A DJ mix is a great tool to show off your DJ skills. In fact, the more mixes you make, the more likely people will hear and recognize your DJ style. But, how do you make mixes regularly when you have very little time? I learned a killer method from Phil Morse at Digital DJ Tips that I have adapted to my own work style. In fact, his advice has improved my DJing ten times over! Here’s 5 steps to banging out a hot mix in record time.
#1 – Build a playlist around a theme
Start by building a list of some great tunes that you want to bring together. It really helps if you focus on a specific theme, like a genre, mood or event. “80s Remixes,” “Halloween Bangers,” “Get Psyched,” or something like that.
Keep in mind how long you want the playlist to be. If you are going for 30 or 60 minutes, have just a bit more music than your running time. Your transitions will cut some of the time off the mix.
#2 – Order your playlist
Use your honed DJ skills to order your tracks in a way that makes musical sense. You can start slower and move faster, or start with a bang and drop it down part way through. Make the playlist flow naturally so that there are no songs that clash.
This is a good point to pay attention to the BPM and keys of the songs. You can start by sorting your playlist by BPM and seeing which songs are close together. Make adjustments to account for key matching, and you should be able to put some tight transitions together.
#3 – Practice transitions and make notes
Now that you have the basic order of your mix, cue up the songs and practice mixing them together. Make decisions on what sort of transition you want to use, and where you want it to start in each track. This will also help you weed out songs that go together on paper, but really clash when you try to mix them.
As you decide on your transitions, make notes in the order of your mix on what transition you are going to use and where. Use Hot Cues in your DJ software to mark the transition points, and write these in your notes as well. For example: Track #3 – Bass Swap at Cue 3, play for 8 bars, then crossfade.
#4 – Record
Once you have your mix order and you’ve practice your transitions, it’s time to record. This is the step that can take forever, but I learned an amazing trick from Digital DJ Tips. If you screw up a mix (which is highly likely), DON’T STOP recording! Just hit pause on both tracks and leave a gap of silence. Then, rewind your tracks and try again. After you finish recording, load the file into a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) like Audacity. Use the gaps to find the spots that you messed up, and edit out your mistakes. This tip has saved me hours recording my mixes!
#5 – Name it, cover it and share it!
Once you’ve got your mix recorded and edited, it’s time to share it with the world. Give your mix a name, preferably something catchy that will grab your listener’s attention. Also, make sure you have a photo for the cover art. There are a bunch of free stock photo sites where you can find a great photo to use or modify for your cover. This is very important because your mix does nothing for your brand if it isn’t branded.
Now you are ready to share with the world. I recommend uploading your mix to MixCloud. MixCloud will let people stream your mix for free, and they take care of all of the royalties for you. This way, you won’t have to deal with the copyright headaches you have on YouTube or SoundCloud.
BAM, you’re done! Now share your mix to all of your followers on social media. You may even want to start sharing mixes regularly to gain more followers. With this quick and easy system, you should be able to create mixes faster and more often than you have before.
