yeah... ok... true. 

Reasons why I'm not a headliner.

I'll tell you, Dave, you sure did pick an 'advanced' genre to start spinning with.  Most DJs I know started off with something really easy, regardless of which genre they like best.  Around here that usually means Florida Breaks, which is what I started with.  Of course, I could only take so much of that, so I was glad that it was an easy genre to conquer and I was able to move on to electro and nuskool soon.  Then, I started doing trance, house, & techno, then DnB, downtempo, and the last genre I learned was hip hop (hey, you do what you gotta do).

I've tried my hand at just about every genre and subgenre of EDM I could get my hands on.  Tribal house is, in my opinion, probably the most difficult form of house to mix.  I know there's probably someone on here who thinks it's the easiest, but for me it was the hardest.  I think it has to do with the fact that a lot of tribal tracks sort of have this almost-flam thing going on with the kicks and it drives me nuts (I think it was like the 3rd track in your mix was like that--probably the biggest reason I wasn't fond of the mix, in all honesty).

Anyways, that's going to do 2 things for you.  One is that it will probably take you little longer to master the genre than someone who started off with say progressive trance or deep house (soooo easy IMO).  The other is that in the end you will probably be an ace beatmatcher and if you ever do spread out into other genres, you'll most likely catch on to them ultra quickly.  Pros & cons and all that.  Anyways, just an observation for you from someone who's done them all (just about anyways).

Keep it up.  I'm telling you, if you master tribal, you'll be able to master any of them.

Considering the fact that I've been writing a mix of progressive tech and tribal house and that I love that stuff, this is dead easy for me to wrap my head around.



To me, anything with breaks in it is a thousand times harder to mix than tribal house. I just don't "get" breaks. I don't click with them at all. This would have been a huge mistake for me... esp. since I'm not even interested in them.



This is what looping is for. Loop a good tribal rhythm and bring it in. Don't mix tracks, mix rhythms. That's my theory on this matter.


I think the third track in the mix is probably more of a bad track choice more than anything. I did rush through that mix too.


Who's beatmatching I'm actually using beatgrids in Traktor. The problem with that is once you set one, Traktor can automagically match the beats, but it really matches the grid. So... if the grid is off just slightly, you have to correct it quickly by pitchbending. This is why I switched from Ableton. You can't pitchbend between tracks with it. A poorly warpped track cannot be corrected on the fly. So anyway... if I don't catch the bad beatgrid in time, I have a bad mix. Setting a beatgrid takes just a minute or two on most tracks, so I can do it on the fly, but it's annoying to do them all in advance. I'll get there one day I guess.

For the record, I wasn't suggesting Dave start playing tracks he doesn't like because they're "easy".  I was commending him for jumping in with both feet and going straight for the good stuff, so to speak.  Around here, at least when I started spinning, if you didn't have at least a few Florida Breaks tracks in your crate everywhere you went (house party-wise) you were likely to be asked to give up the decks (actually happened to me the first time I tried to spin house music at a house party--I refused to play the same old  and if I had to do that to spin at that party, I was just going to go mingle outside with everyone else), so if you're going to end up with some in your crates anyways, then you might as well get it out of the way and use them to learn.  Otherwise, once you master some more challenging genres they are just plain boring (yawn & stretch).

Dave, I keep forgetting that beatmatching is becoming an obsolete skill in DJing.  It used to be like the most foundational principle . . .  The whole mixing rhythms thing does sound logical for tribal house especially -- I did not have capability of looping when I was trying to learn tribal house (just two 1200's & a mixer, no extra toys back then).

Oh, and Drew, "Florida Breaks" aka Florida Funky Breaks, is that so often-but-not-quite-always extra cheesy subgenre of breaks that places like Orlando & Tampa are so famous for.  DJ Icey, not as much now but years ago, was known for them.  So was Baby Anne, Christian Michaels, DJ Fixx, DJ 43, Superfly Jeff, Hooda Hudia, Magic Mike (though he did much more, too), and soooo many others.  A lot of nuskool flavor has crept into the sound over more recent years, but if you're familiar with much of the older stuff from Kaleidoscope or Funk Wax records, then that's a good sampling of the subgenre.  It's mostly characterized by simple break beats reminiscent of the faster old school hip hop with lots of old school vocal samples (i.e. "get up on this"), and generally recycling the same stuff over and over but in slightly different variations.  It was Floridian producers' attempt at copying the funky breaks sound coming out of London so many years ago.  Most Brits will tell you the Florida guys failed miserably.  Yet, if you play a track for them and not tell them who did it, they'll often admit to liking it if they're a funky breaks fan at all.  I'm sure I've offended anyone who reads this who is a FL breaks DJ or producer, so allow me to take this opportunity to apologize.  I know the genre has evolved in recent years, but it was just too little too late for me.  I don't mean to be offensive, I just don't care much for the genre for the most part anymore, though there are exceptions.  As Orlando DJs go, I'm probably one of the least fond of Orlando's sound.  To each their own.

Here's a better example... same concept though.

To play a record backwards... get a roll of box tape. Place it on the platter. Take your needle, turn it so it faces upward. Place your record on the box tape and hit play.

You just have to be more creative with "tool" when you have vinyl.

Ever see scratching on reel to reel?

you just have to get more creative if you only have 2

If you're into production... check out Novation's Remote SL series before dumping cash on any dj controller. With Traktor cue points are pretty much all you need so... bye-bye  jog dial.

If you want to scratch... invest in Traktor Scratch instead. I don't think there's a product on the market right now that will really satisfy you when it comes to that.

That makes sense.