Hardest style to mix?

[akira]

In your experience, what's the hardest style of music to mix...and why?

[Church Decorator]

i think psytrance and darkcore are the hardest to mix from my experience

psytrance because its not structured predictably (a good thing unless your trying to mix it) the producers seem to take delight in not starting the song on the "normal" bar (like they seem to throw a few bars and beats in here and there so you have to like start in on the 3rd beat of the 3rd bar or something ridiculous like that) . of course i don't play psytrance nor have i had a lot of experience with it so this maybe is not 100% the case..

darkcore (often) for the same reason, but mainly because the songs really "clash", putting 2 darkcore bassdrums over each other will usually not sound right, so unless you are a wizz at the eq (which i don't have) you need to find other ways to mix it...

[akira]

Travis what do you call the style you mix now? How would you rate that?

[flaunt]

yeh ill second that, i think psytrance is prolly the trickiest style ive mixed - due to weird, wonderful and unusual track structures... i knew someone who used to mix psy with dual cd-mixer, and he would wait until a break in the 1st track then blend in the 2nd, and fully cut across to the second track before the beat came in on the 1st. to me it looked like he was desperately avoiding any beatmixing... LOL

[richw]

Mixing music you dont like or feel would be the hardest right?!?

[Church Decorator]

akira : hmmmmm.... i guess the direction i'm heading in is a bit of industrial/experimental hardcore (very hard shit, strong techno influence usually around 150bpm) and darkcore (very atmospheric and errie stuff - yet pretty damn hard - well produced stuff - around 160-170bpm)

these styles are easy to beatmix if the track starts rhymically, which maybe 60% of the time they do. if they don't it can get a bit tricky, because i don't like to cut out the start of the track just because there isn't a beat - thats kind of cheating, and you miss some good stuff!

in terms of actual difficulty to mix well; ie "the mix" (you know, you could beatmix it perfect but some tracks will still sound like shit together) the experimental/industrial stuff isn't too difficult, the darkcore can be a bit as i said because its very "clashy" and sometimes the structure is a bit fucked around, so you gotta watch which tracks you mix together and how you mix them together..

of course there are many exceptions to the rule, and as time passes these styles change in sound and structure; nothing stays the same for long!

akira, how do you find psytrance to mix?

[HERETIK]

the slower the music, the harder it is to mix...

the faster it is, the easier.

[Church Decorator]

Mixing music you dont like or feel would be the hardest right?!?
not true!

i've had a go at mixing commercial trance and happy hardcore, i don't like them in the slightest - but they're so easy to mix; they're MADE TO MIX!

[Church Decorator]

the slower the music, the harder it is to mix...

the faster it is, the easier.
i disagree!!!!! i don't find speed has much to do with it at all..

by the way everyone, just to clarify, when we are talking about how hard something is to mix, are we talking about how hard it is to simply BEAT MATCH, or how hard it is to pull off an excellent sounding mix??

[akira]

I haven't seen you spin for a while but I always just assumed those booming bass drums would be tricky.

I don't find psytrance that hard as long as the desk has eq's...the hardest part is getting your set to flow nicely, as gay as it sounds, to make the listener feel like they're really being taken on a journey. Otherwise I imagine it would be similar to the style you play as I've noticed quite a few similar sounds and elements between the two genres.

The complexity of the melodies and the interaction of these within the two tracks cause problems sometimes as well.

[akira]

Mixing music you dont like or feel would be the hardest right?!?
not true!

i've had a go at mixing commercial trance and happy hardcore, i don't like them in the slightest - but they're so easy to mix; they're MADE TO MIX!
Agreed. As long as you can beatmatch ok and don't have any key clashes you can follow the exact same formula for every mix.

[akira]

the slower the music, the harder it is to mix...

the faster it is, the easier.
i disagree!!!!! i don't find speed has much to do with it at all..

by the way everyone, just to clarify, when we are talking about how hard something is to mix, are we talking about how hard it is to simply BEAT MATCH, or how hard it is to pull off an excellent sounding mix??
I was thinking how hard it is to mix the two tracks together well so it sounds as if you're not mixing them at all.

[Rico]

in regards to matching beats, slower is harder I reckon. The faster it is, the quicker the beats fall out of place, and the quicker you can pinpoint the diff..

[HERETIK]

the slower a song is going to be, you need to put the pitch
to an exact spot to mix it.

with a faster song, like hardcore for instance...
you can just about put the pitch anywhere above +2 and itll
stay in time for a bit b4 you have to re-ajust.

common sense churchie.

[inter-phazer]

i can't mix

[Church Decorator]

the slower a song is going to be, you need to put the pitch
to an exact spot to mix it.

with a faster song, like hardcore for instance...
you can just about put the pitch anywhere above +2 and itll
stay in time for a bit b4 you have to re-ajust.

common sense churchie.
lets not forget that hardcore can be any speed (depending on your definition of hardcore) so you'll have to clarify...

whats your definition of slow and fast? slow like hiphop? fast like speedcore?

if your mixing 2 hardcore records and your pitch is off by +/- 2% your gonna know pretty fucking quick, as is your audience. it won't stay in beat for longer than like 2 beats

[Church Decorator]

the size of the record is all that matters! 7" goes out of beat faster! yes thats it! common sense!

[Amenbro]

i can't mix
Same I am still learning

I just bought the latest WILD MIX CD man those guys are so
good.

we can take pointer.

[sinistah]

i recon once you go below say 100 bpm, thats where it could get hard, mixing faster shizz is easier, but i guess if your more familiar with the music, the easier it would be. mixing tek is fun, house would have to be the easiest.

[Ruxton]

Agreed. Slower = Harder (to an extent)

[JAMES H]

I find drum n bass the hardest stuff to mix of all. My bro has it down pat - but its just not the same as mixing an old hardcore track...

[JoeCool]

the stuff you play travis... i dont think i could mix if i tried... i had a go once at a mates place and jeebus it was hard... you seem to be the kind of it... i'll leave yo to it lol

[nigel]

I find Intelligent Drum and Bass one of the harder things to match.
You actually have to have a sense of musical notes and pitch to choose your next tune rather than just throwing on another formulated tune with intro and breakdown.
Mis match synth patterns and it sounds like utter shit.

[Church Decorator]

joe cool : ha - you just have to understand it, thats all! it's by no means the hardest style to mix. thethe biggest mistake i reckon that people make when they're having a go at mixing my style of hardcore is they think that its GABBA SO YA MIX IT REALLY FUCKEN HARD CUTTING THE XFADER LEFT TO RIGHT AND PLAY THE TRACKS AT +/- 8% etc etc etc.... of course thats just not the case!! its like makeup... less is more... or something...

[JoeCool]

* JoeCool nods and agrees

[Section9]

all styles are hard until you know what you're doing...

electro is pretty hard because its all over the place plus the aforementioned slower bpm shizznit and although 4/4 its hard to mix a "valid sounding" minimal tekno set, specially on 3 decks. As for HARDEST id have to say thatd probably be hip hop scratch mxing? requires the most skill.

[DirectX]

personally i would say D&B and jungle is the easiest style to mix, psy trance and hip-hop would have to be the hardest. All depends whether im stoned or not...

[woopie kat]

anything melodic

[Freestyle]

I find Intelligent Drum and Bass one of the harder things to match.
You actually have to have a sense of musical notes and pitch to choose your next tune rather than just throwing on another formulated tune with intro and breakdown.
Mis match synth patterns and it sounds like utter shit.
Here's my take on the whole thing.

I tend to agree with Paul here, anything with melody and vocal intros can be a bitch. If the tunes aren't in the same key the mix can sound terrible! I cringe when I hear a mix like this... examples of music like this would be (un)Intelligent Drum 'n' Bass(huhuhu), Psy Trance & some Happy Hardcore (the more vocal & synthy stuff from a few years ago, not the newer stuff).

Easiest stuff to mix would be Drum 'n' Bass, I can go off have a coffee come back and it will still be rolling along nicely! Techno because it's very minimal so it is easy to layer. & Banging / Bouncy Hardcore coz it's mostly just beatz as the intros.

I find Old skool, breaks & Hard House middle of the road when it come to difficulty. Never mixed funky house or electro so couldn't comment on these styles. Nu Style Gabba...well it is very similar to Hard House in some respects, very different in others, so through use of the EQ when mixing I'm sure it would be quite easy to mix, that's why I'll put it in this grouping.

There just my 2p worth.

[inter-phazer]

al once got me to play a rare groove & 70's breaks set at the hydey.
(james brown , apache , lyn collins ,bobby byrd ect..) i tried beatmixing the first 3 or 4 mixes and they trainwrecked bigtime , that shit is fucking 'HARD' to mix , i ended up scratching & cutting stuff in for the rest of my set , when i watched dj craze he played a 45 min block of 70's breaks and wasn't beatmixing it 'now i know why'

also old school stuff is quite hard i find cos you get used to mixing modern stuff and you go back to playing your old tunes and try to mix like you mix these days , back then you mixed a different way , i have to focus on how i mixed then , when i drop an old set , gets quite frustrating

[Nepheline]

well i wouldnt have the foggiest clue at which is hardest cos i never got the chance to try before! http://www.teknoscape.com.au/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

ive been deprived and no one i know in person knows how to mix! :

[tuan]

Yeah ive found psy trance and techno to be the hardest to mix. Sometimes the beat is so soft underneath the the strings and melodies that it gets really confusing. And techno, not so much for the beat matching but more because you really need 2 tracks that sound great together otherwise its just one mash up of sounds.
When im mixing slow 120-130 bpm house, im always finding myself adjusting the pitch during the mix.

Happy hardcore and uplifting trance would have to be the easiest as its so formulaic.

[Xtreem]

I would have to say alot of 2-Step is a real bitch to mix..
the beats are fairly slow and choppy, it is very hard to make the snares hit at the exact same time and being fairly slow, it is hard to keep it on target once you do as apposed to the quick rythym of D&B or Hard House

[Trent C]

as far as skill required to sound good hip hop DJ's win hands down. they take what they do realy seriously and it shows .i am yet to hear a 'club dj' do anything that hard. I agree with erratik,some 2 step is very hard to mix. the beats are heavily quantized and the tunes dont follow a progressive format. Any style with a broken beat is much harder to mix then 4/4 styles because the percussion is not on the beat. i sure someone will disagree.

[Loco]

the slower the music, the harder it is to mix...

the faster it is, the easier.
I think the slower it is the longer it takes to zero in on cue
speed and position. and vice verca

[Loco]

in 4/4 I believe there is only two styles, breakbeat and
hardbeat. If you can mix hip hop breaks then you mix
NSB and Dnb; if you can mix house then you can mix techno
and gabba. Tempo is the only variable factor.

Having said that not all producers stick to a formula that suits
Djs and the way they like to mix. This is where you must
know your tracks and combine the sounds that work together.

Psy trance/techno can be noisy and layered to extreme , making the mix harder to hear clearly.

[Dynamik]

Top 5 hardest styles to mix;

1* Pantomime
2* Spoken word novels for the visual impaired
3* Jazz
4* Orchestral
5* Heavy Metal

http://www.teknoscape.com.au/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sarcasm.gif

[PKING]

I find that "beach-house" *moan* [ yes! ANOTHER SUB-GENRE] as its now labelled here in Britain, i.e. Chillout tunes...like the shit on the MOS Chillout sessions is hardest to mix. You can rarely beatmix the stuff, and you have to "mix" through use of the EQ's or volume which always sounds tacky..

I'd also say Hip-Hop is hard for those DJ's that dont know how to scratch decently, and Old Skool rave is a bit of a bitch as if you've got D-Mob "Acieed" playing, and you want to mix "Original Bad Boy" in, you aint got no chance... 90/91/92/93 all saw the tempo increasing and different styles (kick drum and breakbeats dont always blend well)makes Old Skool annoying at the best of times to mix. Though, once you have 20 tunes from around the same era and style..your OK.

[Ian]

I agree with Trent C when it comes to Hip-Hop djing...It would take alot of practice.

"Turntablism is an art, and an art worth it's learning!"