Advice and Tips for 3 deck mixing?

ZackMRG

ZackMRG

Circles are Pointless
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Sep 9, 2008
Location
Halesowen, UK
Bought myself a third deck the other day because I felt it was about time I stepped it up a notch with my mixing, I've got the basic idea of it all but was wondering if anybody had any tips or advice as I know a fair few people on here have mastered the art of 3 decks.

Biggest query I have though: whats the best way to bring a track out of a mix whilst starting up another one? would it be better to cue it further into the track or to find a track I could start mixing earlier?

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Safe.
 
Easy mate, best advice is just practice (but i'm sure you heard that a million times already!).
Otherwise, make sure you can cue your tunes from 1 sequence (16 bars i think!?) and find that cue point quickly, that will help a lot!

Also, if you leave the 3rd deck cue (on mixer) playing through the headphones once you have it at the cue point you want this will mean you just press play on the
deck (or press play and then put it in if your on vinyl) and won't have to duck out of keeping the tunes in time for ages to find the cue point.
Hope this helps, I bet you'll be triple dropping in no time!
 
The best piece of advice I can give is know your BPM's. If you know the last track you played was 174 and the next one is 174 as well, providing you have it locked, you can start it as early as possible and kind of forget about it until about 16 bars remaining. That way if you need to make any minor adjustments you have plenty of time.
Other than that, I agree with Axis. PRACTICE!
 
Check the vid in my sig, you can kinda get an idea of how i bring in tunes and what i do with the EQs.. Listen carefully and you'll hear tunes come in well before they drop and some tunes even stay in to the end of the track.

My golden rule with 3/4 decks is to really know your tunes well, and I dont mean the structure i mean the sounds and frequencies they use. It gets pretty deep here but if you have to make sure, imo, that you dont have the same style tune with big synths over big synths, just sounds terrible. I work every track into one another by listening to the frequencies, hence I can actually have 4 tunes playing at once as you'll see ;)

Hope that helps.. 3 deckin aint about bangin in 150 tunes in an hour, fuck that, messy, its all about long blends and subtle switches that turn me on (y)
 
DJ NUERA said:
The best piece of advice I can give is know your BPM's. If you know the last track you played was 174 and the next one is 174 as well, providing you have it locked, you can start it as early as possible and kind of forget about it until about 16 bars remaining. That way if you need to make any minor adjustments you have plenty of time.
Other than that, I agree with Axis. PRACTICE!
Click to expand...

Always a good tip man, I swear alot of people say that this is a useless tip, but personally I find it to be a massive help. As you said, if you know the next tune is the same as the current one you can pretty much mix without the pitch control. 174 FTW!!!!
 
DJ NUERA said:
The best piece of advice I can give is know your BPM's. If you know the last track you played was 174 and the next one is 174 as well, providing you have it locked, you can start it as early as possible and kind of forget about it until about 16 bars remaining. That way if you need to make any minor adjustments you have plenty of time.
Other than that, I agree with Axis. PRACTICE!
Click to expand...

Thats one I realised yesterday which id never thought before- like planning ahead on what tune to put on what turntable depending on what tune was played on it last. I've got massive ocd for knowing my tunes, how many phrases each has, the BPM's etc.

The biggest problem I have right now is just generally trying to mix as many tunes as possible- even though I know it doesnt sound good and im not going to progress at all, but i guess its just part and part of the Three deck honeymoon period lol.

Appreciate the tips!
 
Just to echo what other's have said:

Know your intro's and cue points.
Try to memorise where on the vinyl you could drop X in to Y tune. You can get little coloured dot stickers to let you know when the track begins, or when the start of a new set of 16 is beginning.
Don't triple drop mixes, just concentrate on doing quick doubles and teases.
Try and get your vinyl's at arms reach. Work out a little rough T/L of what you wanna play.
Matty makes a great point with BPM's. That way you aren't wrestling with the pitch to get everything locked in the mix.
As other's have said; practise, practise, practise. Everyday if you can. Don't be disheartened if you find it difficult and daunting. It's fucking hard to try cracking it, but it's really rewarding once you nail it.
All the best :2thumbs:
 
$marty said:
Just to echo what other's have said:

Know your intro's and cue points.
Try to memorise where on the vinyl you could drop X in to Y tune. You can get little coloured dot stickers to let you know when the track begins, or when the start of a new set of 16 is beginning.
Don't triple drop mixes, just concentrate on doing quick doubles and teases.
Try and get your vinyl's at arms reach. Work out a little rough T/L of what you wanna play.
Matty makes a great point with BPM's. That way you aren't wrestling with the pitch to get everything locked in the mix.
As other's have said; practise, practise, practise. Everyday if you can. Don't be disheartened if you find it difficult and daunting. It's fucking hard to try cracking it, but it's really rewarding once you nail it.
All the best :2thumbs:
Click to expand...

you gotta hit a cheeky one near the end, go out with a bang
 
unless you have a tune with a massive bassline, one with clear ,mids and one with definite highs id avoid tripling, would probably sound too messy imo
 
$marty said:
It's doable, but i've found they're more often messy than good :)
Click to expand...
yeah, i know what you mean, need to find a good balance. I recall cyantific playing the following to end a set
High contrast Return of forever>>>logistics together>>>Ram trilogy titan
the place went off!!! :)
 
Pretty much all in the EQing I feel, high's in particular. Whilst you're getting to grips with it i'll say never have 3 tunes running at the same time unless you are certain its locked as one slip in a 3 deck mix can easily mean disaster. Try keeping 2 in at all times so as you bring your 3rd tune in, switch one out
 
just got my third deck aswell mate really want a cdj to drop my own tunes but much happier to have 3 1210's!
been getting slowly to grips with that, the vital thing is make sure the 2 are locked before u attempt to play with the third, sometimes u can switch back to the tunes u had mixed to realise theyve wandered off quite badly!

All about not getting ahead of yourself and if ur looking to plan a mix then plan it well and have the tunes in order, not tried that whole 16 bar cue point for tunes, not bad advice!
dnt get mixed up with what channels ur listenin to through the headphones and adjust the pitch on the wrong one, so easy to do!
 
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