal which probably will lead into a red clippinh
@@ems4092 I only use the gain to take a song out or reduce its impact depending on the track.
Same
The pain is real
It is
Hahaha yup
I tapped my foot along to the acid mishmash and i think you maybe could beat match. I'd go for something with a long atmospheric pad intro like carl craigs remix of falling up by theo parrish, and fade the previous track out as falling up built. Though it was interesting watching and listening as the dj went through her thoughts.
If all fails London..acid..city. Apex
She is one of my favorites
Denglisch at it's finest
its pretty simple, very german to overthink it.
I hear acid, i like.
What the heck did I just watch? So innovative...
If the previous dj would play a track like that to give a hard time to people I would just wait for the track finish and watch crowds reaction to his selection. And it's his problem not mine
😂 I really, honestly to god gave her a chance but I really don't know what is happening here!? 🤔 I support the creativity and wish that so many dj sometimes breaks the rules, because the art of dj-ing is now really great, but stuck in a way for some year's. A lot of dj's sound similar, but this what she is doing is really just as she said pure chaos and makes no Fing sense.
Great to watch & try to understand, but I really don't understand why it's such a hard track to mix out of? Sure it's 'crazy' (for some, not me) but it's a straight tempo from what I can hear, so either mix to a beatmatched similar track with hard 909/acid style and switch back a couple of times to keep that crazy every-bar-is-a-different-track feel (love that!) or run it over to a track with an ambient/no-beat section which eventually switches into its own beat, switch out the bass on the first track and work it from there? If I'm missing the point slightly, let me know. Perhaps a lot of DJ's don't play enough stuff out of their 4/4 comfort zone?
"for some, not me"
i was thinking this aswell seems every bar had its own thing going on so why not loop segs, cut it up even switch eqs up a little layer into some other track that is tagged correctly for which ever direction you wanna go, but i think she said other than beatmatching etc. its good to see tho as near every video i see is "beatmatching" its refreshing.
@@wannescuypers3109 hahaha, ego much?
I'd recommend listening to the actual track - it's basically a mix and it does change tempo quite frequently and it doesn't necessarily change on every bar (sometimes 2 beats, 4 beats, 8, 16 etc) Aside from having some set loop point (boring) it'd be a pain to mix with.
Also, If you listen to what she's saying (cos it's about her mixing style rather than set templates for how to DJ) it's more about creating a cohensive blend or mood transition. The track is very unfocused (deliberately), she's talking beyond some arbitrary (find beat, do this thing) it's more about the mood and flow of things
Also literally every track she plays in this video isn't standard 4/4 so yeah... maybe chill out on the attitude
@@ADMdj yeah totally, I'd like to see deeper mixing examples discussed like mood/key/subject mixing. Love that first track though, reminds me of using old school drum sample vinyl which just plays many drum machine sounds in sequence :D
ok, now go & try joe - get centred
Awesome track thanks for the tip
@your average youtube commenter yh bc its in 7/8, but leif did it on his latest boiler room around 21min, go check ;)
is that meant to be difficult? idk the track but dont @ me unless its a track by aphex twin
Jumping from a wierd acid megamix into some obscure beatless piece is way to wierd and kills the whole trip. Ok the guy wend really north with that megamix but after that you jump to the south pole in 2 seconds... just doesn't cut it. Where do you go from there!?
Up the tempo? Mix out quickly with another beatless intro track? or just.... MAYBE SHE PLAYS VENUES THAT CAN TOLERATE THAT SORT OF THING. Jeez is everyone here out to make music the least challenging art form?
The true democracy is to let play the good and the bad. This time the bad got a chance....
Seems to me that the 'hard track to mix out of' was something meant to be looped like loops on a vinyl record, not meant to be played sequentially. That's a great concept actually to spice up more monotonous tracks.
I was thinking loops too
Her shirt/top is the beesz kneez...
Bam bam v's Richard Sen LOL
all of these tricks doesnt work in front of a not so music educated crowd.
ra should just disable comments on all platforms like they did on their site. love lena. thanks for the vid \m/
Why bother just leave the place with the rest of the people.
That would have been a problem with vinyl
but in 2020?
_loops_
Less pain and more stress? You can say that again. I just wouldnt play it lol.
huh?
" I've never laughed so hard at a DJing session
" 😂🤣😜
Thanks for the nice moment 🌹👍✨Thanks !
😢
Did she really waste 9 minutes talking about this? If that track was playing nobody would be dancing so mixing out of it smoothly wouldn’t even matter.
I almost had cancer watching this !
2 words.....auto loop with a delay out
Who’s in charge of content?
Why not just cut a loop and mix out of that instead 🤷🏻♂️
This is a sample Pack preview but not a track!
Salon des Amateurs - Forever
Holy crap...
Since when "the art of DJing" became fading out a track into a beatless one?
Art... Dear god
You'll better use 9 minutes of your life by simply doing nothing
The art is apparently masking a mix between two shitty tracks by layering heavy effects to make it sound cool.
?
Best transition wouldve been to go back in time and say "I don't want to hear a crazy......mediocre track"!
How to mix out of a difficult track? Apparently just throw your crossfader over? Oh you mean a cut.
dylan vasey ha ha to be fair I did have a chuckle at this comment of yours ✌🏾
She's using the gain a lot 🤔 anybody else do this? Thought it's just for fine tuning the level
Thx for advice
mixing with gain is super useful, can make quiet parts like intos shes using her sound loud so the club energy doesn't stop and also a lot easier to accurately change volumes than using the faders. as long as you remember to edit the gain back before the beat comes in youll be fine
lol 115bpm acid tracks in 4/4 being "difficult", good luck with breakcore or experimental club music
You need some 12’s and records to teach the “Art of Djing” IJS
should've just looped the track
Love you Lena, you're awesome but possibly the worst advice/technique for mixing I have ever seen, do not do this people!!
She does her best with what she has, but let's be honest, that track is just awful
Yeah I don't think the point of this vid is how to mix out of a megamix. No one should be playing that out, that's something for promo CDs and SoundCloud previews. The point is to demonstrate a bunch of different techniques to quickly get out of a tough song, using vocals, ambience, whatever. I was fully expecting her to use loops at some point but surprised she left that out.
Sorry, don’t like to be harsh, but that is really bang average. Many, many better ways to mix out of a “difficult” track and this just screams amateurish to me
Both the track and the “mix” are dumb AF. What is this ?
Raphy Martinez the whole point is that the track is really difficult to mix out of....
She's mixing all tracks that are made up of quantized loops. Give her two 80's tracks and see how she does with that.
I’m sorry, but I feel pain now.
Please do not overestimate this... it’s really easy! DJ’ing is not only about the technique but the taste and capacity to identify quality music whatever the style you play. This is NOT quality music 🤦🏻♂️