DJ Skills: Phrasing, Key, Gain, Clipping, EQ Mixing and Cue Points
Phrasing
Phrases are things like the Intro, Chorus, Verse, Build Up and Outro.
Phrasing is layering one part of a song over another part of a song. The most basic form of Phrasing is called Intro to Outro. This is where you play the first beat of the intro of the incoming song on the first beat of the Outro of the outgoing song.
Things to think about with Phrasing;
Vocals: Vocals over the top of vocals rarely sound good. You don’t want to phrase two sets of vocals over each other.
Energy: If the playing song is full of energy, it will kill the vibe if you mix in a low energy song and vice versa. This can be done for effect, especially at the end of a set, but it should be done wisely.
What about the drop?
The drop is the heart of every good song. It’s the bit we all want to listen to over and over again, and it’s the part of the song that every DJ is building up to. But it isn’t a phrase technically, it’s just one moment in time. It’s at the end of a verse/build-up and is usually the first beat of a chorus.
Key
Another basic concept to understand is that all songs are written in a musical key. This key is then used when building the notes that form the song. Mixing two songs in keys that don’t work together won’t sound right.
Thankfully, there are many tools at your disposal that help identify the key of a song and that show you which keys will work well together. The first thing you want to do is to get yourself a Camelot Wheel by MixedInKey.com.
The Camelot Wheel: This bad boy is printed and laminated next to my DJ setup. It is such an amazing reference tool.
So basically, the inner race contains all the minor keys and the outer race contains all the major keys. To make the system even easier to read, they assign a number from 1-12 for all the keys, followed by an ‘A’ for the minor keys and a ‘B’ for the major keys.
The way the reference works is that you can go either left, right or across by 1. So for example, if the track you are currently playing is an 8A, the track you should bring in should either be 9A, 7A or 8B as in the diagram below.
Like everything, play around and see if you can spot the difference between in key and out of key mixes.
The Camelot Wheel was designed by MixedInKey.com If you are serious about mixing, they offer one of the best track analysers on the market.
Gain/Volume Control
Gain controls the input volume of a particular channel coming into your mixer.
The volume fader controls the output of a channel.
Basically, once you have mixed in a track and it’s playing away, your volume fader should be at max. But not all songs are recorded at the same level. This is what the Gain control is for, to trim one track up or down, so it roughly matches the other track.
Clipping
You should also think of Gain (sometimes called Trim) as a safety device for your mixer and speakers. When a song is playing, you will notice the Volume lights next to the channel that is live bouncing up and down with the track. The idea is to keep the peak of those lights out of the red, and ultimately away from clipping.
To understand clipping, you need to understand that all amps/speakers have a physical limit of “volume” that they can process. Once that threshold is crossed, the audio is no longer processed and is clipped off at max, leaving the sound coming out of the speaker, stunted. This can push your speakers past their limits which can end in blown gear.
This is a great visual representation of clipping. Think of the black wave as your song. Think of the red lines as the limit of your stereo system. Where the black line flattens off is clipping. The way we control the height of this wave and bring it back within the limits is with the Gain control.
Equaliser or EQ Mixing
There are a million different ways to bring in a new track, but the most common is to use a combination of EQ and Volume fading.
Equalisers allow the DJ to cut or emphasise a certain frequency range. Those ranges are Low (Basslines / Kick Drums), Mids (Vocals / Synths / Drums) and High (Hats / High End Vocals / Synths).
I will let this DJ Better explain the rest as it’s best demonstrated with sound.
The Importance Of Cue Points
A cue point is a preset point in a track that you can quickly navigate to using the functions of your player/controller. You might set them where you want a track to load (loadmarker), where the bass kicks in, where you want to mix in, mix out or where a funky lyric starts. You can preset these cue points in your DJ software, then when you load up a track, the cue points are waiting for you. Or you can set a hot cue while you are playing.
Because cue points only came along post-vinyl, not all experienced DJs use them. But if you are just starting out and still getting to know your tracks, cue points are king.
DJ Skills: Conclusion
While this section of the guide covers the basics, there is a hell of a lot more to learn before you are proficient. If you practice every day for a month, you will see noticeable gains in your skills. Don’t doubt yourself when you get frustrated, but instead, turn back to the basics where you will feel safe.
It’s also good to start with a very small selection of tracks that you get to know intimately well. This will help you sense what is coming and get prepared to deal with it.
Good luck, my new DJ friend!
