Playing Live/DJing/Tempo

J

JonForner

New member
Hi guys.
First post here, eek!

So A friend and I have a gig this month, pretty big, supporting Young Montana? S. Maharba and Letherette (If you're familiar with them).

We've played gigs before, and we've just been lazy with mixing. We'd play a track, and upon its ending, drowned it in reverb and fade it out - and then just bring in a new track. No beat matching, nothing.

We're cool with that. To be honest, I prefer that method because one constant mix for a live set can become tiresome. However, with the above artists, we're going to have to step up our game and start doing this.

I just really need some tips. Problem is, a lot of our work is of varied tempos, very loose (no quantise on purpose) and a mixture of samples and synths. Take a listen here to see how varied our stuff is.

soundcloud.com/blankandkytt
Click to expand...

I use Ableton Live 8. I've tried warping, but due to all the small nuances in our music the majority of tracks DO NOT warp well at all. For those that do, it's very hard to beat match our stuff because no two beats fit together well (because kicks/snares are out, on purpose. Think Madlib style).

Aside from these problems, there's two of us, running two separate machines with two separate instances of Live.

So, does anyone have any tips of how we can tidy up our set? Or is the problem in the set up itself; strange tracks, loose fitting, and two of us playing through two separate machines?

Thanks!
 
build ups, rolls, break downs are your friend.... snare roll comes in drop into the next track at a chorus. make sure its harmonic.
 
how bout this

for each of your tracks
for live purposes only
make a 4 to 8 bar intro and outro
that is quantized... just the intro and outro
so when the beats are mixed in... there will not be any clashing
atleast not with the percussion.

make the outros longer actually.
give yourself more time to throw in the next song.

samples of records backspinning/horn blasts (generic... but they work)/the name of you and your friend...
trigger those off at the end of one track and then go into another

tape stop effects... you can do that in albeton for sure.
 
this is the kind of music i play. and i'm pretty sure it's the most mixed form of hip-hop (as in the DJs that play it dont just fade the song out and blast an air horn then play another song, FlyLo is a sick dj for example).


it's hard to pick up at first but as DJDynoMike said you've got to ride the track, it aint like playing house music, hip-hop drums are so complex in comparison. get to grips with Slam Mixing and dropping in tunes after build ups from other ones. make sure they are all similar tempos (obviously) and if you want to crowd-please, get hold of a couple classics that are in a similar tempo to your tracks and surprise them.

your music is ill it would be a shame to let it be showcased in a bad way.
 
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