Serato DJ Pro General Discussion

Talk about Serato DJ Pro, expansion packs and supported hardware

Mixing Rock/Alt/Pop Punk/Metal etc

Andylang1123 8:50 PM - 18 January, 2017
So over the past couple of months I've been practicing DJ'ing with House, EDM and bassline however i'm really into my pop punk and i'm a metal head at heart, and i had been approached by our local rock club promoter and the venue ( which isn't big ) and he asked me if i wanted to DJ at the weekends, now these are easily 4/5 hour slots but i snapped this right up to get back to doing something i really enjoyed playing.

my main issue is i don't want to be a start stop juke box when it comes to playing this type of music, now i have found ways to spice things up with cue points but really mixing between songs and such a vast variety of genres its so hard to pick specific songs that work well together without searching for hours on end.

so in the short does anyone have any mixing techniques or effect transitions that may help me here?

already using a backspin to crossfade over, and dropping it on the one, they're the main ones that are working for me at the moment but there must be some more obvious techniques im missing here

Thanks
popnwave 9:35 PM - 18 January, 2017
Honestly, you don't have to get overly creative with the genre. Too many repeated transitions are going wear people thin. You'll probably have the best results following a build up in BPM (start sub 100 and then end that genre/set with something with a ton of energy) and then switching it up to another. For my alternative college night I'd flip from some fast paced pop punk late 90s stuff (SR71, Blink 182) and then drop down to freakin Iron Maiden (Run To The Hills) and that crowd ate it up.

While fun to do with some songs, beatmixing guitar based stuff all the time isn't worth the effort. Song selection will be more important with a good fade out/in, if a track has a good 4-8 beat section you can loop to start that does help a lot.

Balance your favorites with stuff that is tried and true on the rock charts, don't challenge folks too much until you really know the crowd. After that you can probably push them in other directions you like as well.
lofty 12:15 PM - 19 January, 2017
I mix lots of alt / rock / electronica /
The key is to mix in key
Beatmixing in these genres can be done quite successfully ( especially if you have some redrums)

But KNOWING the songs inside out is necessary

You CANT mix hip hop style ( mix out on 1st or 2nd chorus)

Well selected blends ( with some minor effects ) works great

Also BPMs don't have to match - if you know when to drop a track

Last week I mixed groove armada - super styling into fat boy slim - weapon of choice when the tempo break in superstyling happened I added and effect and then let fatboyslim play. From there you are about 100 BPM
You could Mix something like paper planes or go faster with NIN down in it ( I can't remember what I played after )


Also rock songs have sweet guitar intros ( think of sweet child mine , whole lotta love , ) if you have the crowd they go nuts when you drop it ;-)


Another thing I do is since I can't mix out on the chorus ( rock Is much better mixed on outro) I cut out the middle of some tracks
Basically the first chorus jumps to the last chorus ( this is where flip and cue points are awesome ) then mix out

The song is only 1 minute and no one really realizes you "cut" it
popnwave 4:18 PM - 19 January, 2017
Quote:

Another thing I do is since I can't mix out on the chorus ( rock Is much better mixed on outro) I cut out the middle of some tracks
Basically the first chorus jumps to the last chorus ( this is where flip and cue points are awesome ) then mix out

The song is only 1 minute and no one really realizes you "cut" it


Great tools to have in your arsenal!
938MyDJ 11:57 PM - 19 January, 2017
Looks like nobody have mentioned it...

Spend some time on beatgridding within your prep hours. It will take some of your time but it's worth it in the long run.

Start with your top 10 favorites, the next 10, and so on...