How to mix disco.
That is one hell of a statement in that title, and its not entirely truthful. I guess the real title would be “How I started to understand how to mix disco and other earlier genres of dance music and what advice I can give.” That’s a little self indulgent (and long), plus, I’m going to put the thoughts of others down here as well, so its not just about “me” per say.
Its impossible to explain how to mix a genre of music really. I mean, its all in the ear of the beholder isn’t it? And does music need mixing together? David Mancuso doesn’t think so, neither do I when I listen to an album. I’m writing this because I want to share my experience of waking up on the record decks, learning how to mix in different ways, and how you can crossover genres and BPM’s without it sounding awful. I’m no master at this craft yet, I’m still a novice really…but that doesn’t really matter. I learned a lot over the last few years, some the hard way naturally, but some by listening to other people (how they mix (and what they say). So if you have just woken up to the fact that you want to mix up a bit of everything together, and not just be 130bpm hard house all the way, then keep reading.
nb: there will be people out there that will scoff at everything written here. If you scoff, its because you worked out your own way of doing things that’s immeasurably better, and you don’t really even need to read this in the first place…this is just how I did things and it might help others who are still at the start. Also, im not knocking any other styles of music, I like everything (apart from Trance). Whatever flicks your switch.
My Background
OK – there is a self indulgent part here. My background is, basically, a drum and bass DJ. I was never really a very good one – I was pretty good at tune selection (I was told) and at finding music that others might not play…but I was pretty rotten when it came to technical ability. The whole “leaving a tune mixing for 3 minutes” thing never really worked for me – not only could I not do it very well, I didn’t really like it. I liked the tunes how they were, not really crossing over basslines for that killer mix – I just wanted to play the tunes one after the other blending them in, and I did that, but it was considered (understandably) by some to be boring. Without character I suppose. Not stamping my own style, and so on.
As my tastes in music changed over time, I found that I wanted to play all different genres together, different speeds, different rhythm’s…but yet still keeping it as a mix rather than a compilation. This was the most important thing; it still had to have flow, meaning, form…but not with the same rigidity and uniformity that I had always mixed drum n bass.
Mindset
The first thing I had to do was change my mindset completely on how records should be put together. It turns out this was the most important part of learning to DJ different genres in new and exciting ways. If you can imagine that when mixing drum and bass, or even early house music before it, I had always just beat matched two records and let them crossover, then brought the other one in. Sure, I had a few tricks like places to drop certain tunes, but that was pretty much it. Blending two tunes together, take one out as the other one kicks in – and away you go. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the longer the mix, the more technically proficient I was – and therefore the better DJ I was. Correct? Sadly not.
It turns out that the more I thought about it, and listened to mixes from other DJ’s (god bless you Deep House Page), I realised that the only thing that mattered really was the next tune you put on – did it keep the energy going, did it flow right, did it sound right…did it feel right? Once I understood this, I stopped thinking that I needed to beat match and 30 second blend every single mix together. Tracks that I loved had been consigned to the “can’t play that because I can’t beat match it in” bin. Anything that didn’t start with some form of predominant (and easy to mix) percussion had been demoted, even if the track that burst in from it was amazing. But not any more.
Its like un-learning everything that you have learned over the last however many years you have been mixing. Its taking that robotic way of doing things and giving it back a human touch. Drum and Bass, although I will always love it, can be very synthetic. I think the same can be said about house music (certainly genres like hard house). Blending together Disco, funk, Boogie, Soul, Electrofunk, Pop, Hip Hop and so on, is anything but…so you need to remove that synthetic way of doing things.
At last I understood that the correct mindset was “play anything as long as it fits”. Fits with the mix you are making, fits with the vibe you want to create, or fits with the crowd that you are playing to. And although this might sound really obvious, it was the biggest change I had to make.
Technique
Mindset may have been the most important change (for me) – but technique certainly has its place. There are many, many different ways to mix, and I would be stupid to suggest that I know all of them, or can explain even the majority of them here. I did, however, pick out three new(ish) ways of mixing that have become key for me.
Chop Mixing
Chop mixing is great. I would never have chop mixed a few years ago – its cheating. Slamming in one record without even mixing it? Pah. I can blend my two records together for 17 minutes, I’m that good, so why the fuck should I chop mix? Simple really – chop mixing can sound both astonishingly good, and can blend two tunes of complete different BPM or Genre together extremely well. Chop mixing is your friend. Take two disco tracks that have so much going on in them that they would be hard to segue together, chop from one to the other and hey presto – your into a new track, taking the mix (or dance floor) off in a new direction. Nobody has noticed until its too late to care (or in truth, nobody has noticed because they didn’t care as it sounded so good).
There are some things I try to do when chop mixing – that’s find compliments between the two tracks. For example, a track has a bongo roll in it, so I might find another that starts with a bongo roll and chop over at that point. People were either listening to the bongos at the time, or expecting them to come in – so no one notices. The other thing would be to find a contrast – so say the music is building up to a crescendo, just as it reaches its peak, chop it over to something that drops everything down again…as that’s what the tune you just mixed out of was probably about to do anyway, so you are keeping the structure and flow correct. With chop mixing you can throw funk into disco into hip hop into house into boogie into northern soul into…whatever you want really. I don’t know many people who can do that by beat mixing, apart from maybe the worlds most skilled turntablist’s, of which I am not.
The other thing to take note of is that “chop” is quite an amusing word.
Fading
I don’t know if “fading” is the correct term, or “fade mixing”, but I am sure you understand what I mean. Fading is pretty simple – fade one track out, fade another one in. There are subtleties around this; you can fade a track out when its near the end, bring the upfader (the volume fader) down, and taking the other upfader up to bring the new track in. Alternatively, you can find two instrumental parts of the track and fade those across each other, so nothing clashes (beat wise). Clearly, you have to make sure that the fade will work – don’t, for example, try to fade one horn section into another horn section unless you are certain it will work. Fading strings can work but its tricky (in my experience), and fading across pads is usually OK.
You can also use the crossfader to fade (no shit) – just find a part of the tracks that sounds similar and slowly slide the fader across. Same as the volume up/down really, only slightly easier to perform. Take note of when the beat might drop. If you are fading at the very end of one track into a new one, make sure the beats don’t together hit on the fade – that is unless you have successfully managed to beat match the two tracks together (in which case that would probably sound great).
Fading is simple – its the best way to get two tracks that are in no way similar together. You don’t necessarily need to find sections that compliment each other, you just need to make sure they don’t crash bang wallop over each other. I think fading is the most common kind of mixing with different genres that i have heard because its arguably the easiest and doesn’t detract away from the tune itself. It leaves the music unspoiled, and that’s pretty much always a good thing.
Beat Matching
Warning. Disco, Funk, Boogie and most other forms of dance music pre-1980 are not programmed by a drum machine. Well – they are, but that “machine” is fed on burger and chips rather than the mains supply. Human drummers are not as precise as a drum machine. I prefer that – I love live drums – I only wish I could successfully play the drums – but it can be a real problem when you are mixing. With house, drum and bass, techno, trance, hardcore and all of our other recent forms of dance music, the beat is invariably laid down perfectly. With many of the earlier styles of dance music, it is not. This means that just when you think you have something beat matched perfectly, the drummer goes off by a couple of BPM’s for 20 seconds or so, and it sounds like you have mixed the records together with a brick.
There are a few things to take note with beat matching, if you want to do it. I still do it, but I always make sure that the mix is fairly short (more a quick blend than a 20 minute wankfest), that I know the records that i am trying to beat match (therefore maybe knowing about any BPM pitfalls). I also bear in mind that if I do attempt it, and it doesn’t quite work (especially when I am playing out), to just fade it over quickly because most of the time no one really cares about beat matching anyway.
The only time you really have to worry about beat matching is if you are in a room full of DJ’s who are all sat with a crate of rotten vegetables. I think some people are of the mindset that if you beat match correctly, you are a good DJ. Maybe a long time ago, I thought that too.
Let one record stop, then start another one
Not for me this one, although the great David Mancuso would always champion it and there is no reason it shouldn’t be a valid way of playing records, because that’s exactly what it is – playing records. I don’t really think it needs any explanation; let one record stop, take it off, play another one. I’d be careful doing this if you are playing out, unless the crowd know what the score is, any stop in the music usually means you have fucked up as far as they are concerned.
Other things to consider
Knowledge is key.
Knowing your records, studying them, studying were the breaks are, finding records that work together, all that usual stuff – its still just as an important aspect as ever. In fact, its very important; you can’t rely on records mixing together just because they are both house records (as some people may have done), you need to find ones that work. Its not too difficult, its just spending time with the music you love.
Reading was also key for me – reading and listening to mixes, meeting Djs, getting advice from people (and listening to it and taking it on board). Ive done all those things, and I am still a complete novice really, and still struggle to get certain records together even though I know Djs who can pretty much mix anything with everything. So never ever stop listening and learning.
In the space of a few years I read maybe 10 or 15 books on music, DJ’ing, and so on – things I didn’t know, like the vibe at the time disco was around that Love Saves the Day captures, or some of the more interesting technical hints and tips in How to DJ Properly. There are sites better than mine that have a good book listing so I wont put one here (I’ll just post a link to the one on DJ History).
What others say
This article was written because I read a page in a now sadly departed dance music magazine (Keep On Magazine) entitled “the art of mixing disco” (volume 1, issue #4, page 72). Its a great little article, here are some excerpts of some of the thoughts of the DJ’s in that article, and also from friends of Cosmic Boogie:
Al Kent (Million Dollar Disco)
The most important thing, and probably the most obvious, is to be prepared. No matter how tight the records sound, they’re always going to drift; especially around a fill. If you can learn the fine details of your records, then all the better. But realistically, unless you are going to play the same half a dozen records for the rest of your life, you will have to play it by ear.
Matthew Burgess (Lowlife)
Unlike their house counterparts, most disco records don’t tend to begin with 16 bars of drums. However, they sometimes have cut friendly horn stabs (like Kasso by Kasso) or drum fills (like Wings of Fire by Dennis Coffey), which can be combined with a break in the previous record to create a seamless mix; even though the records have only been playing together for a small amount of time.
Nicky Siano (The Gallery)
Mixing records can go beyond beat matching, and I’ve always believed the selection was much more important than the mix. But that is my personal opinion. When mixing, I hear a horn that matches a horn in another section, or a bass line that is similar, and those two sections would BLEND together, without necessarily beat matching. Words which answer messages in the last song also create a fantastic blend and atmosphere.
Baggy (Cosmic Disco)
Other than learning the basics of beat matching, counting bars, song structure, not clashing the vocals (Almost as bad as when the Ghostbusters cross the streams) etc. the main words of wisdom I can give when mixing styles would be just keep an open mind with your programming, do your research and go out into dusty records shops and dig out and listen to as many different styles of music as possible, get on the blogs and forums and take recommendations from trusted friends and acquaintances and play what instinctively feels good to you. Finally don’t be afraid of making mistakes.
Simon Busby (Short Circuit)
Cough loudly and flick the crossfader across.
Niles (Cosmic Disco)
You just need to feel the tracks and play it by ear.
Summary
You really will make your own mind up. You really will find a way that suits you best, that might not take on board any of what is written here, as it might be too restrictive. Mixing comes from the heart, not the head – or it should – and this advice is purely mechanical and functional. As with everything written on blogs everywhere, its personal to me (the author) so don’t shoot me down for it, just take from it what you will. Or nothing, if you wont. If anyone wants to add to the page, I am always happy to update so feel free to throw any comments in below.
Happy mixing.
Note: as a follow up to this article, I created one thats less technical and more about how I discovered Disco is not shit. You can find it here: Discovering Disco.
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I’m with you. A nice read that.
100% agree wit you. If it feels right play it. I used to be obsessed with mixing and would be disappointed if I didn’t mix something. I’d drop the pitch right down, rather than start a new track.
I could mix anything before I met Baggy.
He broke my mixing.
Hahaha.
Good article – I think you just need to feel the tracks and like Al says, play it by ear.
At the end of the day mixing is just a tool to go from one record/mp3/wav to another.
It’s all about the tunage!
Your absolutely right, although the flow does matter I think, and mixing can help keep the flow. But yes, at the end of the day, if you mix two shit tunes perfectly into each other, they are still two shit tunes.
Maybe I’m just too naive here — but what do you exactly mean with “play it by ear”?
Nice article btw.
Cheers!
Play it by ear – simple I guess, listen to your records, know your records well, and mix in the next tune because it sounds right. We all listen with our ears, so just do what sounds right to you…
Good article. I had to do the same thing going from a house dj to wedding dj, to mash-up producer, to top 40 dj. It’s funny what house (and all genres in that realm) did to dj’s. many are obsolete because they’ve become lazy with their dj ideals. it’s to rock a party, not ride the pitch.
Great article, i used to do a studio 54 revival night a couple of years back, and yes disco is possibly the hardest gendre to mix smoothly, but having been in this gane for 20 something years, one learns to adapt and change. Now i have a residency in a large club playing mainly top40, urban and house with some blends thrown in as well as digging out some old school funk etc to play the tracks where the current hot track got its bassline from.
Maybe it is egotistical but i think our job is to entertain the paying public and also educate them to music and gendres they may not always hear on the radio or forgot about. Also i try and play at least 5 new tracks a week that i feel warrent exposure, as well as examining my sets at the end of the weekend and retiring a few tracks that have passed thier sell-by date or i have played too many weeks in a row. I do not have a setlist per se more and as far as i know have never played the same set twice. This has to be the case in a regular gig, for wedding and events dj’s not so important.
I screw up badly most nights, to my ear, and clash a mix, but rarely does anyone notice, so chill out relax, play some good tunes and have FUN (which is most important as if the DJ is having fun the crowd pick up on that).
I love spinning house/euro as that is my roots, but to listen to a dj beatmatch all night (128-131 over 3 hours) is technically good but very boring to the crowd, think drum or bass solo at a rock concert, technically great but really time to get the beers.
a little off topic but i get many new young dj’s (copy of serado and an mp3 collection) who want to play, but they mostly seem to be limited to one gendre or another, for me to employ them in the 5 venues I work for they have to be able to mix between styles (some want rock/hip hop and even country) and make it flow. We need dj’s who can think outside thier comfort zone but many just have the “i am an artist” mindset and that does not work here. For me i am a music whore and would rather be a fat whore than a starving artist.
many thanks for the great article and have a great weekend
the picture – is that Ronaldo on the decks?
no – its superstar trance god dj tiesto. Ronaldo is probably the only person in the world whom i dislike more.
TIESTO SUCKS
Great article! I couldn’t agree more with your ideas. I don’t play out much, but when I do it’s normally in quite ‘cool’ bars with DJs who often beatmatch. I resolutely don’t mix, but the crowds love the tunes I play. I do make sure the set flows, and I often match tempos, so there are no sudden ‘jolts’ in the set [unless I want to have that effect], but rarely even fade between 2 records. I go on what I want when I go out – if a DJ plays great tunes, I remember the tunes; if a DJ mixes badly I tend to remember that, not the records he or she played.
jesus, that was a long way of saying ‘yes, I agree with you’.
cheers,
the_living_ted
very interesting insight….you nailed it perfectly when you stated that mixing comes from the heart, and that a good set of music that gets into the dancers heads and helps them get where they want to go is more memorable than perfect beat mixing all night. I spin house as well as disco, and have noticed (my opinion!) that when everything is mixed perfectly, it feels like a computer mixed it. I almost want to mess up on purpose so that folks know there is a human being behind the decks. Disco mixing is imperfect, because you are dealing with an imperfect medium (live drummers, improv breakdowns, on the fly song structure, etc) and you are also dealing with the feeling that each track creates. When I mix disco, I usually do a lot of quick beat matches or drop mixes, to keep the flow going…
There are some really great comments on here, really appreciate people taking the time to let me know thoughts – good or bad. Sometimes, when every mix is perfect, it does sound like a computer has mixed it. I dont suppose thats a bad thing when you are playing electronic music – but maybe with disco its about bouncing off tracks to create new energy. Listen to a Ron Hardy set – all kinds of music, all kinds of mixing…never anything formulaic. I know thats not disco in genre, but its certainly disco in feel.
great article. and way to subtly dig on those obsessed with beatmatching boring records (the tiesto pic) : )
luckily for many dj’s too worried to risk having an “offbeat” mix, many new disco re-edits are appearing. to hear a few i’ve put out, check out my page (myspace.com/boxmusic)
love & music,
Scott K.
boxmusic
myspace.com/boxmusic
believe it or not, theres new ways of mixing coming about – as you may have realised or thought about as you use serato.
A-Skills, years ago was blending between tracks using the Loop functions on CDJs and creating short loops that would half and half again, sometimes pitch-shifting them right up to create a climax, then bringing them down to the incoming tunes rythem.
I heard The Freestylers doing a similar thing, dropping in and out of A-ha’s Take On me in the middle of a breaks set. Blinding.
I’ve occaisionally used a similar technique of looping an incoming break, and then setting the outgoing loop without actually listening to the record – immediatly putting it out of time – but then filtering it and then blending in the incoming bassline. if you do it with a very recognisable bassline, the crowd goes ballistic!
Basically, all three are almost Dub/echoey feeling segueways and need digital technology to achieve.
But the key to it all is tune selection – and getting it right for the crowd at the right time.
Rock on everyone!
Posted up a new article today that kind of compliments this one, its called “discovering disco”, and you can find it here:
http://www.cosmicboogie.co.uk/2008/09/discovering-disco/
Your are so on point with all aspects of mixing and knowing when to drop a track while playing live. It truly is an art when you play at a party and take the crowd on a rollercoaster ride of all genres of music!!
Great article!
DJ VIC!
Good article. It’s definitely about the overall flow of the set and not necessarily the content.
Nice article Stu!
I’ve been over the whole must-do-super-long-drum-n-bass-blends mixing style for years now.
I played a gig a couple of weekends back where the best DJ by FAR was one who doesn’t beat mix (and never has in his 20 years of playing records).
I think I’ll track down “Love Saves the Day” for some inspiration. What were the other music / DJing books you read? I went through a period of reading a bunch of music books and Bass Culture, When Reggae was King came out tops for me.
Great article, I am admittedly a beat mixer and will ride a beat forever and the more on point I am the longer it goes. I need to back out of it. I have a friend that is great at chop mixing and I need to go watch him. Even just adding some of that with what I can do would give me and my sets new life. Thanks from Boston.
Great article and spot on about all the techniques involved. Some disco can be mixing well if it has a solid 4/4 but as you say short mixes are the go as they invariably drift. Hearing guys like Frankie Knuckles mix disco must have been incredible.
As you say though perfect beat mixing isn’t the be all and end all of a good night but bad mixing can be.
One other trick is EQ mixing by killing the bass channel on the outgoing track slowly and bring in just the bass from the incoming track can create a nice mix. Then fade out so just the Bass from the incoming track is playing then bring in the mids and highs from that track.
Guys like louis Vega are master of the eq mix as well as beat mixing
ahh, needed this bad.
after being away from turntables a while i tried blending some disco records kind of expecting them to ride for 30secs to a couple of minutes and pretty much became enraged when this didn’t happen like with house records.
like someone said earlier lots of people are making their own edits which is awesome, i’d like to start doing that myself.
and also the comment about utilizing the eq’s when blending, maybe some light could be shed on different hardware as some just sound so much better than others.
“it’s to rock a party, not ride the pitch.”
good words.
Thanks!
like your thoughts on mixing! my views totally lets mix it up!
Great article, this is something I’ve always believed and followed in my sets, mixing is great, but selection should always come first!!
Like you say, the only real problem seems to come from the other DJs in the room…
Lastly, someone mentions the fact that there are new ways to mix using current technology and this is very true, especially applies to non-rigid styles like disco because you can totally mess about with the grooves while playing and push that “how to get from one tune to another” barrier.
I’ll add my name to the list of those that agree with your article. Very on-point when you speak of track selection being key.
I do however feel the need to defend the art (yes, I believe it is an art) of beatmatching. I definitely think that it has a very important role in djing. Maybe not for all genres; disco, soul, boogie, et. al., the genres which almost always use live drummers. The techniques you described for mixing these types of music (chop mixing, fading) work perfectly in those cases. But if I were listening to a dj playing house, and he/she was train-wrecking left and right, I would say they need to spend more time practicing before they play out. Beatmatching for smooth blends is as much an integral part of house as a 4:4 beat.
That being said, there are definitely those dj’s out there that abuse beatmatching. If two records don’t require a 3 minute blend, you’re not going to make them sound better by doing it. Likewise if you’ve got a couple records with long intro/outros and you only blend them for 30 seconds, you’ve got a bore-fest of empty beats on your hands.
I guess my point is just that some types of music don’t need proper beatmatching, but if used wisely and with the right type of music it’s still a very important thing to know how to do as a dj.
I agree with what your saying 100% – and if you listen to any mix I have done I often do still beat match, but my point is, I used to think that beat matching WAS mixing – and now I know its just one string to the bow. Your just as right in what you are saying about it being a more than useful part of the arsenal. I appreciate everyone here taking the time to post, seems many people agree. Im going to do a follow up article for this at some point soon.
I’m a new chick on the djing scene and Disco music is in my soul! I love getting some Jazz Funk and Northern Soul on the go and I do tend to take a trip down the soulful/gospel house route too.
I usually play in bars, however, I have a gig in a club this weekend. I’ve had a spin on a big sound system before and it’s obviously so much harder to play Disco when it’s loud and in your face and not quite the background music in a bar. Since I’m female, all eyes… and ears, are going to be very much on me and I’m expecting a rougher deal than most male dj’s get. I feel I have to prove that I deserve to be up in that dj box.
There are going to be a few ‘important’ people coming to hear me and I really hope that they’ll not judge me and criticise my mixing (as it’s very,very basic!).
Mixing is not what makes a great night out. For me, a great night is when there’s a conection with everyone in the room. People are chatting and dancing and loving the vibes. Being a good dj is about creating an atmosphere where people can have time out and escape from the world outside. They should get caught up in the music, unite with one another and let it all go. It should be a huge party! Sure, the music should match and be pleasing to the ear but it’s shouldn’t be all about the technical stuff… that’s not what the original artists intended.
THERE ARE MANY GOALS IN D J ING …MOVING FROM ONE SONG TO ANOTHER ,, HIGH LIGHTING AND AUGMENTING BITS AND PICES OF SOME SONG . SAMPPLING AND PLACING PARTS FROM ONE SONG INTO ANOTHER.
FIRST AND FORMOST IS ABSOLUTE MAINTANCE OF THE TEMPO (BPM) THEN THE RYTHMIC SYTLE OF THE MUSIC..
THIS BECOMES SIMPLE FOR THOSE WHO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY AND RECOGNIZE WHAT IS BEING PLAYED..OTHERS CAN SUCCEED BY TAKING NOTES AND CATAGORIZING THERE MUSIC.. THE STATICS OF WHAT IS BEING PALYED ADD TO WHAT WILL MIX WELL ON THE NEXT SONG PLAYED.
THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS WHEN A CROWED DEMANDS A SPECIAL SONG !.
I HAVE BEEN TO CLUBS WHERE THE D J PLAYED FOR A DOZEN OF THERE FRIENDS AND TO HELL WITH EVER ONE ELSE!!!!
MAY D J `S HAVE REPUTATIONS FOR PLAYING SPECIAL TYPES OF MUSIC ONLY SUCH AS RAP NOISE ,, DURMM AND BUGLE NOISE .. THERE ARE MANY SPECIAL GENREAS..
I LIVE IN LOS ANGLEAS CA ..RAP NOISE IS SO DOMINATE EVERY WHERE YOU GO. IT IS KILLING ME .. I WILL NOT ACCEPT THIS POO ON MY EARS ..
Enjoyed that, well put together and good advise.