VirtualDJ - Turtorial of mixing with Vdj:For Newbies

PRO InfinityMember since 2003

Tutorial of VDj-For Newbies

First of all i want to apologise for my poor english.I am not making this tutorial for showing off but just trying to help really beginners to introduce them in the logic of mixing.
I copy some parts from my old post in atomixmp3 forum cause
they can fit also here.

General
Vdj is a program created for helping the Jockey making LIVE mixes.It is not for preview mixing and the filosophy of the program is to simulate the 2 turntables and a mixer.

Getting started
First of all we have to understand how the program works.This program is based on 4/4 beat recognizing system.That means that songs with a stable 4/4 beat rythm (like house,trance,techno..etc) can be mixed easier than others like d'n'b brakebeats,r'n'b,rap etc.Of course you can use it mixing all kind of styles of music as i mention its just a simulation of turntables.I will talk about 4/4beat music cause is the most easy one to understand and work with this program.
The philosophy of vdj is " I have one Song (mp3 file) and another song (mp3 file) that has to be played in the same rythm"...to be played with the same rythm...that means that the Beats has to be adjusted one over the other.In this time came the idea to have the song file in his "original form" and this is the wave gram.The wave gram will show you grafically what is the music that you are listening.There you will recognize Beats as a straight long lines,Hihats as a small little "hills" and baseline as a big round shaped "mountains".This elements will help us making a good mix.

Talking about music
All the songs are created over an acquarate mathematical rule of the 16 beats.This rules says that in one song new elements (like bass,hihats,crashes..etc) will be added every 16beats or multiplucation of 16 like 32,64 etc.or even sometimes like some rock songs every 8. Finding the correct beat to start our mix is one of the most important job.
Most of the songs of 7-8 min has an intro about 1.5-2min and an outro of 1-2min.In the intro and outro of a song there is usual a beat,hihat and bass without melody.That parts of the song will help us for making a good mix.

Making a good mix
to make a good mix you need first to know the song that is playing and the song that you are mixing very well.In other case your mix will sound propably like shit.
You have to know exactly the time of the intro and outro of the song...cause best mixes made when intro time of mixing song is adjusted with outro time of playing song.And the work of a simple dj is excactly that.But not only that.
1.Selection of good music that "fits"
2.knowing vdj byheart
3.imagination of composing the mix
4.right song at the right time
5.talent

VDj STEP1
when you open VDj regardeless skin that you choose you will actually see the same stuff.
2 players left and right that each have:
play,stop,cue,and magik(synch) button,3eq band of bass treble and high frequencies,3 effect buttons,a pitch bend and loop buttons.
also you will see informations about the song that are very valuable.that is:
the wave form of the song showing beats hihats and baseliners,
time that passed,remaining time and total time
also you will see the bpm (beats per minute) of the song calculated by the program (working for 4/4beats song best)

Vdj STEP2
also you will see a mixer that has
2 chanels of volume and gain controling the db of the output of your song (2 upright sliders)
a crossfader (horizontal slider) that is changing actually the volume from deck 1 to deck 2.(i am not using it although)
and a preview volume control to listen and adjust the song before you play it live.

Vdj STEP3
Ok here we start loading a song.Loading a song by drag and drop it in one deck will automatically show the wave form showing the begining of the song.The first job after loading a song is to cue it to the right position.Cuing a song its like setting a flag on the wave form that tells the program the beginning of the song (ususally riped songs have a starting silence of 1-2sec).The best songs for begginers for mixing are those that start with a clear beat.After cueing a song in the right position the song is ready to be played.(when you cue a song then everytime that you load it it will start from cue position and not from the beginning,returning to the beginning of a song you have to press stop button after you load it)
Be carefull and never cue a song out of the 16beat system that i mention...

VDj STEP4
This is the time where you select the correct beat to start your mix.After understanding the 16beat system you will realize that its better to select the first beat of the 16 or 32 beat system for starting the mix.(To know which beat is the first its easy cause its usually attached with a crash.Crash can usually be found in the first beat of 32beat loop).The beat that you have to select for starting the mixing depends of the current playing song and the song that is in preview.Lets see an example to understand it better.
Lets say that the current playing song is an 8 min song in 128bpm and lets say that in about 2 minutes from the end of the song there is a crash and there are 3 sounds left (beat,hihats,bass) and lets say that the in the last minute of the song there is another crash and 2 sounds left (beat,hihats).In the cue position there is a song of 6 min in 128bpm with 1 min intro...that means the first min of the song will be only beat and hihats.The easiest way of mixing this 2 songs is starting the mix first beat of the song in preview adjusted to the beat with crash 2 min before the ending of current song.In that way the bass of one song will not meet the bass of the other song and it will be a soft,long enough,mix.After 1min of playing both of the songs at the same time there will be the crash of the first song (which will continue without bass) and the crash of the secong song which will add a bass or a baseliner.For playing the song in cue totally adjusted to the current song you can use magik button next to play (synch) or whereelse is on the skin you are using.In default skin in up in center.

Setting Up Vdj
I setup vdj in a different way cause I stick to the logic of turntables.First of all I don’t use beatlock for the only reason that the program doesn’t “Listen” the song but “reads” the song which is kind different.So if you have one song that is not readed well then your whole mix will be cracked on the moment you will add this song in your mix.And the point is that you cannot go back.So an advice is that any program can make a mistake in one track so trust your ears more than you trust your eyes.Another thing is “time strech”.In atomixmp3 that wasn’t working correct.But although it is fixed on vdj I still disable it cause I don’t trust nudging in my ears with time strech enable it gives me a fake feeling of nudging a track but I guess its mater of practice and what you are get used to do (nudge is moove your song forward or backword for miliseconds done with left and right for default song on keyboard).Another important thing is to search shortcuts.You have lovely things there.The must that has to be changed is the value of nudge default is +256-256 I changed that values to +128-128 which I found smoother to nudge.Also by default the pitch range is +34%-34% I like to use and see the pitch sliders move enough to understand how slow or how fast I play a song.I use instead of them –8+8 but also you can use +12-12 its quite enough.Another thing to be changed is changing the “max load” to always.This will give the program the ability to read the whole song first and analyse it all cause some songs have some really strange changes inside so its better to have them all as a wave gram than a part of it.Also I put “crossfader” at Full cause this is the normal behavor of a real good mixer as default.It gives full sound of a track when crossfader is on left or right.and full sound of both tracks when it is in middle.Also you have to take care about gain while you are mixing.I always use gain from 1.2 to 2.0 it depends of the setup I need to make and always have the volume sliders little bit less than the maximum.In this way I prevent the mistake of a song that is not readed correct and their gain is less than it is written.So I have more volume to give to the track if it needed.After you done that you can play with shortcuts.I will not explain here my setup of the shortcuts cause I think everyone has to use the shortcuts according of how much control he wants from the keyboard but I will give a tip.You can set up a key making multiple actions ;)

Tips
1.Overdub:Overdub is created when you are playing 2 songs at the same time very loud so the beat of one song try to overlap the beat of the second song creating a beat bulgy distorted.To escape that there are 3 ways.First to nudge one of the beat little bit forwords or backwords by pressing left or right button once or twice.Second is to use the volume control of the songs by adding volume to the song that you are mixing and removing volume from the curent playing song.Third to use Eq
2.EQ:Eq is the most usefull tool of dj.Actually its the tool that will help you cutting up some frequencies of the song.Its really important to understand the use of the eq cause you can create better mixes and correct mistakes also.In Vdj every player has a 3 band eq.Bass Middle and High frequencies.Sounds (loops) of one song are adjusted to that frequencies.For example hihats are adjusted to the high eq.That means if you cut the high frequency with the eq the hihats will not be heard anymore on the song.In the Bass eq are adjusted sounds of Beat and Bass.If you cut the bass eq the beat will be barely heard and that helps for protecting in overdub.in the Middle eq are adjusted "main elements" melody of one song.If you mix 2 songs and the melody of the first one doesnt match with the second one you can cut the middle eq frequency and the mix will sound better.Also cutting the bass can be used as an effect in a monotone song.Cutting the bass for 16or 32beats and then relase it will sound good.Eq is helping you to mix 2 songs in any place that you want cause you can choose which sound will be left after cutting frequencies.
3.Analize:Nerer play live a song that you never played before.Analizing a song with right click will give informations to the program about the volume level of the song (preventing overdub) and bpms (preventing unsychronizing).
4.My mixing technique: personally i like very long mixes of 2-4 min.I have a curent song playing with max volume and gain about +1.7.The song in cue is in the volume of around 2 (scale 0-10) and i start to mix those 2 songs with cutted bass of the cue song.I increase the cue song volume smoothly and in the right moment i relase the bass of the cue song and cutting the bass of the current playing song.This can be easyly done by creating a shortcut for making 2 actions.I have created letter Z for kill the bass of deck 1 and kill the bass of the deck 2.Of course its not the only way to make a mix...it depends of the inspiration ,of the moment and of the skill.But for beginning it sounds good enough.
5.About samples.If you are newbie first you have to start making good mixes using simply the volume sliders and eq.Then you can start using the loop button.When you got that you can start thinking what you will do with samples and effects.Its not the point of mentioning what you can do in your mix with samples and effects as this turtorial is made for newbies.

Lovely words:Mixing is a virus.Good jockeys have to think not what they are going to play next but what they are going to play after :) this means that you have to imagine your mix before you make it and you have to think which song will be in your playlist after 2-3songs from now.Listening the songs over and over again and playing with the program hours and hours trying to understand the logic will give you the skill to create whatever you want.

At the end:Dont forget.VDj is just a perfect tool helping you to mix.Its not making the job of a jockey but it just makes our work easier.

Cj-Dimitris.T
http://cj-dimitrist.tripod.com/

Forum: Music discussion