Tip: What Tracks Do I Start With?

[DJAdumbration]

I thought I'd write a quick post for all us noobs about the best tracks to learn on (from my experience). Of course, you can start with any tracks you please, and you'll definately want to choose tracks that you really love as you'll be hearing them over and over and over and... ad nausium. Also, if you know the tracks inside out, you'll know the structure of the song very well. If there's a breakdown, you'll know when the beat cuts out and when it comes back. Everywhere I've been recommends starting with something that has a simple beat to it. You might want to get into hip-hop, rap, RnB, Drum n Bass straight away but it's going to take you a lot longer to master the basics. You'll be looking for songs with a strong bass drum followed by a strong high-hat/snare drum and where this is consistant across the majority of the track. House and trance (as long as there are no breakdowns etc) are going to be your best bet for this.

Below are the tracks I found really helpful when learning to count beats, beatmatch and mix.

GravelPit (Wu Tang Clan) and Just Lose It (Eminem). This one is actually really good. Once you can get the two songs beatmatched, set the crossfader to the middle so both tracks are coming out of the speakers. If you're mixer is good enough, you can kill most of the vocals from Gravel Pit and kill the bass from Just Lose It. You'll end up with the vocals from Just Lose It playing over the bass from Gravel Pit. Not a good idea if you're playing at a club as you can't toally kill the vocals/bass but it really gives you a confidence boost when you're learning to be able to pull this one off.

California Dreamin (Royal Gigalos) and Somebody to Love (Boogie Pimps). These two are remixes of old school songs and should be a piece of cake. Try and use the Tek House Remix of Calinfornia Dreamin and the Club Mix of Somebody to Love. PS. Watch the video clip for Somebody to Love. OMFG - married or not, you would NOT turn her out of your bed!

Pump Up the Jam and Rythem is a Dancer. Old school 80's tracks but they mix really well together. I actually used these two tracks to learn the loop and hot start features on my decks.

There are plenty more combinations out there, why don't you post some tracks you first learnt to mix on? These ones were what I learned with - before I had BPM counters on my decks!

Ciao

Adumbration

[JonnyB]

a great track to learl to BM with is benny benassi satisfaction, its also great practise to get 2 version of the track to mix together......because it has such a prominent kick its alot easier to tell when your in and out of beat

[LabRat]

Nice write up. Just to add to the California dreaming bit, I learnt with these tracks too and they're very good starting out with. Solid kicks. Add to that, Satisfaction - Benny Bennasi

[lloydc]

http://blog.djmastercourse.com/beatmatching-genius/

that has a download on there for beat matching practice.

[DJAdumbration]

I've always wondered if there was something like that around. a copy of that playing on each deck would be a great way to practice.

[ill_spector]

cali dreaming (royal deejays) is dope

[ill_spector]

cali dreaming (global deejays) is dope