DJ Mixes: 7 Things You're Probably Doing Wrong

[@simonturner990]

Psychic Phil strikes again! Am in the process of making a mixtape! I chose my tracks, did a first draft mix, listened and made notes, went back and practised each transition individually. Now up to the stage of recording my 'perfect' (haha - not gonna happen!) mix. Great tip re the artwork!

[@digitaldjtips]

Awesome, glad we could help!

[@thedjnitenurse]

Oh.... This is what I do...,& Has served me well in the 30 Odd year's, & Still Does, Live or Mixtape! I Plan The First 3 Trax, To Setal in, Then go with the Flow 👍😉👊

[@danecustance2734]

Thanks, love the tip about the transition mix for promoters.

[@digitaldjtips]

Glad to help :)

[@megawaatthedj]

I defintely agree with this.. Thanks Phil

[@digitaldjtips]

Thanks for watching!

[@jasonlegister2277]

As always Phil good info, thank you.

[@digitaldjtips]

No problem!

[@thedjnitenurse]

Great Tips!👍👊 I've gotta say, in 1993 When I was into Dark D&B, I planned a mixtape & put 35 Trax on a 60min Tape!😁👊 It was a 1 on-1 off set with a Bit of Scratching!😉👊 Planning a Mixtape is all good! But can be Stressful!! Just Know your Trax & Have FUN!!!😁👍😉👊

[@dragon-cloud]

I am a vinyl user and i have a few records that the volume master pressed on the vinyl has either too low volume or high. Adjusting the gains helps with some but not others. I record from mixer to iphone with djm app since I don’t have a computer. Even though i upload sets i feel held back by not having a computer for live-streaming, mastering and being able to produce my own music. Can something be done about the vinyl recording too low a volume besides getting a different press of the vinyl?

[@digitaldjtips]

A computer is really going to help you here, you could then do some post-processing on your vinyl. We recommend buying the digital version if you can find it though rather than ripping

[@dragon-cloud]

@@digitaldjtips Thank you for the reply. I have been using vinyl since 97 and plan on sticking with that format. One of my goals is to try bringing back vinyl decks as options in the club scene so various artists can choose. Hopefully will be getting a nice computer after tax season, as for dj equipment im loving my pioneer plx 1K’s but am looking to upgrade from my DJM 450 to a nicer 4channel. I personally feel that there is no equipment out there that replicates the true feel of vinyl mixing. Possibly the control vinyls for digital music? Would like to try them to see if they offer that same feel but I haven’t had the opportunity yet. I enjoyed the couple of videos ive watched of yours. Keep up the great content. 👍 🐉☁️

[@digitaldjtips]

Yeah check out the Rane One or SC6000M, vinyl feel (because that's what it is) without the headaches associated with it :)

[@dragon-cloud]

@@digitaldjtips thank you again. I really appreciate the replies. I will do a lil bit of research into those. 👍

[@DJMIXXTHAT]

Good video.

[@digitaldjtips]

Thanks!

[@SteveAldous]

great tip about uploading the test audio unlisted to KZbin, gunna be trying this on my next mix, thanks phil

[@digitaldjtips]

Glad to help :)

[@RaquelFoster]

The thing I struggle with the most in practicing is that I make a set with some real stand-out tracks that I love, and by the time I get the flow of the set worked out I'm tired of those big tracks and don't want to play the set. People don't appreciate how much prep work DJs do, and DJs themselves tend to hide how much work they do preparing a set. It's funny that Phil is kinda apologizing for mentioning his book. But he's going to draw parallels to that because he spent a whole lot of time on that book. The first time I recorded a set and played it back, I was surprised how good/professional it sounded in some ways, but I was also surprised how bad it was in other ways.

[@digitaldjtips]

I can definitely relate to that one Raquel, mixing a track (production) is much the same, it's hard to love it after hearing it 1000 times 😆

[@eyes2see368]

Just curious when the new course is going to be available? Im not sure if you said already and maybe i didn't hear. Im really interested in it!

[@digitaldjtips]

It is currently available only to our members. It will be made public at some point in the next week

[@Cheeseman72.]

Great info in this video 👌Looking forward to the course 💯

[@digitaldjtips]

Glad to hear it

[@einekleineente1]

As an owner of the "old" mixtape course, will I also get Access to the new mixtape course? Or do I need to buy the new one?

[@digitaldjtips]

Yep you'll get access to the new one :)

[@einekleineente1]

Wow!! That is great news!! Thank you :-))

[@davidwright7588]

That’s good because I bought the old one and haven’t got round to doing it yet 😊

[@mphorams8753]

How can I get the book?. I am based in South Africa.

[@digitaldjtips]

If you want a PDF version you can get it by joining our mailing list: djtips.co/join :)

[@salvature]

Very useful tips man, i was doing most of the mistakes even tho i mix all weeks 💯👍

[@digitaldjtips]

Hopefully this will help you put them right :)

[@virgilwilliams2378]

Are you going to do a review on the 1.6 Denon Prime software update ? I just got an email from them.

[@digitaldjtips]

I'm sure we'll take a look and post about it yes :)

[@elxhartpr0ject]

normalization is great when your audio tracks' spectrum are most similar, if theres any things you can level out with the leveler, or select the very high peaks with audacity and level them individually *then* use normalize

[@digitaldjtips]

Yes, exactly.

[@RickVonSloneker]

Phil here is another tip I've discovered: play your DJ drop over your worst transition :)

[@digitaldjtips]

Haha nice one Dack, whatever works ;)

[@danovem]

Well... on your website the book supposed to be available, but mailing list doesn't seem to work.

[@digitaldjtips]

Hey Dan, our mailing list is definitely working just fine, 9 times out of 10 when people say they haven't got it it's in a junk folder so I'd suggest checking there, if not shoot us an email to [[e-mail]](//[e-mail]) and we can make sure you get it. Of course the entire book is available on the website as well to view whenever you want: www.digitaldjtips.com/rock-the-dancefloor/

[@danovem]

@@digitaldjtips Hey, thanks for quick response. I've tried some time ago, never got the email. Just receive it yay! Thanks a lot :)

[@digitaldjtips]

Awesome :)

[@herritymusick1758]

I find that my recordings on my XDJ-RX2 are always nice and loud and don't need to be mastered. But my mixes on Serato used to always be really quiet. Thoughts?

[@digitaldjtips]

Not much besides the recordings you made on the RX2 must have been recorded hotter

[@herritymusick1758]

@@digitaldjtips the sound quality sounds very good to me, I listen to my mixes very critically but I will pay better attention to my gain levels... it never hurts to be more careful.

[@mariuszodak5096]

also platinum notes can be used to normalize your mp3's and dont need to use adacity for normalizing

[@digitaldjtips]

Sort of, that's a paid for bit of software though and doesn't fix your mixes after you've made them, just the tracks before (so if you mess up your gain staging you're still going to have to fix that in post)

[@blackoutkiller]

So, going off the Tunebat site and saying Beatport has the key and bpm for the tracks why does a program like Serato change that when I analyze the tracks? I honestly don’t even know if it is an accurate key when I put it in Serato, as it will be different from Beatport or even Tunebat. And would mastering through Cloudbounce or something else, better than compressing on Audacity? Thanks!

[@digitaldjtips]

It runs it through it's own algorithms. If you know what you're doing then you can use a mastering chain in Audacity and get great results, if you don't then an automated service like Cloudbounce or Landr is a great option

[@devonbeeman8804]

Can’t believe that I missed it 😔😔 I just got my DDJ1000 and stupidly updated my OS to The Sur and found out it’s a pain in the butt to download the dang drivers for it 😥 so I’ve had it for two days and just sit there trying to see what I can do. I literally redownload it 5 times so far. Yes I did give it security permission and checked to see if there was anything that was disconnected.. sad times.

[@digitaldjtips]

Sorry to hear that, it's definitely a pain

[@devonbeeman8804]

@@digitaldjtips is there a way to check that the drivers are downloaded and working?

[@digitaldjtips]

You'll need to follow Pioneer DJ's instructions for your set-up and ask them if you have any issues Devon.

[@SherwinBajao]

Just did that on the last mix. Last transition went off a little so just posted. 95% lol.

[@digitaldjtips]

Nice one :)

[@djiceage3929]

i will be doing a wedding on 25 of September and this will be my first wedding and i hope it will go well

[@digitaldjtips]

Best of luck!

[@TheArabianPrince2106]

Hey Phil. It’s actually called the 6 P rule. Piss poor planning promotes poor productivity.

[@digitaldjtips]

😂

[@kreature6618]

If your mixing tracks with a lot of real instruments like music from the 50/60/70s has, do not whatever you do use the normalizer, this will ruin all the nuances of the beautiful sounds you are getting from each instrument and mashed together far too loud.

[@digitaldjtips]

It won't. You're thinking of compression/limiting. A normaliser just raise the overall volume of all parts of the track. It doesn't change the dynamic range at all.

[@kreature6618]

@@digitaldjtips I will have to give that another go Phil, thanks for the tips!

[@tresporros]

sorry mate, but what you talking about mastering is a fallacy.... normalization is destructive process which will add a lot of the noise to the audio. Never used in audio mastering by pros, as they are aware of this fact. I heard your other video one day you mentioned also something about audio mastering, which was untrue. Adding limiter to the audio tracks which were mixed with compression, many times overcooked, mastered with another layers of compression and limiting, and on top of that you are suggesting using limiter?? no wonder most of so called mixtapes and mixes sounds like a poo.... with no dynamics at all.

[@digitaldjtips]

Well firstly, I don't believe we said anywhere that Mastering Engineers use normalisation. Secondly, it's false that Normalisation is always a destructive process, it isn't. I use normalisation in Logic all the time and it's non-destructive and obviously if you increase the gain on a track the noise is also going to be raised. "I heard your other video one day you mentioned also something about audio mastering, which was untrue" - well without knowing what that statement was there's not much we can say about that is there? You might think it sounds like "a poo" but the actual process taught in our Pro Mixtape Formula course is the exact same way it was done on the multi-million selling Ministry of Sound mixtape CD series when it was overseen by the course tutor Steve Canueto so plenty of people are more than happy with the results.

[@tresporros]

@@digitaldjtips Phil, my point is you are a DJ (not an audio engineer) giving info to lads, who I presume have not much knowledge and experience in audio engineering. I run Mastering Studio professionally for over 10 years (Red Mastering Studio London) and I mix and master music for over 2 decades. Normalization of audio tracks is a mistake , you could find a thread on GS (gearslutz) mastering forum about the subject with the technical and detailed explanation. The music used by DJs was already compressed and limited several times, during mixing and audio mastering process. Adding on top of that another process like normalization and limiting will turn the music into red zone of few dBs of RMS headroom (nowadays LUFS). I do not know a DJ who does well understand how compression or limiting works and most folks will do the harm to the music using it. I understand your point though of finalizing mixdown/mixtape, but I keep my claim it's incorrect what you said during the stream. I don't remember when I heard you talking about mastering in another vid, but I do remember it was also misinformation. Summing it up, you have a big base of followers who listen to what you say and are not aware of the fact it's misleading, at least in the audio engineering/mixing/mastering area, which I do know quite well doing this for over 25 years, hence I expressed myself here:). As for the audio quality of mixtapes or DJ sets, if you have a proper monitoring system and conditions to listen to it, you can hear it sounds terrible bad in most cases, distortions, clipping, overcooked bass and top end.... that's an outcome of doing things incorrectly.

[@digitaldjtips]

It feels like you're missing or ignoring the context of Phil's comments. Phil's suggestion is for those who do absolutely nothing to their mixtapes after recording and simply upload them, if nothing else they can use peak normalisation to at least have their mix louder than it's been recorded so it's somewhat in the ballpark of other mixes online, this doesn't destroy audio at all. The rest is your experienced opinion which you're of course entitled to, we don't agree that you shouldn't use post processing on a DJ mix (neither does Ministry of Sound) and would never throw generalities around that "most" mixes and sets sound terrible.

[@SherwinBajao]

80% = B-. lol

[@IADDP]

These new DJs can't mix good. Listen to real DJ mixes like the ones from Bad Boy Bill.

[@digitaldjtips]

"New DJs" are not a homogenous group, some can some can't the same as "Old DJs"