Mixing without headphones...

[SourceRaver]

This has been mentioned a couple of times lately and I want to know more.

With waveforms and sync it very easy to do using software but I'm talking about beatmixing/matching and cueing using nothing but some TTs or CDJs, a mixer and monitors. Sure its easy enough to do at home but who does it live in front of a crowd? I already know that for some genres its a matter of cutting from one track to another or 'scratching' the next track in but who can actually set up a mix between two tracks (with different BPMs), cue and beatmix them without cans?

The only Dj I know who can do this is Peter Hook

[andyman]

[Cupe]

If you know the music on your vinyl, you know where to drop it

I got sick of using headphones when I first started learning, back when I had vinyl only, so I just started mixing without them

Obv if it's new music it's difficult.

It can also depend on genre (IE, all hard dance is basically the same shit with the bass kick instantly at the start) which makes mixing without headphones pretty easy imo

[eggssell]

hahaha on hook comment source

even w cutting hip hop though, unless your records have been marked up you rarely cut from the first beat, its usually (not always!) start of a verse or bridge. so you would still need headphones to find your cue.

and as per russels point in the other fred, even if you play tracks that are close in bpm you could never perfectly estimate how to pitch it because its two factors. the track BPM and whatever your playing BPM

i.e. you may want to drop a 130 at a time when your playing 128. so you pitch the track down.

then next week you want to drop a track at a time when you playing 135, so you have to pitch it up.

so yeah unless you playing all tracks of the exact same BPM, with the first song done at zero on the pitch, so you only need to tweak the pitch for fine tuning, i don't see how it is possible.

[Cupe]

like the other old thread, I'm keen to do this live with a webcam pointing at the decks

i just have to work out where one is

I never put too much thought to it. just got annoyed with headphones so stopped using them. this is also cause i mixed a lot of hiphop so did a bit of juggling and scratching a fair bit. not sure how it works but it just does

but I've never even used CDJ's before. None of this digital shit. yous cunts are using lightsabers as pens and i'm writing with a stick

nahmean

[eggssell]

yeh i was only talking vinyl. i wouldnt know where the start of the verse is. ive never stickered up my records.

i mean i can guess the breakdown area because its the lighter area, and obviously i can see the start of the track.

but cueing it up from anywhere other than the start i would struggle with

[GREMM1S]

Yep always have to nudge the jog a little bit when i bring in the next track though.

If you know you tracks ie they start on the beat or are edits plus if you know the bpms properly you can do it.

Have no idea why people would either, especially with the image people would think youre playing a pre mixed cd or using sync

[GREMM1S]

Also with the pitching at 130bpm you can go 4bpm either way and 0.8 per bpm is perfect, you have to know the exact bpms of tracks though and ignore the reader on the player

[Cupe]

I never pay attention to bpm

[OxyKon]

I never pay attention to bpm

I used to when 1st starting out but these days I don't, specially with dnb being all over the place

In regards to mixing without headphones I haven't seen it done much, I know Miles Dyson does it, saw him doing it a couple years ago in Perth, would come down to how well you know your own tracks

[mattus123]

ive been curious about this aswell

i think it would be relitevely easy if u mixed every song from the intro. but i think it would get extremely difficult when u start scanning through the track to set up a cue point. You can look at teh waveform to give u an idea of when the song is goign to drop (for example) but i dont see how you can get it EXACTLY on the drop (unless ofcourse you knew that the song would drop at exactly 1:46:19), even if u were 20 milliseconds off, its close, but it would still sound like ass.

The only thing i can think of, is by storing cue points at home on ur SD cards, and then when u rock up to the gig use ur SD cards and play from that