Basic Mixing

Step 2.1

Understanding music

There are 4 beats within 1 bar of music. Within the 4 beats, you usually will hear a kick, snare, kick, snare. For every 8 bars, a new element will usually be introduced, which is known as a phrase change. When mixing music ideally you would like to introduce or take out a song in line with a phrase change, whether that is after 8, 16 or more bars. For instance house music will usually have a 16 bar intro and outro (just beats no lyrics before the song starts within the extended versions or sometimes even normal song version).

Step 2.2

Grid lines

Now that you understand the structure, let's look at how we seamlessly mix two songs together. Now there is a little helper called grid lines which line up the first kick of each bar. When downloading a song the first thing you want to do (well what I do) is go to the drop and ensure the the grid line is placed in line with it. For example if you look at the image below/to the right depending if your on a phone or laptop; you can see the red grid line needs to be moved to where the red arrow is.

This will help to seemingly mix two songs together ensuring they are beat matched. Ideally you want to always beat match with your ears because grid lines may be off, but it's a good visual aid when learning.

Step 2.3

Beat matching

Once you have completed the above, it's experimentation time! You can see on the image below/to the left depending if your on a phone or laptop; there are two songs which have their grid lines set but are not align. To ensure you are seamlessly mixing you need both songs grid lines to line up on top of each other. For instance when the outro of a song is coming up, when I hear the next phrase change I will introduce the next song at that point so my grid lines should align (you may have to nudge the deck to alter a little which is relied upon by your ears). Ideally this will be done by listening through your headphones before bringing the next song actually in (which I explain later) bur for now give it ago!

Once you have started experimenting and know what you are aiming to do, my biggest tip is to attempt beat matching based on what you hear. So, forgetting the grid lines! This is essential because within a professional setting you may not see grid lines, be given beat matching boxes instead etc., depending on what decks you are given to mix on.

Step 2.4

EQ's

There is one more essential component you need to be aware of. EQ's also known as low, mids and highs are another element you must level to seamlessly mix songs together. Most of the time the low is the bass, the mid is the vocals and the high are the high hats / snares. When mixing two songs, you will need to have one bass being predominate throughout the mix or else it will be overpowering and distorted. Then it is trial and error with the mid and high EQ's to see what sounds the smoothest and/or get creative with the mix.

Regarding the EQ's I personally try not to turn them further than 12 o'clock towards the the right because I find it can red line your mix which distort the sound (not ideal!).

For instance, when I bring in a new song I will always have the low turned down to the left which means the current song playing is allowing that bass to be dominant. Then if I am allowing the songs to mix for 16 bars, after 8 bars I will switch the bass so you hear the second songs bass becoming predominate within the mash up allowing it to take over.