Mixing with initial beat (without fading...)

[Masdefi]

Hi everyone, I'll try to explain my question in the best way I can do. Is there anybody who tryed or regularly used or still is using the technique of mixing without fading? I mean to make the mixing between two tracks just by suddenly cutting the existing track and to let enter in the same instant the second track? If you do that, how can you be sure that the beats are well matched? How do you regulate in order to maintain the rhythm of the beats? :)
I think I'm not so clear... let's see...
:o Bye!

[QUINNY]

I think I understand you. You're talking about the method that was used back in the very early days before 'beat mixing' called Segueing. pronounced seg-way-ing
Firstly, you have to slip cue the incoming record either on the on or off beat, depending on which will suit the segue out of the record playing. If on the on beat, it's always best to cue up to where there is something very positive (eg strong cymbal crash, brass stab, backing vocals, effect), ideally at the beginning of an 4, 8 or 16 bar sequence. If on the off beat, cue it up on the last off beat of the sequence before the crash, crescendo or whatever.
Secondly, you have to count the bars of the record playing, or know it inside out, just like you would in beat mixing.
Thirdly, you have to have nerves of steel and a still hand.
For best effect, segue at the end of a 16 (20) bar sequence when there is a crescendo or a strong continuation could be anticipated.
Count the final few bars of the sequence either on, off, on, off or 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4 and perform the segue on the first beat of the new (16/20) bar sequence or do slight overlap with last off beat of previous sequence.
As you let go of the incoming record, instantly pull down the fader of the outgoing record. Et voila, you have performed a segue.

Good luck!!!

[Masdefi]

Hi Quinny,
thanks for your reply. :) Last night I was trying to mix Vicki Sue Robinson 'Hot Version' (B-side of the 12''Hot summer night) with BBQ&Band 'On the beat'. You know 'On the beat' starts with a fabulous ON beat, and I was trying to let "On the beat" enter by segue technique on the end of the first break of Vickis track, i.e. at the end of the 2th 16-beats bar, i.e. on the ON beat of the 3rd and last bar of the break.
My question is just this one:
How can you can calibrate the exact stilus travel (i.e. how much backward you have to turn the record before the first ON beat) in order to match exactly the ON beat of the entering record with the ON beat of the outgoing record (that is hidden instantly pulling down the slider of the mixer). I tryed and it is not so easy to exactly match the beat sequence in time scale, if you want to reach the perfect time between the beats.
Furhermore there is another "problem":
If you put the stilus too much close to the starting ON beat, then when you release the record, if you do not have a turntable with a big torque, the music might “fluctuate” a little bit, so you must at least put backward the stilus about 10-15 mm before the ON beat. Or, you may gently accompagny the record, but in this case pay attention to avoid overspeed. I work with SL1200 and the torque is enough, but never I can put the stilus too close on the initial beat.
Between the record and the plate I put a disk in fabric to reduce friction.

:D Let me know your comments… bye!

[QUINNY]

Masdefi: It's 20 odd years since I last did any segues so I can't be too precise, but so far as I can remember I would cue up within a few millimeters. The whole point of successful segueing is anticipation and like anything else, practice makes better. A slight push of the incoming record would help make the record get up to speed quicker. There would always be the odd record that would have a slurred start, or heavens forbid, would jump back a groove, thus totally screwing up any attempts at 'seamless mixing'. Like I said, you need nerves of steel and a still (steady) hand.

To help with the slip cueing I would use a home made double thickness felt slipmat and was known to put small quantities of silicone gel/oil or graphite on the underside and have used the slipmat directly on top of the metal turntable (depending on available torque and other factors). Usually though, the slipmat worked better on top of the rubber turntable mat. It would be quite hard to get the balance between slipperyness and torque required and sometimes I would get it disasterously wrong (in the short term) by being a little over generous with the slipping agents I used.

Another way of segueing was to do an overlay of say 2 or 4 beats, knowing that the incoming record would catch up the outgoing record and just do an instant chop at the point where they matched. This was less precise 'cos you never could guess exactly when the record would catch up and you only got the one chance (which could be on say the 2nd off beat or the 3rd on beat of a 16 bar sequence. Not nearly so good.

BTW: Segueing was always much easier with 7" records than 12", because you could hold the slipmat rather than have to hold the record, which could jump easier and have to 'get hold' of the slipmat to get up to speed. Dished or warped 12" records generally didn't get up to speed as quickly as one would like and their extra weight tended to slow them down when released.

Personally I would probably segue 'On The Beat' at the point where the scratch guitar comes in after the first pregnant pause (after 8 bars was it?), if you know where I mean. To me, that was where a strong positive statement was being made.

[Masdefi]

Good to exchange opinions, Quinny.
I too was DJing 20 years ago, but I have still the fever inside :evil: , and everytime I can I close myself into my recording-room... and start with some good mixings... I am still buying some records (vinyls) and still preparing some compilations for some special occasions. The last I did was for a Halloween party this year. All was 70s music (of course).
I do not like so much segueing mixes, but sometimes the incoming record is so goooood at the beginning that segeuing seems to be the most good way to let it enter.
I agree with you that 45s are better to hold... but I tryed to put an overweight on the stylus up to 3.5 grams. This has never occurred a stylus jumping with any 12" or lps. And, I have to say my hands are still good....
BTW did you ever experienced conical records? You let it go, but the record doesn't start..... :lol:
Just keep away the mat....

[QUINNY]

Masdefi: If it's not live, then you can, of course, create brilliant segues with the right software or even with a minidisc recorder by dividing tracks.
I agree, segues are not that great unless you have the right records at exactly the right points in them. BUT they can be really exciting when done well.

[Mixmachine]

I never used the term ‘Segueing” in my days, actually until now I though it meant ‘transition’ ‘Blending’ or the same as ‘Beat Mixing’ ‘overlapping’ ‘overlay’(which I group together as ‘Mix’), in my area what Masdefi describes we used to call ‘Chops’ ‘Chopping’ or ‘Chop Mixing’ (for quick cut ins) I’m not even sure if this is the right spelling because locally at the time we used ‘Spanglish’ slang to describe many of this Mixing techniques probably because DJing was so new and we were to young and didn’t know better.

Masdefi, I couldn’t write a better explanation than the one Quinny just gave you, knowing your music and counting bars is the key to ‘chop’ mixing, when is done right IMO no other form of mixing can achieve the same ‘raw’ dance floor energy level, many old school DJ’s were just strictly ‘Chop' mixers and they worked the local club scene for many years even when the trend was ‘Beat Mixing’, one of my friends was even a ‘Billboard’ DJ of the year and he was heavy into ‘chop’ mixing; Many times I’d combine both mixing techniques , mixing (fade in) maybe two bars (16 or 32 Beats depending on the song), and then a quick ‘Chop’ on the right spot, one good example of this would be ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order, skip/bypass all the intro and start the fade in on the 4X16 bar sets of Synch/Bass, (most DJ’s used the intro and mixed this song on this ‘low energy’ section) , after beat mixing this 64 beats let that ‘chop’ reap when the drum roll kicks in followed by the heavy Synch, I don’t know about now ‘cause the song is old, but for me this was a sure way to fire up the dance floor back in the day.

Masdefi to reduce friction I cut Wax paper to size and place it between the platter and felt slip mat, it works fine for me with low torque TT that have the tendency to ‘drag’ or stop when doing slip cue mixing.

[NickNack]

Originally Posted by Mixmachine

I never used the term ‘Segueing” in my days.... in my area what Masdefi describes we used to call ‘Chops’ ‘Chopping’ or ‘Chop Mixing’ (for quick cut ins)

Quite right. We also called it "Smack" or "Slam" mixing. Bobby 'DJ' Guttadaro and Richie Kaczor were two dj's I remember being heavy into this style. I also agree with Mixmachine that Quinny has given you the lowdown. It takes practice, counting of beats and knowing when and where you want the song to make it's impact. I still have a pretty steady hand and can hold the record still with the gain up if what I want is at the beginning. Sometimes though, I simply back cue one complete rotation past that first beat and then see how long it takes the turntable to get up to speed after hitting 'play'. If you can calculate this time to the point where you want to mix with the other song it can work, although it works best if you're other record has a dead (cold) end, no fade.

An example of 'counting' is a mix I once did using Voyage and Viola Wills. If you mix the first eight "clicks" the drummer gives you in Viola's "Stormy Weather" to the last eight beats of Voyage's "From East to West" before it segues into "Point Zero", 'smack' on beat 1 and what you get is a thunderstorm effect along with the same flow of music. If you're lucky, the crowd is screaming. :D

[Masdefi]

Hi guys, many thanks to all! :D

Quinny: The 'chop' or 'segue': I sometimes do that but it is important to calibrate the perfect instant to chop through the amount of backward space on the vinyl between the stylus and the 1st beat: this could be variable depending on the BPM, the torque, the friction between the record and the mat, your arm ..and furthermore I do not like so much to push forward the record to get it speed. Of course practice improves the situation.. :)

Mixmachine: Really I normally like mixing technique by fading on at least 1 bar (16 beats) with both the two faders on and then I chop on the first beat of the next bar. Depending of the kind of music of course you can continue the mixing in length up to 2,3 or 4 bars too. If you try to mix for example, Undisputed Truth 'Showtime' at the middle break, where there is only vocal, bass & bongos with Claudja Barry 'Love for the sake of love' that has a wonderful intro, about more than 4 bars (4x16 beats), absolutely steady as rhythm, than you can hold both the records for a way long time: this mix is still sure! And thanks to 1200s! I love them.
Sometimes it is mandatory to have a fading on half bar: for example, 'Love Magic' by John Davis where at the end of the 1st bar har a wonderful drum that allows you to fade the outgoing record: it works fine. In this case I keep ½ bar off (just to start with the record rotating) and I lift the gain at the first ON beat of the other ½ bar.
Generally I lift the fader up at the break of the actual outgoing: I just start the entering record 1 bar before the break of the outgoing one and I lift immedeately the gain up just at the first beat of the break.

Nicky: however beats counting is sometimes difficult :x : try to mix Instant Funk 'Got my mind made up' with Edgar Winter 'Above & Beyond': if you try to let Instant Funk enter at its final break (only with voice and drum) you will count 2 bars (2x16) and ¾ bar (12 beats): then you have to start with Instant Funk on the Edgar Winter break at the 5th beat!!!!! to have the perfect superposing. :evil: ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh. :o

Guys, sorry for my bad english, hope you will understand my speech… Ciao!

[QUINNY]

The only way I learned was by screwing up occasionally (or not that occasionally depending on how adventurous I was).
Beat counting is an absolute must of course and quite often I'd be distracted by someone, something or just by trying to overdo things, so that most mixes out of ten I'd literally get the next record out and onto the deck about a bar or two before attempting a mix, altering the slider as I went and praying to god that I hadn't forgotten some quirkiness it might have. That's when I began to HATE records with odd numbers of bars in the intro (or in the song structure) and had to start writing something on the label. I look back at those records now and some of the notes make absolutely no sense whatsoever! Hey, but what a thrill when I eventually sussed out an odd one and was then able to do perfect mixes with it.
In some ways, under those conditions, segues, chop mixes, call them what you want, are easier to perform than beat mixes (although you could always cheat and just beat mix for yourself on the cans and perform the perfect chop anyway, especially if the mutha had been really difficult to sync). A mixture of good segues AND good beat mixes was always the most exciting way for me. Keep 'em guessing!

BTW: 1 BAR = 4 beats (99.9% of the time at least)

[nrgbeat]

All this talk about bars is getting me quite confused.

I have two questions.

Quinny what did you mean you could beat mix on the cans?

The second question I have is if you had a song with a really long intro and you wanted to beat mix the song, but wanted to eliminate most of the long intro how would you know where to start your mix?

[Mixmachine]

NRGBEAT, Do you mean if the intro doesn’t have a beat that you can hear?, this is all very hard to explain but I’ll give it a shot, all intros follow a ‘Beat’, most “disco” intros (and song) are written in 16 beats sets (4x4) and multiples, I think musicians called them ‘measures’(SP), you can follow this multiples of 16th (32,64,128) and ‘Beat Count’ until the vocals kicks in (or the spot of your liking), of course not all songs are the same, that’s why it helps to write info on the labels (Like Quinny did), my scribes looked something like this, 4+ 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32+ 1/64, etc depending on the song, as you can see this is why DJing can be stressful and in the booth you need to concentrate with little distractions, it is also time consuming because of the amount of ‘homework’ involved to study the song structure and to practice your favorite mixes before hand, no two DJ picks the same spot on the song to ‘Chop’ or ‘BeatMix’ ( well, with exceptions) and this is where ‘individuality’ comes in, you as the DJ pick the song’s spot that sounds best to you and ‘beat count’ to this point, you can also use this technique to track how long a ‘Break’ is or how long to stretch an ‘Overlay’ mix before you completely fade out; In the seventies before this tricks were common knowledge many green DJ’s didn’t know this techniques, one could tell right away if they knew or not, you could here it in the mix.
PS : I think Quinny refers to ‘Head phones’ as ‘CANS’.

Masdefi, I know exactly what you mean about the ‘off’ counts, they can be a PITA, but if you know how to ‘beat count’ there’s nothing to worry about

[QUINNY]

There were very few (if any) records with an intro that had no beat. Most times out of a hundred, once you knew the BPM you'd find that a beatless intro actually lasted 2,4 or maybe 8 bars. To have an intro that was completely out of time would be odd and perverse arranging really and completely superfluous for a Disco track.
O.K..... Burning Spear by Richard Evans if you know it, has the swirling spacey intro that is out of time (and therefore best forgotten about), but then the bass and wah wah guitar come in, completely in time. So where would you attempt to beat mix from? KISS Keep it simple, stupid!!

It's amazing how many people don't know the difference between on and off beats and their significance. Just in case anyone reading this is confused....
The on beat is played by the bass/kick drum and are the first and third beats of the bar. The off beat is played by the snare drum and are the second and fourth beats of the bar. The only complications arise if people don't know the difference in sound between a snare and a bass drum and heavens forbid, they clap to the on beat, as they might in classical music. If you don't automatically clap/move/feel the groove to the off beat when trying to mix Disco music, I can see that you might just have a problem. It is really amusing and embarassing to see a predominantly white, classical audience attempt to swing to, say, jazz or funk or some other music with a strong backbeat. Can't they hear it? Noooo, is the answer.

[nrgbeat]

I don't think either of you really understood what I was asking.

I didn't mean a song with a beatless intro, I meant a song that had a long intro with empty beats and no vocals and you didn't want to play the whole boring intro before the vocals kicked in. How would you determine where to bring the song in and still effectively beat mix it?

[QUINNY]

NRGBeat: It's difficult to say exactly, but most records are 16 bar sequences. Let's assume that the record in question has an intro of 64 bars (about 2 minutes or so) and you want to come in at the 65th bar where the vocal begins.
You'd either have to do a beat mix of the whole 64 bars or some way do less. To find the 33rd bar or the 49th bar might be a tad difficult, but not impossible if you know your records well enough. Most 16 bar sequences would either end with a slight crescendo or you'd find a melody/instrumentation was different [bare bones verse against bare bones chorus being the stripped down 16 bar sequences (intro) you'd be hearing] and eventually you'd get to know where to cue up almost by instinct. Well, for me, If a record was new or if I was still unsure of it, I'd get the record going early on and run it with the record that was playing, without doing an actual mix until probably the last 16 bars and hope that I hadn't got the record onto the turntable too late, so that the vocal wouldn't start before the end of the outgoing record's break. This would have the advantage of giving me longer to sync the two records up and to pull out and try again at a later point if I did think I'd screwed up. Ultimately, mixing over say 32 or 48 bars just for the sake of it didn't necessarily mean a better or more effective mix. I guess I might do the odd one just to look flash, especially if another jock was leaning over the console. As long as you kept to 16 bar sequences (or the odd 20 bar) the mixes would always work out in one way or another. It's only if you started the incoming record on the 4th, 8th or 12th bar that a crappy sounding mix might result. Start on the 3rd,5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 10th 11th bar and you would get a crappy mix for sure. Does that make sense?
Towards the end of my mixing days I was very agressive in my mixing and quite often would mix vocal to vocal without any breaks in sight. Now that takes some doing, 'cos you really have to be completely on top of the records and your mixing. I would have to concentrate like mad, but it was worth it 'cos the hooks would just keep on coming. English people danced to songs as much as the pure rhythm in those days. It could be a little constraining, 'cos that implies that I'd have to play hits (although that's not entirely true), so I'd do a more traditional break type mix for less known material and the odd segue, just to make a statement occasionally.