Traktor DJ Course

Transcription

Traktor DJ Course

Tr
akt
orDJCour
se
LEARNHOW TODJWI
THTRAKTORPRO
GETTI
NGSTARTED+TRACKSOURCI
NG+MI
XI
NG+MI
XI
NGI
NKEY
byDanoFar
i
no/DJDanoEF
Traktor DJ Course
http://traktordjcourse.com/tdjc
TRAKTOR DJ COURSE
Table of Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................................2
PART 1 - GETTING STARTED..............................................................................3
1. What is Traktor?.............................................................................................3
2. What’s in my DJ bag......................................................................................4
3. Organizing tracks on your computer..............................................................5
4. Traktor Pro overview......................................................................................5
5. Loading and preparing a track........................................................................8
6. Organizing tracks in Traktor.........................................................................13
7. Sourcing tracks.............................................................................................14
PART 2 - MIXING.................................................................................................16
1. Decks, Mixer and FX section explained.......................................................16
2. How to fnd matching tracks.........................................................................20
3. How to mix two tracks..................................................................................21
3.1 Beat matching...................................................................................................21
3.2 Find the right in-point........................................................................................23
3.3 EQ-ing...............................................................................................................24
4. Playlist arrangement.....................................................................................26
PART 3 - MIXING IN KEY....................................................................................28
1. Why mix in key?...........................................................................................28
2. How to detect the track key..........................................................................29
3. Which keys match?......................................................................................29
4. The circle of ffths.........................................................................................31
4. Why Key shifting?.........................................................................................31
5. Create custom mapping...............................................................................32
6. Put it to work.................................................................................................33
About the Author..................................................................................................35
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Introduction
When I started back in 1996, DJing was very straight forward. Two turntables - Technics
1210s, a mixer, a headphone. Nowadays we still have turntables, mixers and
headphones. But on top of that, we have CD players, heaps of Controllers and
Softwares, Presets, Computers, Music Download Sites, File Formats, Social Media and
so forth. Things have become a bit more complex.
But we also have much more options at hand. The trick is to make good use of the
options without getting lost. And that's where this Ebook comes into play.
In this Ebook, I am sharing my experience with you. Showing you exactly how I set up
my gear, pack my bag, prepare and organise tracks, set my preferences, select tracks
for mixing, fnd the right mix-points, beat match, use EQs, detect the track key, mix in
key, key-shift my tracks with a custom mapping and much more.
This Ebook – and even more so the video course – will spare you many months of trial
and error. It will dramatically accelerate your learning curve and make you ready to play
like a Pro in a matter of weeks. Especially in part 3 – mixing in key – you will learn stuff
that will set you way ahead of the crowd.
This Ebook is a based on the Traktor DJ Video Course, which is available on
http://traktordjcourse.com/tdjc. Check it out if you would like to see and hear me doing
everything I discuss in this Ebook. Plus you'll get to download the same custom
controller map I use for key shifting from the Traktor S2 controller.
Dano Farino
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PART 1 - GETTING STARTED
Contents:
1. What is Traktor?
2. What’s in my DJ bag
3. Organising tracks on your computer
4. Traktor Pro overview
4.1 Traktor Pro overview - preferences
5. Loading/preparing a track
6. Organizing tracks in Traktor
7. Sourcing tracks
In this frst part, I’ll be guiding you through the basics about Traktor: what it is, what’s in my DJ
bag, how to organise tracks on your computer, an overview of Traktor Pro, and a look at the
preferences. Then we'll go into loading and preparing tracks, organizing tracks in Traktor, and
fnally, how to source tracks.
1. What is Traktor?
Traktor is an integrated system
consisting of both hardware and
software, which makes it unique
and highly functional. It’s a bit
like Apple—hardware and
software come from the same
company and are in perfect
tune. The typical setup would
look like this: you have a laptop
(any laptop you bought in the
last three years would do), then
you have your controller, your
audio system, your speakers,
and your headphones. Traktor is at the same time a sound card, which provides you with two
stereo outputs to your speakers or audio system, and one cueing, pre-listening output for your
headphones.
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2. What’s in my DJ bag
When I pack up my DJ bag, this is what I bring to a gig:
- my Traktor
- my laptop
- name cards
- my headphones
- a torchlight
- power supply for the laptop
- power supply for the Traktor
- USB cable and an audio connector (I use the 1/4” cable on the Traktor side, and the
RCA on the DJ mixer side because most DJ mixers would have an RCA input.)
All these things perfectly ft into a fight case. I use a Remova one, but I'm sure there's a
lot of bags and cases you can use to carry your stuff. But make sure it's well padded
and perhaps also waterproof.
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3. Organizing tracks on your computer
The frst thing we want do before we start is organise
our tracks on the computer.
The system I use is to have a TraktorTracks folder
inside my Music folder, a and then organise my tracks
inside the TraktorTracks by year and month (YY-MM).
I'll create a new folder for every month. I will keep
adding my newly bought tracks into month-folder, and
this way my collection builds up and I never have to
change anything again. Which is quite important
because as soon as you rename or shift folders, Traktor will lose its database
connection, and you will have to re-alocate your tracks. Therefore, it’s best to think of
the system you want to use before you start adding tracks into your software.
4. Traktor Pro overview
Here is a basic overview of the software:
1. Menu Bar 2. Header 3. Global section with FX 4. Decks 5. Mixer 6. Browser
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4.1 Traktor Pro overview - preferences
Let's take a look at the preferences because some of them are quite crucial. There's a
lot of preferences you can play around with; most of them are just about convenience,
and how to set up your system. But there are some quite important ones that I will
highlight now.
One of them is Latency, in the Audio Setup tab.
The Latency will determine how fast
Traktor reacts to your inputs. So if the
Latency is set very high, that means the
delay between pressing a button and
the effect, or the reaction, would be very
slow. So if I turn this knob all the way to
the right, it would take quite a while
between pressing play and Traktor
actually playing a track. If I turn it all the
way to the left, the processor load will
be very, very high. So we want to
compromise and keep it somewhere
around 10 to 20 milliseconds, which will
keep the Latency reasonably low and
the processor load still acceptable for
most computers.
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Next we have the Loading tab.
I want to have Loading only into
stopped deck checked because I want
to avoid loading a track into a playing
deck, which might be the live deck. This
would be quite unfortunate. So I want to
make sure that I have to manually stop
my deck frst before I can load a new
track. Initially cue to Load Marker, since
I'm using load marker, is also something
I want to have checked.
In the Mixer tab, I would like to Enable
Autogain because this is a very useful
feature Traktor offers. It detects the gain
of a track, and by having Autogain
checked here, it will actually
automatically adjust the levels of your
track. So the overall mix will be quite
even, and you won't have to fddle
around with your gains too much.
I don't use the Crossfader at all, so I just
uncheck it here and the Crossfader will
disappear from my software interface. It
will also be disabled on my controller.
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In the Mix Recorder tab, the Split File at
Size determines how big your fle can
get before a second fle is created.
When you record long live sets, if this
feld is set to 600MB, a new fle will be
created after one hour. And it will be a
bit awkward to put it back together into
a continuous mix. So I prefer to keep
this at 2000MB, which gives me around
four hours of continuous mix recording.
5. Loading and preparing a track
When we load a track, we want to set some cues and markers, and we want to make it
play for the frst time. And then we want to organise our track collection in Traktor.
In order to load a track, I can right click on the Track Collection tab in the browser or
click on Import Music Folders, which will immediately start to import everything you have
on your hard drive, so I would be careful with this one. Then you have the Explorer tab,
which allows you to navigate to every folder and fle you have on your drive and access
it from here. Or, what I normally do, is just drag and drop tracks into a playlist.
Let's say we don't have any playlists; we just opened Traktor for the frst time. By rightclicking on the Playlists folder, I have the option to create a new playlist by clicking
Create Playlist. And I will call it “NEW.” and use this playlist to import all my new tracks,
so I’ll always be able to easily fnd the latest tracks I have imported.
In order to make this playlist easily accessible, I can just click and drag it into my
shortcut list, so I will never have to look for it in the Explorer section. Instead, I can have
access to my new playlist by simply clicking on it in my shortcut list. Of course, it will
always be in my Playlists folder as well.
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Next, we want to import a track.
I have a folder called “15-01” that contains my January tracks. Let's say I have two
tracks in here that I want to import into my “NEW” playlist. I just select them, drag them
into the playlist, and then Traktor will ask me if I want to analyse my tracks. I click Yes, I
want Traktor to analyse my tracks because this way my grid will be automatically set,
and my BPM will be automatically calculated. And that's what I need in the frst place, in
order to work with the track. It just takes a few seconds.
There’s a progress bar here at the bottom. So now I have these two tracks in my playlist
called “NEW.” Whenever I switch to another playlist, I can always go back to this playlist
and I will still see the tracks that I imported.
The columns headers can be customised by right-clicking at the top, and then I can
select which columns I want to be visible. I always organise my playlist column headers
to display the import #, the BPM, the Key, the Comment, the Cover Art, the Title, and so
forth.
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So what's next?
Let’s say we want to play a track.
There’s two ways to load this track into Deck A:
I can either just grab it and drag it into Deck A, I can push a button on my keyboard, or
—the most convenient way—I can press the Deck A button on my controller while the
track is selected.
Now the waveform representation is displayed. I can see the white lines, which
represent my beat grid. And 99 percent of the time with electronic music, this beat grid
will be correctly set. Every white line represents a new beat. When I press play, I can
hear it.
Now, the frst thing I want to do with a new track is identify the musical parts of the track,
and set my hot cues accordingly.
The hot cues that I use are the following:
–
–
–
Hot cue number one, which identifes the loading cue.
Hot cue number two, which identifes the main part
Outro cue, which will identify the outro-part of the track.
As soon as I load this track into a deck, it will be automatically loaded at the
loading cue.
Hot cue number two will allow me to always jump to the main part of the track.
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Outro cue (number 3) is where the main part is over, the break is done, we’re actually
repeating and fading out, and the track is about to end, which will be typically around
one and a half minutes from the end.
The way I navigate through the tracks is by using my navigator knob on the controller. I
want to set the jump distance to 32 beats, which represents eight bars. And eight bars is
also a phrase, a musical phrase. Most things in electronic music happen in eight-bar or
32-beat intervals. And it makes a lot of sense to structure your cue points according to
these phrases because that will make mixing in phrase much more easy.
So let's go back a bit. Navigate back, press play, and have a listen to the track.
By looking at the waveform, I can already determine which part is the intro, and where it
is about to end. And this would be the beginning of the main part. It’s typically one to
one and a half minutes away from the start of the track. And you can simply know when
the main part is coming up. That’s also typically the point where you want to be all the
way up with your channel fader, and where your mix from the other track will be at least
mostly completed.
Then you can use the jog wheel on the controller to move around a bit.
Let’s say this is exactly the location where I want my main part marker to be, so I press
cue marker 2 on the controller.
By this method I can create a new hot cue, hot cue number 2. If I want to remove this
hot cue, I press Shift + 2 on the controller, and it’s gone.
When this S button (snap function) is enabled, my marker will automatically jump to the
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next grid point. So if I press 2 on the controller, and I release it again, the track will play
from that point. If I want to make sure if this is actually the right location for me to stop, I
would just jump back a bit using the move knob on the controller, and listen to the track
to see if this is the exact right beat where I want to come in.
Now I have successfully set my main part marker, which I can always easily access
whenever I want to jump to that part.
The next thing I want to do is create my load marker. That will tell Traktor where to cue
the track whenever I load it.
I want this loading marker to be a natural number of phrases away from my main part,
because we always want to mix in phrase. We always want a phrase to be fnished
before we come up with a new track.
II set my jump width to 32 beats, which is eight bars, or one phrase. And I go to hot cue
number 2, to my main part marker. From there I go back towards the beginning of the
track. Normally, a good location for the load marker is 32 bars ahead of the main part
cue (number 2).
In order to turn this hot cue into a load marker, I will go to the little list box and on the
screen and select Load.
By clicking Load, this marker will become a yellow circle with the number 1. And
whenever I load this track into a deck, the play head will always be located there.
That way I know when I load a track and play it, it will be a natural number of phrases
away from the main part, which makes musical in-phrase mixing much easier.
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Now I have my load marker and main part marker in place.
The third marker I always want to have with any track that I load is the exit, or the outro
marker. It lets me jump to the last part of the track, which is basically a loop-repeat-andfadeout section. This is where you defnitely want to think of mixing into the next track. If
track is running out and I'm not ready to mix yet. It would be no mistake to just press
cue 3, as it will always make musical sense to go back to this cue point, in order to
elongate the time I have to mix.
When these three markers are set, I'm done preparing the track. When I quit Traktor,
these cue points will automatically be saved.
Summary:
I make sure I have these three markers in place so I can always easily access the
– intro
– the main part
– the outro.
The grid is in place and tested, so auto sync will work.
6. Organizing tracks in Traktor
For now, we imported all new tracks into the "NEW" playlist. Next, we want to create
sets or genre-specifc playlists.
Let's say I want to create a set called "Deep". I would go to my Playlists and right click
on Create Playlist to create a new playlist and name it “Deep.” I can leave it there or
drag in into my shortcuts.
To allocate a track to my “Deep” set, I will load it into a deck frst, and then click the title
section of the deck and drag the track from the deck into this playlist. Now I have a track
in my “Deep” playlist, or set ( a playlist usually represents a set). This way I continue
building my sets.
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After populating my set with at least 20 tracks, I will sort them according to BPM and
keys and organise them in the order I want to play them. But for now, get your tracks
imported and analysed, set your cues and then start distributing them into playlists
according to your style of music. In the next step we will start mixing, which will be
covered in part 2.
7. Sourcing tracks
Before we wrap it up for this part, I want to go over one more thing: track sourcing.
Just in case you are wondering where you can get your tracks from: there are a lot of
rather obvious music sources nowadays, but here is just a little summary of the ones
that are easy to use and accessible on the Internet.
I buy my tracks, with very few exceptions, so I would typically go to
• Beatport
• DjTUNES
• Whatpeopleplay
• Juno Download
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SoundCloud (soundcloud.com) i s a huge online community of producers, DJs and
music lovers. It's not a shop, so there is nothing to buy there. But you can fnd and listen
to a lot of recent productions. Some can be downloaded for free, some have a buy link
to the music shops mentioned above.
Mixcloud (mixcloud.com) is also more for inspiration, for listening to other DJ's mixes.
And since it comes with a track list most of the time, it's quite easy to identify the tracks
other DJs are playing and to look them up and buy them for yourself.
Accelerator (xlr8r.com) is a online DJ magazine that I like to follow. They feature
Interesting new artists, free downloads of the latest underground producers, podcasts
and more.
ProstoPleer (pleer.com) is a source of free mp3s. I rarely use free downloads but if you
want to go that way, you have to be careful. Usually you get a lot of crap from these free
mp3 portals. You get redirected all over the place and expose yourself to viruses. And
only after you download the track do you realise the quality is bad.
As a rule of thumb, you should not play an mp3 track with a bit rate lower than 320
kilobytes.
ProstoPleer does not redirect or spam, gives you the option to prelisten and see the bit
rate of the track you're looking at and also shows remixes of it.
Homework for Part 1:
1. Get your gear together
In order to be ready for a gig, you want to have your bag, your torch light, your
cables and everything in place. And also you want to be prepared to the point
where you can just walk off and be ready to play a gig.
If you haven't got your headphones or controller yet - go check out
http://traktordjcourse.com. I put together a decent selection there.
2. Get your Tracks organised, imported and analysed
3. Read the Traktor manual
You would do well to take a look at the Traktor manual because what I cover in
this course is the way I do it, and obviously there's many more ways to do things.
But it doesn't make sense for me to cover every way. I want to show you my
proven way that works. Check out the Traktor manual for all the other bells and
whistles this program comes with.
4. Get familiar with the controller. Play around with it.
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PART 2 - MIXING
Contents:
1. Decks, Mixer and FX section explained
2. How to fnd matching tracks
3. How to mix two tracks
3.1 Beat match
3.2 Find the right in-point
3.3 Use EQ-ing
3.4 Looping
4. Playlist arrangement
1. Decks, Mixer and FX section explained
Let's take a look at the Decks, Mixer and FX section in Traktor Pro frst. Starting from
the top, we have the Synchronisation section, which I personally never use. You don't
have to touch this at all.
The FX1 is assigned to Deck A. By pressing the 1 button, you assign FX1 to Deck A.
My effects are set up as a group effect, but you can also use a single effect instead.
You can adjust this in your Preferences > Effects tab.
In Group mode, you will have three effects to choose from. I use the Group mode and
the three effects I have selected are Wormhole reverb, Delay, and Filter. There is a
On/Off button to activate the effect and a knob to change it's parameter.
In order to hear your effect, you have to turn your D/W (dry/wet) knob to the right. What
does dry or wet mean? A dry signal is your input signal, it’s what comes into the effect
section. If this knob is all the way to the left, you only hear your dry signal, or your input
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signal. The further you turn it to the right, the more effect you will hear. If it’s turned all
the way to the right, you will hear only the effect part of the signal.
This way you can adjust the amount of the effect you hear by turning this D/W knob.
The Main section is for for recording your mix and overdubbing. I never use that. I do
use the S (snap) and Q (quantise) function buttons, which make it much easier to to
jump to the next cue point.
At the top, the CTRL light is blue when a signal is coming in from my controller.
My Audio indicator shows that my sound card connection is set up and working. The
Load of my processor in idle mode should not be more than about 15 percent. When
you set your Latency time too small, the load of your CPU will go up. I set my latency to
around 15 ms.
Your Main signal output should be touching red when you play.
The blue BAT light shows that your laptop charger is working. You should be worried if
it's blinking red! REC will be orange when you record your mix.
Then you have your FX2 on the right, which is the same as FX1, except it’s assigned to
Deck B. Here is also where the recorder is located, which I use a lot to record my mix.
When you click record, the recording button indicator will light up and Traktor will record
my mix directly to my hard drive.
Now let's take a look at the deck header. The deck header displays (in my settings - you
can change all that in your preferences) the artwork of the track, the track title, the artist,
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the key on the left, and the playtime, the remaining time, and the total time, the base
BPM of the track, the position of my tempo fader, and the resulting BPM of my track on
the right side.
Mixer section:
First we have the Gain adjustment, which I never use
because I make sure that my gain is set properly when I
import and prepare my tracks. You can adjust it
manually. When you right click on your track and you
select Edit, there will be an Autogain feld. The autogain
is detected automatically, which normally works fne.
You should make sure your track gains are set correctly
when you prepare your tracks. But if want to adjust your
track gain, you can do so by pressing Shift on your
controller and turning your gain knob. Shift pressing the
knob will return the gain to zero. This is also a
preference setting.
The gain knob on your controller controls two things: it controls the Filter and the Gain.
You can hold down the Shift key to switch between the two functions. In my case,
holding down Shift while turning the knob controls the gain. Otherwise, the knob
controls the flter. I have it set like this because I use flters much more often than I use
gain. But that's up to you, and you can also change this in your preferences.
Then you have your Key adjustment dial, which is still not so greatly implemented by
NativeInstruments, because it's not accessible from the controller. I can only click the +
(plus) and - (minus) buttons to adjust the track up or down 10 percent of a semitone.
Double clicking on the dial brings it back to zero. This is not what you normally need
when you do key adjustments. Your key adjustment will most likely be in semitone
steps, so I have created a custom controller mapping that actually enables me to do that
from my controller.
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With my custom mapping in place, I can simply press Shift + In and Out to go up or
down in semi-tone-steps, and that’s what I need when I mix. I will cover this custom
controller mapping in part 3, which is all about mixing in key.
Since I don't use a crossfader, I just completely disabled it, so it’s not visible here. But if
you use crossfader, you can activate it in your preferences as a preset setting. I just use
channel faders, which give me much better control over the mix.
The other thing that you need to be able to use is the Keylock button.
This keeps the pitch of your track stable, independent of your tempo. Naturally, the pitch
would change as soon as you change the tempo. But Keylock enables you to time
stretch your track and keep the pitch in place, which is very useful for mixing in key.
Keep in mind that it also has a negative impact on your sound quality. There is some
additional audio processing done on your track, so it will sound a bit less crisp and the
base part will be a little more muddy and not as present.
So be careful with this and only use it when you really need it. Don't just keep it
switched on all the time. I always try to play one track on zero pitch adjustment. So I can
have my perfect key in one deck and I will use Keylock only on the mix track.
You can also switch Keylock on and off by pressing Shift + Play on your controller.
The waveform representation is also displayed in this section.
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You can zoom in and zoom out by clicking the + and - buttons on the right, and bring it
back to normal by clicking =.
This section contains the overview of your whole track and your Cue points. I always
use the three cue points I described in part 1. You can delete your cue points by clicking
either the trash can icon, or by shift-pressing the cue button on the controller.
Adjust the jupm-size of your move knob here.
I always keep mine on 16 beats, which equals four bars and makes musical sense.
There are an additional four cue points (5-8) you can set. These cue points are not
accessible through your controller, but you can access them from your computer
keyboard at any time.
2. How to fnd matching tracks
When mixing two tracks, you want to look at their:
BPM:
within a range of +/- 5 percent
Key:
same or within the circle of ffths (after adjusting)
Genre:
same
Energy / feel: building up
When building up a set or a playlist, one of the key things you want to look for is the
BPM of the tracks you want to mix, which I recommend to be within the range of plus or
minus 5 percent.
Let's say your frst track is at 120 BPM, so the next track you want to mix it with should
be somewhere between 115 and 126 BPM in order to avoid using the tempo fader too
much. When you tempo change tracks, you also change the sound of the track and the
pitch, unless you use Keylock.
What key the tracks should be in, is a big topic. I will cover this in the third part of the
course. For now, I’ll just say that you would look for two tracks that are in the same key.
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If you have a small difference in key, say a maximum of two semitones, you can still key
shift and bring them to the same key.
if you are just mixing in the drum part of two tracks, the whole key issue is not that
important. But I enjoy mixing in key a lot. To me, this is where the musical joy is and
where you actually start creating music rather than just mixing tracks. And mixing two
tracks in key can bring some really nice and surprising results.
The energy of the next track should normally lead upward.
You would normally choose a second track that has a slightly higher energy than
playing track, because most of the time during a set, you want to build up the energy.
Then you will create a energy drop to increase the tension, and after that build the
energy back back up even higher.
But most of the time during your mix, you will be building up energy. So make sure that
the next track you mix is at least at the same energy level or slightly higher.
3. How to mix two tracks
When mixing two tracks, you want to:
• Beat match
• Find the right in-point
• Use EQ-ing
• Use Looping
3.1 Beat matching
1.
2.
3.
4.
Set a good cue point (frst beat, frst bar)
Adjust tempo until tempo almost matches
Make sure you know if your tempo is higher or lower
Keep manually readjusting the tempo
Beat matching is a topic that was very important back in the days when I was playing
vinyls. Then, to have your beat matching skills in place was really essential because
there was no automatic beat matching. Today it has become slightly less important, but
it’s still important to know how to beat match.
You need to know how to beat match because you will not always play off of your own
controller. You will take over from other DJ’s, or from some music that's playing in the
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club, and you want to be able to beat match manually.
Not being able to manually beat match is quite a no-go for a DJ.
Manual beat matching is something you defnitely have to practice.
Here is the step-by-step approach:
For the purpose of this explanation, we’ll use the term "mix track" for the track that
you're going to mix into, and the term "play track" for the track that’s currently playing.
1. Set the cue point on your mix track.
If you did your track preparation as described earlier, you don’t have to bother with this
step. As discussed in Part 1, we have a load marker, and we have a main part marker.
Just use the load marker for this purpose and it will be perfectly fne.
2. Adjust your tempo gradually, using the tempo fader.
Make sure you know on which side of your play track tempo you are. Adjust the tempo
until it’s almost matching, but be sure that it's slightly higher or slightly lower so you
know which way to manually adjust it.
3. Use your jog wheel on your controller to adjust the tempo manually.
Let's do an exercise together, and I’ll show you how to manually beat .
Let's say I have my mix track playing on Deck B. So the frst thing I want to do is, I will
hit Cue on my controller and use my headphones to listen to this track. So we have a
cue point, my load marker, and I will play it right from there. What we can hear is that
my mix track is defnitely faster. So I push up my tempo fader down to make my track
slower.
I keep adjusting until it gets better. Once everything is right, I should be able to bring
back my mixed track into perfect sync by using the jog wheel on the controller. I know
my mix track is slightly faster, and I can always bring it back to perfect sync by using my
jog wheel.
This is the principle I follow for manual beat matching.
Use your cue point. Gradually adjust your temp to the point where you’re almost there.
Then keep readjusting your tempo manually.
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3.2 Find the right in-point
When looking for in-points for your mix, consider the basic track structure.
Looking at the basic structure of the track, we can see that we have a load marker, a
main part marker and an outro marker, as explained in part 1.
The load-marker (1) will be a specifc number of bars away from the main part.
Remember, we’re thinking in musical phrases, and a musical phrase is eight bars. So
we make sure that the load marker is 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, or 48 bars away. 48 bars equal
roughly one and a half minutes in a tempo of 120 BPM. The rule of thumb would be
that you are 48 bars /1.5 minutes ahead of your main part.
Then you have your outro-marker (3), which is typically also roughly 48 bars or one and
a half minutes away from the end of the track.
In mixing, I align my outro-marker of the play-track and the load-marker in the mix-track.
You can always use this technique to fnd the right in-point.
As soon as you reach your outro marker, you hit "play" on your mix-track. The stretch
between load-marker and main-part-marker in the mix-track will give you enough time to
do your EQ adjustments, blending, effects and whatever else you want to do.
This is the classic approach, but it of course can be changed. You can use different inpoints, of course. But as a general principle, this always works.
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3.3 EQ-ing
EQ-ing is about making space for the next track.
I want to make space for the mix track when I'm playing my play track.
I can do this by reducing the volume, but I also want to create a seamless blend. That's
why I also work with my frequency ranges, which are represented by my EQ.
I will typically reduce my lows to make space for the low part of the new mix track.
Then, depending on the track itself, I would also adjust my mids.
Typically when there are vocals, I want to key out the vocals by using the midadjustment. The highs are not shown in this graphic, but you can use the highs also,
depends on what's happening in track.
Normally, when I reach the start of my mix, I will gradually bring down the low part of my
play-track, and bring down the volume slightly. At the same time I will come in with my
mix-track with keyed out low-frequency, bring up the volume, and adjust the mids
accordingly.
I will bring up the volume of the mix-track to, let’s say, 80 percent, and lower my playtrack to 20 percent so the overall volume remains the same. Then I will cross-fade my
lows. I will bring out the lows in my play track and bring in the lows in my mix track.
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The folowing example is best seen and heared in the video course:
So let's put this into action. Let's say your body is playing and you want to mix it in key. So I
will keylock my play track, and I will keylock my mix track. For this example, they ’re both in
F. That’s how they match nicely. I will use some effects, maybe, so I switch on my effects
section. I can bring them in using my D/W (dry/wet) knob. So as soon as I reach my out
marker, I will typically start my mix track. I can play it already and then time the mix by
pressing my load cue. So now both tracks are playing. Now I can sneak out the low part of
my play track. And then just gradually readjust the volume, bringing out a bit more of the
base. Here, the main part of our mix track is starting so now we have a nice mix of both
tracks, which go together quite nicely because they are in key. Now my play track is reduced
to the mid part only, so I just have the vocals there looping, playing along with the full-on mix
track. So now my mix is done and my mix track is completely on. My play track is fading out,
and it fades out naturally so I don't really have to touch my fader as much. This is where I
would completely fade out my mix track slowly. But don ’t move your faders too fast—the
slower the better, normally. Also, try to move them in four bar intervals. It always sounds
much more natural when you change volumes or EQs at the beginning of the bar, rather
than in the middle somewhere.
Let’s do another mix. Say this next track is in E. So I will bring it up by one semitone to
match my playing track. Keylock needs to be engaged. This is the magic of using this
controller mapping: I can actually bring up my track by one semitone in a second. And then
pre-listen to it. Now, again, I would come in as soon as my outro marker is reached. In the
meantime I can play my mix track and use my in-point, my load marker cue. I just want to
make sure that I'm jumped to that load marker as I reach my outro. My low EQ is down. Now
I have the right timing, so I'm mixing in phrase, I'm mixing in key, and all I have to take care
of now is the frequencies. And as I see the main part of my second track is arriving, there will
be some vocals happening there, so I want to make space for those vocals. I ’ll bring out the
base, and now I have a hybrid of these two tracks. Crossfading to bass, while still leaving the
fade up quite a bit, and it’s still working nicely. Then after this phrase, I want to bring in the
base all the way. So, again, now we have a situation where the mix track is up all the way
and the play track is just giving some favor. I can even use some effects here to make it a
bit more interesting, to bring more of a fadeout. Still there, just feel it a bit, then the descent.
And now I will bring it down completely. We’ve performed two mixes now; I could go on and
on. By the way, this is a mix that you can fnd to on YouTube called “Body Konduktor.” You
can actually listen to it, if you want, on my YouTube channel, Dano EF.
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4. Playlist arrangement
Use dummy tracks to structure your playlist
Your playlist can contain quite a few tracks. To give some structure to my playlists or
set, I use what I call dummy-tracks. I just name a track with dashes. I then re-arrange
my playlist by the tracks I want to play frst, or the tracks I don't like anymore. As soon
as you have 50 tracks or more in your playlist, you will need some way to structure it.
Creating these dummy tracks is very simple.
You just play any track, click "record" (top right corner in the recording section) and stop
it after a few seconds. Then, navigate to your recordings folder on your computer hard
drive (normally: Music / Traktor / Recordings) and fnd the recording. Drag it into your
playlist and type "----" into every feld (you can edit most track felds in the browser by
double-clicking them). This track is just for a separator within the playlist. I also use
other dummy tracks where I put symbols like left arrows [<<<<] and right arrows t [>>>>]
to mark the start and end of a micro set.
Let’s say I have a playlist of 100 tracks, and before I go out to play I want to make a
micro set within that playlist as part of my preparation.
When you start a gig, it's always nice to have at least the frst 5-10 tracks pre-arranged
so you have time to connect to the crowd and don't get nervous fnding the next mix.
For that purpose, I create my mini-sets within a large set and mark it with dummytracks.
You can also you re-use the same dummy-track as often as you want. Load it into a
deck andy drag it to any other location or playlist.
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Homework for Part 2
•
•
Practice, practice, practice
Build your repertoire, playlists and sets
Obviously practicing beat matching is very important. You have to develop this skill to
the point where you feel confdent doing it live (which means you must be SUPER
confdent doing it at home).
Building a repertoire and your playlists is a never ending process.
In order to be ready for your frst gig, make sure you have enough well prepared
material! To play a one hour set takes around 20 tracks. Before you go out to play a gig,
make sure you have the length of the gig covered three times, so you can improvise
and change sets according to the crowd.
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PART 3 - MIXING IN KEY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Why mix in key?
How to detect the track key
Which keys match?
The circle of ffths
Why key shifting?
Create custom mapping
Put it to work
1. Why mix in key?
Just like in beat matching, when you mix two tracks with un-matching keys, the
mix will sound wrong. On the other hand, when you mix two tracks with matching
keys, the mix will sound smooth and the tracks will compliment each other.
So why mix in key? I would say mixing in key is pretty much the same as beat matching
for harmonics. When you mix two tracks, you want to get the beat matching right. So
what about the harmonic part of the tracks? We want to match the harmonics as well.
That’s why we need to look at the keys of the tracks in order to fnd the rights tracks to
make a harmonic progression, rather than having two tracks fghting with each other
harmonically. I will give you an example of two tracks that match in key and two tracks
that do not.
Let's say we have a track playing that is in F. And we have a second track that is in F as well.
As you can hear when you listen to them, they match. I can even easily swap the bass part of
the tracks and it will still sound right. These two tracks just jive with each other and make a
lot of sense. If they were out of key, they would not match anymore, and you would clearly
hear that the sound is not the same when the tracks are out of key. And putting in the base
from the second track just creates kind of a mess. So we want to have key-matching tracks.
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For that, I use Keylock. And I use the custom mapping I created to actually adjust the key in
semitone steps using my controller. In this case, these two tracks in F already key match
perfectly, so I don't have to use that, but I will use it later. And I ’ll show you an example of
two tracks matching in key verses two that do not match in key and how much of a difference
that makes.
2. How to detect the track key
In music theory, the key of a piece is the tonic note and chord that gives
a subjective sense of arrival and rest. It also represents a frequency.
The next question is: How do I detect the track key? Before I can mix two tracks in the
same key, I have to know that they are, in fact, in the same key. So how do I know the
track key? Simply by listening to the track. I use a simple keyboard app on my phone,
like Garage Band, that enables me to have a keyboard and thus, a reference point.
I can listen to the track and humm for myself the ground key. Then, I fnd the
representing key on my keyboard app - and that's the track key.
Noting down the track key in the playlist
I can enable whichever columns I want displayed in my playlist by right clicking on the
column headers. There are both Key and Key Text columns. In the column called Key
Text I can fll in my own track key detection. In the Key column, Traktor will show me
what key it thinks the track is. But it’s often wrong, so we need to double-check this
analysis. Traktor is right 80 percent of the time, but the other 20 percent of the time it’s
wrong, so we want to double-check.
If you’re not certain how to acoustically detect the track key, you can rely on Traktor’s
analysis for now. It's fne. But I suggest you learn how to actually hear the track key.
There are many tutorials for that on YouTube.
3. Which keys match?
In western music theory, there are 12 different keys. They make up an octave—a
doubling in frequency. When looking for key-matching tracks, we want to mix tracks that
are either in the same key or in a key that falls in an interval of ffths.
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Now let's fnd out which keys
actually match. What are keys?
What are notes?
This is a picture of a piano
keyboard:
In the Western system that we
use, an octave is divided into 12
notes. Moving up an octave is
actually doubling the frequency. If
your starting note is one kilohertz,
an octave higher would be two
kilohertz. And the distance
between one and two kilohertz is
divided into 12 equal steps, which
is how we get the notes, or keys.
The white keys here are named
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and then it
starts over with C. The black keys
are called B fat (Bb), A fat (Ab),
G fat (Gb), E fat (Eb), and D fat
(Db).
What is a ffth? A ffth is a ffth step in the scale, and it’s always relative.
So starting from C, a ffth up would be G. And frequency-wise it’s 3/2 of the way up the
octave. So if C is one kilohertz, then B is two kilohertz, and G would be 1.5 kilohertz.
And that's why it makes harmonic sense to mix in this circle of ffths, because it sounds
right and it creates the least distortion.
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4. The circle of ffths
The circle of ffths gives us a map of all the ffths that we have. Starting with C, going up
a ffth every time, the next ffth would be G, D, A, E, B, and so forth.
So let’s say you are playing an E fat track. The circle of ffths will tell you (by going to
the next segment clockwise) that if you want to match the next track within the circle of
ffths, you should play a B fat track.
You could play an E fat track, of course—you can always stay in the same key. But if
you want to progress by one ffth, you go up to B fat. You can also go down to A fat,
which is a ffth down. But in order to build up energy, I suggest you keep moving up
(clockwise) in the circle of ffths.
4. Why Key shifting?
There are 12 keys. If we only mix in the same key or within the circle of ffths, only a
small portion of our music collection is available for mixing (2/12 or 16 percent, to be
exact). A track in C can only be mixed with another track in C or G.
Key shifting by 1 semitone up or down triples our options:
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Keyshift -1 semitone: C becomes B and is mixable with B and E
Keyshift +1 semitone: C becomes Db and is mixable with Db and Ab
This way, the available mixable tracks become 6/12 or 50 percent!
Key shifting is so important when you mix in key. Many DJs start out with mixing in key
and become frustrated by the limitation of mixing choices resulting from it.
Key shifting enhances your choices by 200%. Now you can use 50% of your repertoire
and still mix in key!
5. Create custom mapping
Let's take a look at how to control key shifting. Traktor gives you very poor control over
your key shifting using the Key adjustment dial and the + (plus) and - (minus) buttons
with it. You can click these buttons to give you an increase or decrease of 10 percent of
a note. But that's not what I need. What I need is a jump by one semitone, and I want to
have it on my controller—not using the mouse. So, in order to do that, I created a
custom mapping for my S2 controller in Preferences > Controller Manager.
The custom key map is available for download in the video course:
Just upload this custom mapping because creating it yourself can be a bit tedious.
Feel free to use it so that you can have the same convenience I have.
To me, this is a major step to make key shifting work live, as opposed to clicking around
with your mouse like 10 times to move one semitone up. This is not practical, and for a
live performance, I would not suggest doing that. Use the key map described above and
you'll be in full control.
But I would restrict this key shifting to one semitone, in order not to interfere with the
track too much and to keep the original favor of the track.
That's how I go about key shifting: I use my custom mapping.
And you can do the same now.
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6. Put it to work
Now I’ll give you a practical example of mixing in key. If I have an F track playing, I
would choose from my collection another track either in F or in C as the next track I
would play. Let’s say my next track is in F. Let’s do some mixing to show you the power
of mixing in key.
Using the base of Deck B, you can hear how smooth it works. These two tracks actually
enhance each other.
The next mix I want to do is one that moves up one ffth in the circle of ffths. If I'm playing a
C track, I could also use a B track. I would just use key shift to shift it up one semitone. But I’m
going to play a C track, so it should work nicely. Coming up to the middle of Deck B, if I play
the track a bit, the main part of Deck A is coming up. And you can hear how it progress a ffth
up. The whole thing moves up until it is playing in C.
Just to show you how I work with the key shifts, I will add a track that is in D fat. This would
not normally match at all with my playing C track. But I have my key shift in place, so I can
key shift down one semitone and the D fat track becomes C. Now we’re mixing in D, in the
same key. The keys match, and both tracks are playing in C. So I can keep playing Deck A,
and I don’t really have to stop the mix, which actually makes it more interesting.
If we’re playing a D fat track with a semitone key shift down, we end up playing in C. Now to
add a track, we move up in the circle of ffths to G. I have a G fat track, “Waterlight.” In order
to mix in key, I will bring it up by one semitone. Now my G fat track is a G track.
And that’s what it sounds like when you move up in the circle of ffths. You can extend your
mixes easily, they will harmonise and actually compliment each other, and the two tracks
make each other sound better, rather than worse.
Now I’ll fade out Deck B. And this is a mix I really love. I have another G fat track here, and
Traktor said it has no key. I disagree—it’s actually G fat as well. These two tracks are in the
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same key, since I key shifted my Deck A by one semitone. I will do the same on deck B. I will
also key shift it one semitone up so both tracks will be playing in G now.
Mixing in key also allows you to jump genres. If we’re playing a two-step track, the next track
can be a tech house track. And because they match in key, the mix becomes exciting. It’s
like a progression, and they don’t disturb each other at all. You can hear the vocals match,
crossfading the bass, and it sounds more like a remix. The vocals still make sense; I can
keep playing the vocals of deck A.
That’s it for mixing in key.
I hope you enjoyed the session, and keep up the good work!
Thank you for reading this Ebook!
It is the text-version of the Traktor DJ Video Course. Text is a very limited medium when
it comes to explaing DJing and mixing. Check out the "real thing" here:
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About the Author
Dano Farino (DJ DanoEF) has been in the
music production and reproduction business for
more than 15 years. Following his passion for
music he studied Jazz in Munich, further adding
sound engineering and music production to his
skills by going through numerous trainings at
TV companies, movie and music productions as
well as sound engineering companies.
Geared up with solid knowledge in the felds of
music theory and technology his career took off
and got him involved in numerous high profle
projects directing and producing promotional
music for EADS, Siemens and Infneon.
As a sound engineer he handled more than 100 events, TV shows and concerts
including Maceo Parker, Stereo MCs and Prince.
DJing is and always was a major part of Dano's musical career. His frst professional
engagement was a resident position at the Tilt Club in 1998 playing Acid Jazz, House
and Drum&Bass. Gigs at Enemy Mine, the Munich Airport Rave, and various events
and venues followed. For over three years, he and his business partner owned one of
the hippest clubs in Munich where they themselves played and hosted internationally
renowned acts like Gebrüder Teichmann, Abe Duke, Cio d'Or and Frankie Knuckles.
In 2012, attracted by the endless summer and career opportunities in Southeast Asia,
Dano shifted his home base to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where his unique style quickly
gained popularity through DJ sets and his own events in which he cooperates with local
and international DJs and musicians.
Dano’s constantly evolving style, refecting his own uniqueness and the development of
the musical world around us, can best be described as ‘HighTechSoul‘ - a mix of
Electronica, House, NuDisco and Breaks. Deep, infectious dance grooves with a taste
of elegant syncopated blackness, linked to the legacy of Funk, Soul and Disco. Music
for people who prefer to be inspired and surprised over hearing what they know from
the Charts.
On his own educational website htth://traktordjcourse.com and on other platforms
(wikihow.com, ezinearticles.com/, radiojar.com...) Dano is sharing his experience in
numerous posts and articles. His Traktor DJ Course (http://traktordjcourse.com/tdjc) is a
complete and systematic guide to DJing with Traktor Pro and mixing in key.
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Transcription

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