The Complete Guide To Beginner DJ Mixing With Turntables And A Mixer
In this video course, world-renowned DJ Shortee teaches you the essential DJ skills that you need to beatmatch and mix your music using turntables and a DJ mixer. These skills include manual adjustments, tuning your ears, beatmatching, and beginner mixing techniques. She breaks down the entire beatmatching and mixing process slowly and clearly, step by step and in multiple ways, so that you can fully grasp the concepts, while also giving you specific exercises that you can practice repeatedly to hone your beatmatching skills. Every lesson is taught in a clear and concise way that is easy for anyone to understand.
Videos
• Introduction (03:11) - In this video, DJ Shortee introduces the course in which she teaches manual adjustments, tuning your ears, beatmatching, and beginner mixing techniques using turntables and a mixer. She explains what beatmatching actually is and why it’s important for DJs to learn to beatmatch manually. She also compares manual beatmatching versus relying on the automatic “Sync” features available in most DJ software, and lists the benefits of each.
• Manual Speed-Up Method (06:09) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to manually manipulate your records in order to temporarily speed up the tempo of your songs. She explains why manual adjustments are crucial to the manual beatmatching process and demonstrates the speed-up method both with traditional vinyl and then with control vinyl with DJ software so that you can not only hear the adjustments but also see the adjustments actually affecting the sound waves in real time.
• Manual Slow-Down Method (04:45) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to manually manipulate your records in order to temporarily slow down the tempo of your songs. She demonstrates the manual slow-down method, first using traditional vinyl and then using control vinyl with DJ software so that you can not only hear the adjustments but also see the adjustments actually affecting the sound waves in real time.
• Using Manual Adjustments (11:59) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to use manual adjustments to adjust your songs while beatmatching. She explains why you should only adjust one record at a time, what to do when turntables are calibrated differently from each other, and what sounds to listen for while you are beatmatching in order to tune your ears. She shows how to determine if a song is playing faster or slower using just your ears, as well as how to use your eyes to determine this in the Serato DJ software.
• Continuous Manual Speed-Up Method (07:48) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to perform the continuous manual speed-up method, an exercise that will help you become proficient with your manual adjustments. She also explains how these continuous manual adjustment methods can be used when you are beatmatching live music with a beat played by a live drummer in real time, rather than beatmatching songs that are quantized during production.
• Continuous Manual Slow-Down Method (04:43) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to perform the continuous manual slow-down method, an exercise that will help you become proficient with your manual adjustments.
• Beatmatching: Part 1 (13:03) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to combine manual speed adjustments with full pitch adjustments in order to beatmatch two of the same song using your ears only. She breaks down the entire process slowly, walking you through it step by step, so that you can fully grasp the concept, while also teaching you a fundamental exercise that you can practice repeatedly to hone your beatmatching skills.
• Beatmatching: Part 2 (06:32) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to combine manual speed adjustments with full pitch adjustments in order to beatmatch two different songs with the same bpm using your ears only. She shows how you can combine the techniques more efficiently in order to beatmatch faster, while still breaking the process down step by step so you can follow along in real time.
• Beatmatching: Part 3 (08:30) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to combine manual speed adjustments with full pitch adjustments in order to beatmatch two different songs with different bpms using your ears only. She also explains what a “safe” bpm range is, why it’s even more important to stay within a “safe” bpm range when using turntables without key lock and/or DJ software, and then explains how that rule varies when using turntables in conjunction with key lock and/or DJ software.
• Simple Blend Mix (09:51) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to perform a simple blend mix using the volume faders on the DJ mixer to transition the songs from one to the other. She quickly walks you through the process of beatmatching two different songs, and then shows you how to begin mixing the second song in at a mix point and use the volume faders to seamlessly mix the two songs together.
• Basic EQ Mix (04:34) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to begin incorporating the EQ into your mixing by transitioning the bass frequencies of your songs. She explains why this basic EQ mix is the most important EQ mix you will ever learn as a DJ and why you should use it, or a variation of it, most often.
• Longer EQ Mix (05:00) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to perform a more elaborate EQ mix by mixing each of the three frequencies separately in order to create a longer EQ mix together with the volume faders.
• High/Low Pass Filter Mix (02:56) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to use the high/low pass filter to isolate certain frequencies of your songs while mixing between them using the volume faders.
• Drop Mix (04:48) - In this video, DJ Shortee shows you how to perform a drop mix, using the crossfader in conjunction with the volume faders, for use with quicker mixes, trick mixing and songs with shorter phrasing.
• Drop Mix with EQ & Filter (07:01) - In this video, DJ Shortee teaches you how to perform the drop mix technique in various ways by incorporating the EQ and/or the high/low pass filter so that you can blend the frequencies between songs in a more efficient way for smoother transitions during quick mixes.