Breaking the BPM Rut

[Funkedub]

Often when doing a long set there's a propensity to get stuck in a rut of mixing tracks at the same BPM and there's a need/desire to chop and change the tempo by more than 5 or 10 BPM

What tricks and tips do you recommend for building it up or breaking it back down?

vocal samples ?

intros with atmospheric pads?

abrupt changes?

what works for you?

what's painfully cheesey and clichéd ?

[gamblore]

I totally believe in letting a song play out, and then dropping a song with a big intro, without drums. It has the potential to clear the floor, but it's a great mood changer/crowd lifter and when done properly, starts the party back up again. It get's everyone to stop and take notice. I've seen it done a couple of times, and it's always been mental, as long as you have the bomb to drop after the music stops.

[havik]

Unless you're playing 3min tunes, I just knock back/more 0.5 to 1.0% off the pitch every 16bars - its a slow enough progression most people wont notice.

Otherwise, if playing vinyl, wait to some breakdown, change the pitch in the breakdown and let the drums kick through at a different tempo.

There's the play and acapella thing, let a track finish, speed up/down the acapella then mix a new track under it.

Any synthy/stringy tunes will always highlight pitch changes.

[crazy_tripper]

depends on the songs... sometimes it's possible to cross when they both have breakdowns, other times if the track has a vocal sample at the start then do a bit of a scratch then drop

recently i've been trying to work on constantly pushing the tempo up by dropping in tracks that have been pitched down to mix into then slowly speeding them up, repeat etc. so that i can start off with slowish hip hop and end up with breaks/house type stuff

[Garthyboy]

R R R R R REWIND
hhahahaha

[Funkedub]

R R R R R REWIND
hhahahaha



http://www.loldjs.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/bumbaklut.jpg

[DJ D one]

Was experimenting with that last week, I would do like Havik in a way, on the breakdown, do a little reverse scratch the vocal at the same time blast the slider down, then mix out...when you ready...

D1

[Marc Us]

use accapella to bridge 2 tracks, filter outgoing track if efects avail

thats 1 way i do it sometimes

[Andrew Wowk]

I like doing feedback loops on EFX-1000, washing it out to this big white noise, then dropping in the track that's a diff BPM

[Bracko]

indeed.

wall of sound then drop next track.

or try and blend the breakdowns over eachother, can work well or you'll burn a very public and bad death.

[littlebrains69]

^^^I think for alot of people the latter is more likely...

[Majestyk]

Works really well when you have a breakdown of one song and a build up of another song so you can slowly bring out the breakdown of one while the other builds. Works best when the one with the breakdown has a sustained sound...

[littlebrains69]

But this is all really hard to achieve when they are both such differing tempos. If they are beatmatched sure, but funkdub was talking about chopping or changing temp by more than 5 / 10 bpm. And having two breakdowns playing at once or taking one breakdown and one buildup at different bpms (5-10 difference) can turn into a monster train wreck if you arn't a superstar dj.

[Majestyk]

^^^ That's why i said it works when part of the breakdown is a long sustained sound. This way beatmatching is largely not an issue. So you fade out the sustained sound as the build up of the incoming track is brought in...

[littlebrains69]

Ah I see what your getting at.. In my head i was thinking of a continuing melody clashing with another.

[Bracko]

superstar DJ?

man i wish i could be a famous DJ so i can mix..... WTF?

just practice it. the whole point of blending in the breakdown is that there's no beat to notice the difference. you should know how to key mix if you're attempting this and... obviously.... know your tracks well.

[Majestyk]

superstar DJ?

man i wish i could be a famous DJ so i can mix..... WTF?

just practice it. the whole point of blending in the breakdown is that there's no beat to notice the difference. you should know how to key mix if you're attempting this and... obviously.... know your tracks well.

THANK YOU! Unfortunately I'm semi-retarded and can never get my point across.:thumb:

[gamblore]

indeed.

wall of sound then drop next track.

or try and blend the breakdowns over eachother, can work well or you'll burn a very public and bad death.


Sebastian and Kavinsky fucking owned this technique last night. They were going from like a hip hop tempo (110 ish) to a thumping and grinding 135 ish and back again all night. And they had the crowd eating out the palm of their hand!!!

[walkingdisaster]

Sebastian and Kavinsky fucking owned this technique last night. They were going from like a hip hop tempo (110 ish) to a thumping and grinding 135 ish and back again all night. And they had the crowd eating out the palm of their hand!!!


Thats fine when used sparingly...

Not when that is all they can fucking do,
Kavinsky couldnt beat match to save his life.

[Bumpy]

have you asked him if he can?

[rounser]

Thats fine when used sparingly...
Why?

I think most people would be satisfied with a fade-in/fade-out so long as the music choice was good. It's just cultural norms which say "beatmix is the default". Leads to long parts of the set where not much interesting is happening, in many cases.

Not when that is all they can fucking do,
Kavinsky couldnt beat match to save his life.
No point getting egotistic about being able to beatmix when it's about as hard to learn as driving a car.

[walkingdisaster]

Why?

I think most people would be satisfied with a fade-in/fade-out so long as the music choice was good. It's just cultural norms which say "beatmix is the default". Leads to long parts of the set where not much interesting is happening, in many cases.

No point getting egotistic about being able to beatmix when it's about as hard to learn as driving a car.



Yeah but when he is djing as much as he does you'd think he would bother to learn.

As you said its not that hard.

I listened to a set from him recently on the fools gold tour or whatever and its just painful listening to the train wrecks he makes when he does try and beatmix. His song selection is awesome tho

[gamblore]

Yeah but when he is djing as much as he does you'd think he would bother to learn.

Yeah I agree, if it is as easy to learn as driving a car, then fucking learn to do it, it's your job!!! I also agree that it should be used sparingly, but it was detroying the dancefloor, everyone loved it! Huge hands in the air, mosh session, everytime! It may be a pain the ass to listen to it recorded, but live may be totally different, that's why sometimes live mixes don't sound too good, it doesn't come with the atmosphere and energy of the crowd.

I think most people would be satisfied with a fade-in/fade-out so long as the music choice was good.

I think when your mixing, you have to change it up. If you are doing long mixes ever mix, then I would be bored as shit. It is one technique that can be used, just like the fade in/fade out, it is one effective technique, but if it is used more than a few times, I would be far from satified.

[Skerik]

i got my dancefloor to 148 on sat nite... started @ 128 bpm and 3 hours later found myself motoring along with deeklines mix of Prodigy's Outer Space

I'm forever playin with the tempo of a set, 4 hours of the same tempo would annoy me...