Introduction to mixing music : Cuing Fading

Introduction to mixing music : Cuing Fading

Mixing music effectively is a very important skill. Dead air during a show, beginning a song late, or ending a song early, will not only look sloppy, but sound sloppy. There are two phases to mixing well.

1. Being able to que the music correctly 
2. Being able to fade out the previous song and start the new one (on time).

Cuing

Back in the day when you used records or tapes you had to queue songs manually. then CDs arrived and players automatically cued the song to the beginning. Now we have computers and software that do the same thing as CDs did, but they allow you more versatility and several spots to add cues in the song. When queuing make sure your headphones are plugged into your mixer and the appropriate Cue button for the channel you want to cue is selected. During a live performance the cue button allows only you to hear what is playing in your headphones while the other track is played out to your audience. Let's start from the beginning.

Tapes were probably the most awkward thing to cue. First you had to rewind all the way to the beginning of the song and then hit play and stop it the instant the song Started. Then you would use your pinky finger or some kind of tool to stick in the left hole of the tape to turn it clockwise one full turn. This would ensure that the tape is cued approximately one second before the song begins. Push pause and play on your tape deck and then your tape is cute up.

Records are still used today and have made a comeback in recent years. With the record you can actually see the silent Parts in between tracks and is easy to place your needle there. Just like a tape play the record until you hear the first second of the song and hit stop. Now with your finger carefully spin the record one half of a turn counter-clockwise to ensure that the song is cured properly.

Software. As stated before all of your current software on the market today has the ability to automatically cue to the beginning of any song loaded in your deck. One of the best things about this technology it allows you to set multiple coupons throughout any song. These two points are usually categorized with a name and colors to help you easily identify them.

Fading

The art of fading is done with your mixer. Your songs must be properly cued for smooth transitions. You can feed in a song or you can fade out a song. Your volumes on both of your channels on your mixer should match equally (this needs to be set on your soundcheck), if they don’t - Adjust the Gain.

Let's say there is a song playing on channel one and you want to fade in another song that is on channel two. around the last 10 seconds of channel ones song Start the song in channel two and slowly fade up the volume on your mixer to equal the level of channel one and fade out channel two with your other hand once the volumes meet where channel one’s volume was originally.

Fading out a song is similar. While channel one is playing start channel two at approximately the same volume as channel one or a little lower and fade out or lower the volume on channel one once channel two starts. Fading time can vary from 1 to even 5 seconds long so it's up to you to experiment with what you are comfortable doing and which songs work well with short or long fades.

We have been discussing channel volumes but the more advanced disc jockey especially a turntablist will learn to use the crossfader in the same manner. The crossfader will actually fade out the other channel for you automatically. Certain mixers and software allow you to adjust the curve or the volume level each channel has while it is being faded.

In some cases songs don't fade, rather they end abruptly. In this case (know your music) when a song ends abruptly push pause/play one second before the ending of the old song (for the new song that you want to play) and fade-out the old song immediately. If this is not done, the next song will be played while the new song is beginning to play and this sounds horrible. You can also quickly move the crossfader from the ols song side to the new songs side. You can also call this a quick Cut.

Beat Mixing

What about beat mixing you may ask? That's a good question. I will be posting that tomorrow please subscribe to this blog for more information and to get updated on future posts.