How To Use Track Separation & Stems When DJing

1. Welcome To The Class!: Hi and welcome to the skillshare class where I'm going to show you how to use track separation and stems. When Jing, my name is off the rack jack and I am a professional international deja. I have over 15 years experience and Jay all around the world including places such as Thailand, Australia, France, Greece and the UK. In these places I have jaded across a wide range of venues including clubs, bars, boat parties, pool parties and festivals. In 2023, some new technology became available for us Dejas called Track Separation on Record Box and Serrato on Stems. What track separation and stems does is it allows you to separate different ones from your tracks whilst you're dejaying in real time, such as the drums, the instruments, and the vocals. This means that whilst you add Deja Alive, you can add or remove any of these ones from any track at just the touch of a button. For example, you can remove the vocals and just leave the instruments and drums playing. Or you can remove the drums and instruments and just leave the vocals playing. This is completely game changing technology for us Dejas to have. In the skillshare class, I will show you the best ways that I have found to use track separation and stems when dejaying. So that you two can get the most out of this new powerful technology. In this class, we are going to cover how to set up track separation on record box and how to set up stems on Serrato. Throughout this class, I'll primarily be using record box to demonstrate the deja techniques with. But both deja softwares can do the same thing and you should still be able to follow along even if you are using record box or Serrato. We are going to go over the best practices when using track separation and stems. We are going to do six individual DJ mixes together, showing you six different ways that you can use track separation and stems. The great thing about this class is that all the tracks that I use in this class are available for you to download for free in the class resources. This means that you can follow along with the DJ techniques taught in this class with the exact same tracks that I use. We are also going to put together a short DJ routine at the end, mixing five different tracks together in order by using track separation and stems. Then as an extra bonus at the end of this class, I'm going to show you my own personal music library and show you real life examples of how I have been using track separation when I have been deja, live with my own tracks. I hope you enjoy this Scotia class and I'm very excited for you to get started and learn how to use this new groundbreaking technology. And by the end of this class, I am very confident that you will have the skills and knowledge to use track, separation and stems in your own deja routines and DJ sets. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video. 2. Rekordbox Software Set Up: In this video I'm going to show you what track separation is and how to access it through your record box, DJ software track separation is available on record box version 6.7 0.0 and later if you want to use track separation, you have to make sure you have a version of record box that is 6.7 0.0 or later. First you have to make sure track separation in record box is turned on. For this we need to go to the Settings Cog in the top right hand corner and then go to Extensions, and then Track Separation. And then click Enable Track Separation function just here. Also what we're going to do whilst we're in the Settings is go to the next box which says Layout and then go to Customize. We're going to change this from Drums vocal to instruments to drums instruments and vocal. We will be mainly using track separation to separate the vocals together or the drums and instruments together. It's easier to have them next to each other when using this function, but this is optional. If you do prefer it the other way, then that's fine. Also, as you can see here, the first option, we have drums, vocal, and instruments. So the drums and instruments will be separate when we're using them. But in this version, we can have drums, instruments, and vocals. So the vocals are on their own, on the right, and drums and instruments are together. Then from here we can just exit the settings. No what you should see a three colored boxes on either decks. We have drums, instruments, and vocals. The drums are blue, instruments are red, and vocals are green. We're now going to drag a track up onto deck one. When you do this, notice that it will now have a blue progress bar just underneath the extended wave form just around here. This is the track separation function, loading up on that track and analyzing the track, ready for track separation. So what I'm going to do here is drag the track, trick me up onto deck one and just watch the progress bar underneath, which is blue, load up just here. Now you cannot really use the track separation properly on that track until it has been fully analyzed and the progress bar disappears. As you can see though, it's still loading up at the minute. We still cannot use the track separation function in this area of the track until it is fully loaded. If you do try and use the track separation function before it is fully loaded, you may run into some issues with the track, the track mere sound crack it or distorted when you use it too early. This track separation analysis has to be done every time you load a track up. Even if you've loaded that track up before sweep, you watch. If I eject this track here now and drag another track up onto deck one. You should see the track separation progress bar start loading up once again. Then if we drag the same track up that we had previously, the track trick me onto deck one. The software will have to re analyze this track once again for track separation even though we've loaded it into record box already. For me this is one of the downfalls for record box that the software has to analyze every single track ready for track separation every single time you load it up, even if you have loaded that track up in the past to record box. Now, depending on the speed and the power of your laptop, this could just take a couple of seconds or it could take around 30 seconds or more, which could become a problem if you are trying to mix fast when Jane. Whereas with Serrato, once a track has been analyzed for track separation or stems as it's called in Serrato, it doesn't have to be analyzed again whenever you load a track up again in Serrato, you can use the track separation instantly. This track separation software is still a new technology and Serrato was the first of the two softwares to bring it out. But I do hope that in the future. Record Box also adds this feature of analyzing a track once and then it's done as it makes a massive difference to performance when dejaing. Also having to keep re, analyzing your tracks for track separation every time you load up a track can be heavy on your laptop CPU. Now, I'm not a computer whiz, but that means that it makes your laptop work very hard every time you load a track up. For example, if I go to my activity monitor on my laptop here, you can see that these peaks here of my CPU load is when I was dragging the tracks on and off. Just do this one more time. So I'll drag another track up and then go back to my activity monitor. And you should see a spike in my CPU progress. This just means that it's making my laptop work extra hard and use a lot of its power. For this reason, if you are not using track separation when you're Jing, I would recommend turning it off to make it easier for your laptop and so you can load your tracks up faster if you do want to use track separation, but you think it's using a lot of your CPU. Also, there is a couple of things that you can do to help it. If you go to settings in the top right hand corner and then extensions, track separation, and then go to the bottom where it says multi thread. What we can do here is just hold our mouse cursor over the question mark. And it'll explain what it is. It says if the check is removed, it is processed in a single thread and is expected to reduce the CPU load, but the time spent on analysis processing will become longer. Basically, it means if it is ticked track, separation will load faster. But it will use up more as CPU and make your laptop work harder. But if it is unticked, it won't take as much CPU and it won't make your laptop work as hard. But the track separation analysis process will take longer. It's up to you which one you use. But I just wanted to make you aware so you do have the option for me. I'm just going to keep it ticked for now. Record box. Do actually recommend that you have at least 16 gigabytes of Ram on your laptop to make sure you have enough power in your laptop to run track separation smoothly and effectively. Now on my laptop, I currently only have 8 gigabytes of Ram. And this is one reason why I haven't used track separation as much as I'd like to whilst I'm deja live. When I have actually tried using it whilst deja live, I have ran into a couple of issues with it, such as my track start going crackly or distorted. As I said, this is mainly because my laptop is not powerful enough to get the most out of it. But I do have a few workarounds that I have been doing. Instead, that I will show you later in this section of the course to help you if you also don't have 16 gigabytes of Ram on your laptop to check the size of your Ram. If you have a Macbook, you can go to the top left hand corner with the Apple icon and then click about this Mac though, it should tell you your memory Ram for your laptop. If you do have less than 16 gigabytes of Ram like I do, you can still use the track separation function. And you can still do this section of the course and learn how to use track separation. But in terms of degen live, it may cause you some issues like it did for me. And you may need to upgrade your laptop to a 16 gigabyte Ram to get the most out of it. But you can decide that once you've actually had a goal of track separation and see if it's something that you want to use. Another thing to consider is that you can only use track separation or stems whilst using your laptop. If you did want to deja using only a USB, this feature won't be available for you to use live. But as I have mentioned, I do have some ways that you can use track separation in your preparation for your deja sets without having to use it live. I'll show you how to do this later in the section. Anyway, all that being said, let's have a look at how this works for this section. I'm going to drag the track, trick me up on deck one as it's a good example to use for this. Now at the moment, if you click one of these three buttons just here, drums, instruments, or vocal, whilst the track is playing, it will remove that sound from the track. We just have to let this process and analyze First, I'm just going to put it in a part of a track where it has all three sounds. We should have the vocals, instruments, and drums just here in the chorus. In the middle of the track, I'm going to press Play It, and start removing some of these parts of the track. And let you have a listen just here. As you can hear, we have the vocals, instruments, and drums. First, I will remove the vocals just by clicking this green button. You can hear just there, the instruments and drums. So let's remove the instruments. Now you can just see and hear the drums. If it's to remove them, it'll go silent. But then put the instrument back in. You can hear the bass line there. If you add any kind of melody, you should be able to hear that as well. And then let's put the vocals back in, cover up. Let's make them take out the instruments I'm in side now. Then the instruments back in and then the drums. Now you should be able to do this at home as well. Just have a playing around with the track and removing them, different parts of the track and see how it sounds. Now you may notice if you do have a good ear, that it's not perfect. You can still hear some slight background noise when you do remove sounds. But as far as it being new technology that DJs have never had access to before, it does an amazing job of separating them. Sounds on the fly as you are DJ. As you can see at the minute, the buttons mute that part of the track when you press them. So for example, if I click the vocals, it will remove and mute that part of the track. But you can change this in the settings so that it solos that part of the track. Which means it will only play that part of the track by itself and mute and remove the other parts from here. If I got to settings again, extensions, Track separation, just here where it says Active Part Setting. It's currently on mute. But if we click solo, what this will do is solo that part of the track, it plays by itself. If I exit the settings now and play the same part of the track, if I press the vocals from here, it will play just the vocals, primarily. Same with the instruments, and then same with the drums. Now to exit this, you just click the same one again. So to get all three back. If I press the drums, now everything comes back in. If I want to isolate the vocals, just click the vocals to get everything back in, just click the vocals again. Now I find this a really good option if you quickly want to isolate one part of the track, such as the vocal and play the vocal by itself. But one downfall of this is that you can't play two parts of the track at the same time. For example, you can't play the drums and the instruments together without the vocals, or you can't play the vocals and the drums together without the instruments. It only solos one part of the track at a time. With this option, you can only play one sound by itself or all the sounds together. And that's it. Which option you choose out of mute and solo will all depend on your DJ style and what kind of mixing you want to do. But for now, I'm just going to change these settings back. So we've got to Settings extensions, track separation, and then we're just going to change it back to mute Faro and we'll try solo later on in this section. Now you may have noticed when we mute a certain part of the track, the waveform also removes that part of the track too. For example, when we're playing this track here, if I was to remove the instruments, the waveform changes and also removes the instruments waveforms. We remove the drums, the drums disappear, And it's just the vocals. We put the instruments back in and then remove the vocals. The green part removes as well, put the drums back in. The drums come back in, and then same with the vocals. Now you can turn this off to make it so that the wave form doesn't change when the track is playing. If you go to the left hand side of the wave form, here you can see two colorful wave forms. If I click this, so make it go white. Know when I remove the tracks, the wave form won't change. Let's have a listen to remove the vocals, instruments, and drums and the wave form stays the same. Let's put them back in. Sometimes it's good to have this setting on, you know, whereabouts you are in the track. For example, if it's coming up to the drop, you should be able to still see the drop. However, if we remove some of the instruments and drums and remove the way farm, you're not sure whereabouts the drop happens. This can be useful for that element from here. If you remove the way of forms, you cannot see which part of the track you're up to. You can check the extended way of form here, but it's not as accurate. But if we turn this off, you can still see whereabouts in the track you are. This might be better for phrasing and mixing, but again, you can choose to have it on or off whichever setting you prefer whilst you're chain. Have a try with both and see which one you like. Now, the track separation function in record box also had what's called part isolation. Part isolation is where you can use the frequency dials to turn up or turn down these parts of the track instead of just using them to turn on and off with the buttons. If you just look under the channel fader here on both decks, you can see two buttons that say part. If I was to click this now these frequency equalizers will change to part isolation, track separation. So I'm going to click here. Now you can see that they've turned into vocals, instruments, and drums. In this mode, you can slowly reduce or increase the vocals, instruments, and drums by using these dials. For example, if I was to press play from here, I can slowly remove the vocals or part remove them so I can turn them down slightly so they've gone a little quieter or I can completely remove them. Same with the instruments. Can slowly turn them down. Turn the vocals back up, Remove the drums, put them back in. And same with the instruments. This is another way that you can use track separation in record box without just turning them on and off. You can have more control over the sounds by slowly reducing or increasing them when you like. Also, another thing that can do with track separation in record box is not only can you separate parts of the track when the track is playing, but you can also isolate parts of your track when using effects from here. If we go to the top left hand side where it says effects, we can just click this here and open up the effects control panel from here. On the right hand side, what you should be able to see is the vocals, instruments, and drums buttons that use the track. Separation from here, if I turn off the drums and instruments and just leave the vocals, this means whatever effects I apply, it will only apply to the vocals of the track. So if I turn on the echo effects just here, put it onto one beat and turn it up. When I press play here, you should be able to hear the echo just affect the vocals. Let's have a listen, let's turn it off. And then I was going to apply it again so that there is just effecting the vocals in here. They're just echoing out the vocals. And one thing we can use this for is if we wanted to say isolate the vocals by themselves, but you didn't just want to end the instruments and drums very suddenly. So if I turn this off here and turn these back to normal, if I was to play this track and I want to remove the instruments and drums, I'd have to click them off and they end pretty suddenly. Okay, but another option that we could do is turn the vocals off just so it's the instruments and drums. And then apply effects to it, and then we can remove them, so it glides out nice and easy. Have to listen to this part again. So what I'm going to do is just use the echo on the instruments and drums and then turn them off. And then they'll gradually fade out rather than just stopping suddenly. This can be the same for the vocals, so if I swap the instruments and drums and just put it on the vocal, we could equate the vocal and then turn it off, and the instruments and drums will still play. Let's have a listen to that, the echo is applied. Then we turn the vocal off and it gradually fades out. Let's try again There you can hear it will isolate that part of the track and apply that effects just to that part. There you have it. That is how you can activate track separation on record box, DJ software, and how the basic functions work. Now you may notice that if you plug your DJ controller into record box, you cannot control track separation straight away from your DJ controller. In the next video, what we're going to do is set up the track separation function with our DJ controller. See you there. 3. Track Separation Rekordbox Set Up: In this video, I'm going to show you how to set up your track separation function with your DJ Controller. To get track separation to work with your DJ controller, you have to do what's called Midi mapping. Midi Mapping is basically where you assign functions on your Deja software to the buttons and dials on your J controller. This is so that you can use your J controller to control the functions on your deja software. Now, if you plug your deja controller into your record box software, it already has default Midi mapping set up. This is so that you can start using the J controller straightaway for its main purposes that it was designed to do. For example, the cross Vader on the J controller will control the crossvader on the Deja software. The play button on your DJ controller will activate the play button on your DJ software. But you can change these controls by changing the Midi mapping, for example, you can make it so that the play button on your DJ controller is actually Midi mapped to trigger a sample pad instead, so that it would make a horn sound effect instead of playing the track if you really wanted it to. What I'm going to do now is show you how you can Midi map your track separation functions on your Deja software to be controlled by the buttons and dials on your DJ controller. First, we need to decide what buttons we want to replace, because we don't have any specific buttons and dials already built into our deja controller. To control the track separation, we have to replace some of the functions that we already have on the deja controller that control other things. For the main track separation on and off buttons, just here, the green, red, and blue buttons. It is probably best to put these on the performance pads and replace some of the functions on these performance pads. It is also probably best to replace the functions that you use the least. You will need to replace three pads to make room for these three track separation buttons. Some people prefer to replace some of the buttons in the sample bank settings because they don't use that many samples. When J, you can replace three of the sample bank triggers with three track separation functions and you can still also use the rest of the sample bank as normal for me, I personally like to replace the pad effect functions on my DDjR because these are the pads that I use the least For me, the pad effect one is just here. And if I press this, if you watch my DJ software, that will change to these pad effects and these are the ones that I don't use a lot. And I'm going to replace these bottom three on the right, just like with the sampler. I can still use the rest of the pad effects whilst also using the track separation functions that I'm going to put in the bottom three corners here. But it's completely up to you which pads you want to replace. You can always change them again later on in the future if you did want to. But for this example, I'm going to replace the pad effects one. The same method I'm going to show you now still applies to whichever pads you want to replace. You can still follow along if you wanted to replace your sampler instead. Now once you've decided which pads you want to replace, you need to go up to the top right hand corner of your screen and click the button that says Mid. So far this, I'm just going to get rid of the deja controller screen. Up on the top right hand here, you can see the option of mid. If we just click this, this will open up the Midi mapping setting. The first thing you need to do is check that your device is connected. On the left here it should say connected device. And this is my DJ R, for example, if you have the DDjFlx four, it should say X four in the top left hand corner. Then from here we need to go to the Deck tab, just here where it says Deck, And click this one. Then we need to go to the bottom. There's an option here where it says if we just click this one, you should see the first one here says Track Separation. We can ignore all the rest of them and we just need to focus on this Track separation one at the bottom here. We need to add each of these options. Just here on the right hand side, I'm going to click Active Part Vocal, and then click Add again, and then Track Separation. Then I'm going to do the instruments and then add Track Separation, and then do the Drums. Because we have two decks, we need to do this twice, so we need six altogether. So let's go through again, add track separation vocals, add track separation instruments, and then add track separation drums. Then on the first three, I'm going to leave as deck one. As you can see here, we've got the option of which deck to assign it to. The first three, I'm going to leave as the first one. And then the second three I'm going to assign to deck two. What we need to do is get the DJ controller ready in the performance pad function we want to replace. I'm just going to get my DJ controller back up again. For example, if I want to replace some of the pad effects buttons, which I do, I need to first put my DJ controller into pad effects mode. I need to make sure this is activated. If you want to replace your sampler, you need to make sure that sampler is activated. I'm going to go to pad effect one. And then we need to go back to the settings in record box. I'm going to get rid of this controller picture. Then we need to click on the first track separation function we want to add. In this case it's Active part Vocals deck one. Just this top one here. We need to click that and make sure it's highlighted. Then we need to click the Learn button at the bottom. This one here. The learn button should go gray. And this means that it's activated. Now, you need to be careful when learn is activated and gray because whatever you touch next on the deja controller, the software will try and assign that button or dial to this function. This is why we've already put our deja controller in the performance pad function that we want to change first before we press Learn. Because if we press Learn and then press pad affects one button, for example on the deja controller, it will try and assign active part vocal to that button. So I want to assign my active part vocal to the bottom right performance pad on deck one. What I've done here is I've got the controller image up as well as the settings. We can see both at the same time. So what I'm going to do now, whilst active part vocal is on learn and Gray, I'm going to press my bottom right, just here. Bottom right, Performance pad, whilst in pad effect mode. This is the one I want to assign it to. So I'm going to press this button here. Now what will happen is you'll get a box appear telling you that that button is already assigned to another function. We can't just click replace. What we have to do now is find that mapping that already exists and delete it manually. And then we'll be able to learn the button again. Once again it's available. In this case the button is assigned to pad and then pad effects one. Pad number eight, the mid in and mid out code is 9717. What I need to do is find this in the Midi mapping settings and delete these codes. So I'm going to click Okay. Then I'm going to go to Pad and then find pad effects one, pad eight. So just going to scroll through just here. We have pad effects one, pad eight, and the 9717 code. We've got Midi in and Midi out. What I need to do is delete both of them codes. I'm going to double click on the code number. Delete this one. Then go to Mid Out. Double click this and delete that code as well. Pad effects one, eight doesn't have any mid codes in these options here. Now what I need to do is go back to deck, make sure active part vocal is selected. And now I'm going to press that same button again. And what you should see here is in the mid and Midi out, it should get populated with that number of 9717. So I'm just going to press this button here in the bottom right hand corner. As you can see now it has replaced this function with the Midi codes. Now if I exit these settings, the Midi mapping settings, then from here, if I just go to the chorus of this track. If I press plate, now if I press the bottom right hand side pad pad effect, it will get rid of the vocal. If I press the pad again, it will bring it back in one more time, turns it off and turns it back on. What we need to do now is repeat the same process for all the other track separation functions from here, if I go back to Midi in the top right hand corner. Then from here I need to click Active Part Instruments, then click Learn. My DJ controller is already in Pad Effects mode one, and then I want to assign it to this second one on the bottom right hand corner, just here. I need to press this one. What it will say is this midcode is already assigned, which is pad effects one, pad seven, Midcode 9716. What I need to do is click, okay. Go to pad and then find pad effects one pad seven, which is just here. And then we go to the codes 9716, double click, delete that, double click, delete that, and then go back to deck. Active part instruments is selected. And now all I need to do is press this button on my Performance pad, and it should be assigned to this button. So I'm just going to quickly go through these now and talk you through it. Select Active Pad Drums. Press the button I want to assign it to, which is the third one from the bottom right. Press that pad effect one. Pad six. Okay. Go to pad find pad effect one, six. Just here. Delete the code. 9715 on in and out. Go back to deck, make sure Active Part Drums is selected and press the pad on my DJ controller. Now what we're going to do is the same with active part vocal on deck number two. Now on the right hand side, I have not changed the performance pads to pad effects one. What I need to do is turn off it's not gray. Then put it on Pad effects one. And then click back on. Now with pad effects Vocal on deck to one. I want it on this bottom right hand corner here. I'm going to press this pad. Then it says pad effects one. Pad eight, made it in 9817. Click Okay pad. Going to part effects, one, part eight, just here. And then deck 29817. Delete and delete. Now if we've picked up on the pattern here, we can go ahead and just delete the other two that I want to assign from here. Padafxs one, pad eight, Dec two. I can scroll up and find Padafxs one path seven, deck two, and delete that code. I'm going to scroll up just here. Pdf one, pad seven, Dec two, which is under the one we've already deleted. I'm going to delete that code. Then delete that code. Then scroll up to Padafxs one, Pad six. You can see here, it should be underneath the two that we've already deleted, so I'm going to delete that one. That one no can go back to deck and quickly assign them. Part affects vocals. Deck two. I want in the very bottom right hand corner, just here. I'm going to click this one. Then click Active Part Instruments. Press the next one which is just here. Then Active part Drums, which is going to be this one just here. Now we should have all my track separation functions here assigned to these three pads on pad effects, one on both deck, and then these three pads just here on the performance pads. So now we can exit the Midi mapping setting. If I press play on this track on deck one, jump to the chorus. These bottom three should control the track separation. This one should take away the drums, this one should take away the instruments, and this one should take away the vocals. And then back in vocals, instruments, and drums. Let's have a go on deck two. Let's load a track up on deck two. Then from here, we'll just go to part in the chorus. Again, we just have to wait for this blue progress bar to load so we can use track separation properly. From here, can press play on track two, then part effects one, remove the vocals, and then remove the instruments. Remove the drums, then back in with the vocals, back in with the instruments, and then back in with the drums. On deck two is assigned to the bottom three, just here on the bottom right hand side for the pad efecto. Drums, Instruments, Vocals, vocals, instruments, Drums. Now another setting we can change if you wanted to, is to make the equalizer dials on the deja controller act as track separation two, just like it does on the DJ software, but unlike the DJ software, we can switch between the two. Just here we can click part isolation or normal on the DJ controller, it has to be one or the other. So it has to either be frequency dials or track separation dials. This is up to you. If you want to change them, it might be enough for you to have the track separation functions on your performance pads just here. But if you want to give the part isolation dials a try on your DJ controller, I'll show you how to do this now. It's pretty much the same as setting up the performance pads, as the track separation, but this time using the equalizer dials. Instead, what we need to do is go to the Midi settings in the top right hand corner again. But this time instead of going to deck, we need to go to mixer. Then if we go to the bottom of the mixer and go to add track separation, and then add vocals, tracked instruments, add track separation, and then drums. And then do this one more time for deck two, vocals, instruments, and then drums. And then from here, what we need to do is assign the second three that we've put on to deck number two. Now it's up to you, but I do prefer the vocals at the top, on the high frequency dial, just here, and then instruments on the middle and then drums on the bottom one. That is how I'm going to assign them for this. What I need to do is go to the first part, Isolation vocal on deck one click Learn. All I need to do is twist this top dial, the high frequency dial. So I'm just going to twist it as it says here. It's already assigned to mix EQ. The middle in is B007, so I'm going to click okay, then find the high B007 here. I'm going to delete this. We only need to do one for this one. What we could do from here is go through these and delete the ones we're going to replace from here. Qhigh on deck number two. I'm going to replace, I'm going to delete that. Then we skip these two. For deck three and four, we don't need them. Deck one, delete, low deck two, delete, then down mid deck one, then mid deck two. Now all three equalizers on both sides should be free and available to learn. I'm going to go on part isolation vocal on deck one. Twist the high frequency equalizer. Now, because my DJ controller can control four decks, I've got this pop up here. This is basically saying that it's assigned to deck three as well, but we just don't need to worry about this. Just click. Okay. And we should have here B007. Then the instruments I want is the middle one. The middle frequency. Twist that again, just ignore this one. If you've got a two deck controller, you won't get this notification. Click. Okay. Then go to part isolation drums. Click this and we'll do the low frequency equalizer. I'm just going to click okay on this. Then for deck to part isolation vocal, click this. Then on the right hand side, the high frequency dial, just twist that click. Okay? Instruments in the mid frequency twist this click, okay? And then the drums going on the low frequency twist Click. Okay? Now here we should have mid incodes. For all these six new functions that we have. It's going to exit settings from here. If I just play the middle part of this track, I can use the equalizer dials here as track separation. So I'm going to press plate. I'm going to turn the high frequency dial down, should hear the focals disappear. The same with the mid, the instruments should disappear. And then with the bottom one, the drums. And then back in with the vocals and then with the instruments, and then with the drums play. Let's try it on deck to just going to flick it on to the chorus. Then from here we can remove the vocals with the top dial instruments with the middle dial, and then the drums with the bottom dial. Back in, the vocals with the instruments and then back in with the drums. What you can do is have a play room with them, dials and also with the buttons on the performance pads to see which you prefer for track separation. Going forward in this section of the course, I'll be keeping both of them active so we can practice with both. No, you should be fully set up with your DJ controller with track separation function on record box. In the next videos, I'll be showing you practical ways in which you can use track separation when see you there. 4. Serato Stems Set Up: In this video, I'm going to show you what Serrato stems is and how to navigate it on Serrato. Serrato stems is a new feature that is free and available on both Serrato J Pro and Serrato Deja Light. Once you've connected your Deja controller, if you go over to the left hand side here on deck one, just below this blue tab and click the middle box. This will open up the stems controls just here. And the same on deck two. If you go over to the far right hand side, just below this blue tab here and click the middle box. This will open up Serrato stems. Let me just drag a track up here to show you. There we go. Serrato stems on the right hand side is also lit up. Now you can use these functions just by clicking them with your mouse cursor. What stems does is it can remove and isolate certain parts of the track such as vocals, melody, bass, and drums. Let's grab a better example up here. 1 second. Now on the left hand side we have the track Billy Gene. If we just flick it through a bit further in the track, I'm going to press play and I'm going to start removing some of these sounds. Let's have a listen from here. We can remove the vocal from the truck, just by clicking the vocal bottom, we can remove the melody, we can move the bass, and we can remove the drums. And then we can add them back in, so we can add the vocal back in, then we can add the melody, don't go around. And then the bass. Then lastly the drums. With this you can mix and match, so you can play different sounds at different times. So for example, you could match the vocals and the drums that from there we can turn the melody and bass off and it's just vocals and drums. Then we can play just the bass and vocals, then just the melody and bass and so on me. Now underneath this line here that is blue, we also have another option. Now this line here just underneath will remove these sounds but also with an added effect. This is so that when you are de jin, that part of the track doesn't just stop suddenly. For example, if you wanted to stop the vocal, instead of just stopping it suddenly, you can stop it with an effect such as echo. And this way it will gradually fade out. Here on the far left hand side on the bottom is the button that will remove the vocals with an added echo effect. And then we've got this button here that will remove the instruments. This will remove all three of these here, all apart from the vocals with an echo. The one next to that will remove the same three but with a vinyl break. And then the one on the far right will remove just the drums with an echo. Let's have a listen to this. So let's try the vocal first. So it just removes that vocal with an echo. Now to get it back in, we can just press the same button again or the one just above it. This one will stop all the instruments with an echo dance and leave just the vocal by itself. This will do the same but with a vinyl brick arms, Big Javen. The last one is the drums with the congrats. A big jam on top of the stems functions. Here you also have some extra stems controls. Now the main thing that stems is used for when dejaing is to either isolate vocals so they are on their own. Or to take the vocals out of the track so that everything else is playing apart from the vocals, such as the melody, bass, and drums. This is mainly to avoid any vocal clashes when mixing, and so that you can do live mash ups with the vocal of one track, playing over the instruments of another track. Just to the top right of each deck, there are two buttons. So just here, next to the blue musical note, there's a microphone and a piano button. The one with the microphone isolates just the vocals and plays the vocals by itself. And the other piano one plays just the instruments, like the melody, bass and drums without the vocals. So for example, let's play the Billy Gene track again, If I was to press the microphone button, everything will go away apart from the vocals. And isolate just the vocals by itself. I handle one now if to press the piano one, this will get rid of the vocals and play everything else once again. The top one, just the vocals, girls, the bottom one just for instruments, Chemical. This is a really good idea because if you wanted to play just the vocals by themselves, you wouldn't have to press three separate buttons to eliminate the melody, bass, and drums. But by this way, by clicking just the microphone button, you can eliminate all three. And isolate the vocals just by themselves with one click of a button. Now that's all good using it on the software, but can use it on the DJ controller to make sure that stems is activated and available on your DJ controller. All you need to do is go to settings on the top right hand corner. The settings cog just here. Then go to deja preferences. Then just down here, we have replace pad moored with stems. And what we need to do is make sure this box is ticked, and we should be able to get stems on our deja controller. You will also have a little drop down box just to the side here, which will decide what function on your deja controller you'll have to replace. Because throughout our stems is a brand new feature. There are not many deja controllers out there that have any buttons or dials built into them. Specifically, to control the stems functions, what you have to do is replace some of the buttons you already have on your deja controller to be able to use the stems function. Now in my case, it only gives me the option to replace the sampler function on the performance pads. So as I click the drop down, it just says sampler. But with other DJ controllers you may have other options from here. We're just going to exit the settings. Now if I turn the sampler function on on my DJ controller just here, instead of it triggering samples, it should know control the stems functions on the Deja software. The buttons should mirror what's on the pad section of the deja software, Just here. Here on the left. The deja controller pads should mirror these settings. For example, the top four buttons from left to right should go Vocals, Melody, Bass, and drums. Then the four underneath should be vocals, instrument, instruments, break, and drums, Echo. Let's quickly have a listen to that and see how it works. So I'm going to press play on the track, Billy Gene again, this should remove the vocals. And then this one here, the melody, the bass, and the drums. And then let's put them back in. So the vocals, melody, bass, and drums. And then the echoite for vocals, girls, the Echoite for the instruments, a big Jamco and the break. And then the echoite on the instruments, the drums, sorry. Now, I don't believe there are any buttons yet that control the vocal let and instrument on buttons. Just here, the microphone and the piano. To use them, I believe you just have to click the screen with your mouse cursor. I'm not aware of any buttons on the DJ controllers that can control these two buttons just yet. But if you are a DJ with the DJ controller, you should be okay at pressing the other three buttons fast enough, all at the same time to isolate the vocals by themselves. If you did want to isolate the vocals by themselves very quickly, you can just press these three buttons very fast or just use the instrument echo operate. So it has a similar effect, that is how you set up and navigate the stems functions on Serrato. In the next videos, we're going to look at the different practical ways that you can use stems while Jane, let's get to it. 5. How We Are Going To Use Track Separation: Now to make it easier for me going forward to demonstrate the deja mixes, I will just be using one deja software, which will be record box. If you are using Serrato, you can still join in with the mixes as both softwares have the same technology of track separation. The buttons are just going to be in slightly different places, that's all in record box. The technology is called track separation in Serrato, the technology is called stems going forward, I'll be just referring to it as track separation, but when I say this, I mean stems in Serrato. Also, the most practical way to use track separation that I have found, and that I have seen other jays use it for, is to separate vocals from tracks. This could either be to isolate the vocals so that the vocals play by themselves, or by taking a vocal out of a track so that the instruments and drums play by themselves. For example, on the deck one here on the left hand side we have the track, How Deep Is Your Love? What I'm going to do is play the tracked. From here I can remove the drums and instruments, your body free, and leave just the vocals in bit. Remove just the vocals and leave the instruments and drums. These are the two main ways that I would use track separation when Jay, and also the two main ways that I've seen other DJs use track separation. Now out of these two techniques, the main way that I've seen track separation used, and the most practical way that I phoned to use it is to isolate a vocal on its own, and then to use that vocal to mix over another track. This is the technique that we are going to focus on moving forward, isolating the vocals from one track and mixing them vocals over the top of another track. For example, I'm just going to get the vocals of How deep is your love at the start. And then I'm just going to isolate them vocals. Then from here I can play them over the break of jump, Now the track jump doesn't have any vocals in it. If you have a listen, what I'm going to do is quickly play the vocal of how deep is your love over the track Jump. I'm going to press sync on both tracks. Let's have a listen to that. And they, nobody is ready. Oh, now you might be thinking you can separate instruments, drums and melodies, as well as vocals. Why only use the separation of vocals and not separate the other sounds two and use them? Now, this is a good question. You can have a play around and try doing things like putting one track's instruments over the top of another track's drums. For example, if I just get ready to play the drop of the track love over the drop of the track jump. Let's get these to time, right? But take the drums out of the your love then just play the drums of the track jump. Let's have a listen to that. Oh de, so what you can hear though is just the drums on the track jump, then the melody and vocal on the track. How deep is your love? Now, for me, I don't see much of a practical use for this kind of mixing and I haven't found a way where this would enhance my mixing or make it sound any better. There's not much difference between that and just letting the drums play on the track. How deep is your love by themselves? So let's have a listen that doesn't say much different to this. Also another thing to consider when trying to match, for example, instruments and drums and vocals, and separate all these separate parts is even though that this technology is amazing and revolutionary for Dejas, it's still not perfect. For example, the more elements of a track that you remove, the more extra background noise that you're going to get. So for example, if I play the start of the track, How Deep Is Your Love? If you just have to listen to the drums and how clear they are, I'm just going to remove the vocals and the instruments for now. These drums are very crisp and clear Now, because I put it to the chorus of the track, you can listen to how much background noise they'll have. It's not very crisp and clear with the drums there, there's a lot of noise and background noise to it. If you don't have your headphones on, try and listen to this through your headphones as well. As you can hear, this muddies up the sound of the track and it isn't crystal clear. The Deja software can't fully remove 100% of them sounds from the track, yet you get this Flanger or Fraser sound effects in the background where the other sounds of the track are trying to creep through. Now, this isn't too bad if you're just dejaing at home, but you can imagine how bad this could sound when playing on a large sound system. To a big crowd, it's going to get amplified a lot, and so worse the bigger the speakers get. For this reason, even though the technology is great, I will try to avoid removing as much sounds as possible when mixing. This is why I find it the best when using this technology to just isolate a vocal from a place in the track where it is the least amount of extra sounds with it. And playing that vocal over another track that hasn't had any sounds removed from it at all. So let me explain that a little more. What I mean by this is isolating a vocal when the vocal is in a quiet part of the track, such as the brake, where there is not as many extra sounds surrounding the vocal. This would be better than trying to isolate a vocal during the chorus of a track, which will have a lot more added sounds surrounding the vocal, which would make it harder for the software to isolate the vocal away from other sounds. For example, if you have a listened to the track, how deep is your love during the break? Without any isolation, you should be able to hear that. There's not much else surrounding the vocal. Just a bit of melody. See here the per body inhibition. See this would make it easier for the DJ software to isolate that vocal, because all it has to do is remove it from that little bit of a melody. The more sounds that get added, the more background noise you're going to get in the vocal isolation. When you get to say this part of the track here, there's a lot more melody, a lot more background noise, and even some drums. So what I'm going to do is isolate the vocal from this track. And as it gets to this section just here on the wave farm, have a listen to how much more noise it has in the background. I'm just going to isolate the vocal. It's quite clear here, still a bit of background noise that always will be, but it's not too bad. Now, as it gets up to this section, just here, have a listen to the difference. A the ocean. So as you can hear there, it started quoting out the vocals a little more. It wasn't as clear. That's because the DJ software had more sounds to contend with to try and isolate that vocal. For this reason, it is easier to use vocals from a track during a quiet part of the break rather than trying to extract a vocal from a track from the chorus, say, where there is a lot of more extra sounds. Considering this, when mixing, you want to try and avoid removing as many sounds as possible and keeping as many original sounds in there as possible to make the sound better. This means that it will be better to play the vocal that you have isolated over a part of another track that doesn't already have vocals in it. Like I showed before, the track jump doesn't have any vocals in it. This would sound better with the vocals of how deep is your love over this track, because I've not had to remove any sounds. It's just a track playing in full. If you have to remove vocals from another track to make room for your new vocals, it's going to create an unclear sound. For example, I'm just going to drag another track up here on the right hand side. Now on deck two, we have the track. No good for me during the break here. It has some vocals. So let's have a Listen for me. No, for me to be able to play the vocals of How deep is your love over the top of the break of or nor good for me. I would have to remove these vocals on the track. Your nor good for me. So it sounds like this. As you can hear though, there's quite a bit of background noise because it's trying to get rid of them vocals together. This would sound like this will be Your Me by no, it doesn't sound too bad, but there is quite a bit of background noise in this Si now we've got to a point in the track on the right hand side. You're no good for me that doesn't have any vocals in it anyway. And it sounds a lot clearer already. So my point being with this is if you're going to put a vocal over the top of another track, try and do it in a point of a track that doesn't already have vocals in that you don't have to change or edit. Also, if the track has already got a vocal over the break or the track, I don't see the point in removing the vocal from that. It's already there and it should sound good. One of the main ways to use this track separation is to fill any gaps of tracks that don't have any vocals in. I don't actually see the point in removing a vocal from a track to put another vocal over the top. If it's not going to sound very clear and it already has a vocal there, it's better to choose a track that doesn't have any vocals in and put a vocal from another track on to fill that gap. Now you can try playing around with putting instruments over the top of other drums and really chopping up these track separations. If you want to have a play around at home doing this or make some cool Instagram or Tiktok videos doing some mash ups, that would be fine. But if you were to play at any big clubs or events, the more sounds you start to remove, the more it's going to affect the sound quality of your music and mixes. And this could affect the audience's experience. This is just one thing that I have found when trying to use these track separation functions whilst Jane live at big clubs and events. Now you still may get some background noise with isolative vocals, but because the other track is playing in full without any sounds being removed, it won't be as noticeable because the main track will be the main song carrying the mix. Now this way of using track separation of putting one vocal over the top of another track is also the easiest way to get your head around without it getting too complicated. You just have to think about putting a vocal, another track that hasn't got any vocals. You don't have to worry about separating melodies, bass lines, or drums from each other. It also keeps the best sound quality. And I also believe that it has the most positive impact on your dejame when mixing as well. All right, now that being said, let's go and do some actual mixing with track separation. I'm going to show you when and where you can put vocals or other tracks to make them sound good and do some good transitions. Also, towards the end of this section, I'm going to do a video showing you some of the mixes that I actually use when I'm dejame live and using track separation. This is. So then you can see how I actually use these techniques that I'm going to teach you when I'm actually deja live myself in clubs and at events. See in the next video. 6. Mix 1 - Transition: In this video, I'm going to show you how to transition from one track to another by using track separation and isolating vocals. On the left hand side, on deck one we have the track insomnia, and on the right hand side on deck two, we have the track. You're not good for me. Now, we would normally have to find where the significant sounds end on the track insomnia, and find where the significant sounds begin on the track. You're not good for me by now, we should be getting a little better at spotting where these points are in the track. We should be able to find them faster by using the beat jump technique or by just using our eyes and looking at the wave form. If we're using the same tracks as well, we should be getting to the stage where we know our tracks well enough that we remember the phrases of the tracks off the top of our head. Now the track, you're no good for me. We have used a few times, and we may remember that it is one phrase of percussion at the start and then one phrase with baseline before we go into the break. So let's just have a quick check of that. We've got the percussion at the start, then I was going to flick it on. One phrase, we have some baseline, then it goes into the break. What I can do is go to beat, jump, jump forward twice, 32 beats one, two, and that takes me to the break. Now with insomnia, we haven't used this track as much, but we should be able to see at the end with the color changes, that is four phrases at the end. We just need to listen to see which phrase, the significant sound end at. What I'm going to do is just quickly flick through the end of this track here. There's still some melody there, still some energy. And it looks like it drops out around here, There's still a bit of melody left and the baseline. Then the melody goes out there and it's just a baseline and some percussion. Again, just to quickly check that it is four phrases, but you should be able to see the slight change in color. So there's 123 and then four. Let's beat jump and check 1234 to make this mix fit well, we should wait one phrase from the drop of insomnia and then press play on the track. You're no good for me to make it time right. What we're also going to do when it gets to this part here of the track, use the high pass filter just to turn it slightly, to cut the low frequency sounds out. And cut the base out. Let's have a listen, just as it gets there. I'm going to cut it to the right hand side slightly, so no you can't hear any bass. Let's have a listen to how that mix ones, then I'll show you how we can do a better version with track separation so both tracks are beat sync. I'm going to press play on this track here. One phrase after the drop which is coming up now, 1234, slowly fade it in. I then get ready to cut the low frequencies out just at the chain. Slowly pull out the track on the left hand side. That is how you do this mix normally without track separation, this is perfectly fine. This is still a good mix and it will still work when game. But we are going to try a different way now where we're going to put the vocal of good for me over the top of them, last two phrases of insomnia. Now the reason why I wanted to show you the normal wave of mixing is so you have some kind of comparison to see how it sounds differently from normal. To track separation, what we're going to do is isolate the vocal of the good for me by turning off the drums and instruments. Pon Serrato, turn it off the drums, bass and melody. And when the last two phrases start on insomnia, we're going to press play on the vocal of yon or good for me on the track or good for me, I'm just going to be jump forward. Two phrases. One, two. Now this is the start of the break and the start of the vocals. And what I'm going to do is just remove the instruments and the drums and what it should do is just leave that vocal for the purpose of saving time. I'm going to flick the track insomniaon about a phrase and a half into the drop. And then when it gets them last two phrases, I'm going to press play on the track. Or good for me and let's have a listen to how that sounds. No, that sounds great, but we're also going to have to add the other sounds back into the track. You're not good for me, ready for the tracks drop, otherwise it'll just be silence. Now, it's up to you how and when you add them back in. But I would recommend adding them back in gradually and on time when the track changes, either after 16 beats or a 32 beat phrase. So I'm going to do that mix for you again, and what I'll do is add the instruments back in after 32 beats, and then add the drums back in 16 beats after that. And let's see how that sounds. So I'm just going to start the track insomnia again about a phrase and a half in. Get the track, you're no good to me. Back at the start of the break, actually, I'm going to show you another technique. What I do to time these track separation mixes. Right? What I'm going to do is press play on the track. You're no good for me. And then from here, use the platter, the jog wheel to line up that first vocal when the next phrase starts. So I'll show you how to do that. So I'm going to press play on Insomnia. I'm also going to press the play on the track. You're no good for me. And I'm just going to wind it so that the vocals start on that next phrase. What will happen is they'll naturally start at the same time. Then after one phrase I'm going to introduce back in the instruments, then 60 more beats, they'll do the drums. Now that sounds really good, but there was still a bit of clashing of the drums when I brought the drums back in on the track. No good for me. What I'm going to do this time is just cut some of the bass frequencies out with that high pass filter again by turning the high pass filter slightly to the right to around 2:00 Just as I bring the drums back in on the track. No good for me. Let's see how that sounds and see if it's a little cleaner and crisper. I'll get the track good for me, we don't have to be back at the start of the break. Let's just isolate them vocals by turning off the instruments and drums. And we should be able to see the start of the break here. And the vocals, I'm going to put the track insomnia about a phrase and a half in press plate, press play on the track. You're no good for me and get it. So it times ahead of time, just here. Now the vocal should come in as the phrase changes, just like that. And then we're going to introduce the instruments after one phrase, when I bring the drums in as well, I'm just going to cut the high pass filter to the right hand side. Just keep turning that dial now, that should be sounding pretty good. The benefits of using the track separation there is that we have mixed the track, You're no good for me, two phrases earlier than we would have done if we did the normal way. And we have added some extra flavor to the mix by putting the vocal over the other track. This way of mixing means that the tracks miss on a proper brake, which means it can keep the energy quite high during your mixes, but still have a good impact on the mix as the vocal comes in over the other track. Now I'm going to do that mix one more time for you again, but this time without talking over it. So you can watch and have a listen to it done fully and see how it sounds properly. Let's do it and have a listen to that. 7. Mix 2 - Drop: Now another way we could transition between these two tracks is to put the vocal of your Nor, good for me over the drop of insomnia and then transition from there. We can use the same timing as before by bringing the instruments in on your Nor good for me after 32 beats and then bringing the drums in 16 beats after that, whilst at the same time cutting the bass frequencies on the track. Insomnia. Let's have a listen to that and see how that sounds this time. Instead of starting the track insomnia a phrase and a half into the chorus, I'm going to start it just before the drop, about 16 beats during the build up just here. And then I'm going to be jump forward to phrases one, two, isolate the vocals on, you're not good for me. And then I'm going to use our kind of wind back technique, where I press play, spin it back until it's ready to tie with the drop and let it play again. I'm going to bring the instruments in 32 beats into the mix. And then the drum 16 beats after that whilst cutting the low frequency equalizer and turning towards the high pass side, to the right hand side. Let's have a listen to how that sounds. From here, I'm going to press play on the track. You're no good for me And get the vocal, so it starts just at the drop. Just the and then 32 beats in. I'm going to press the instruments to bring them back in and you're not good for me, 1234. Then get ready to turn the quidal to the high pass, bring the drums in there. Now it's up to each individual deje, which sounds best. There is no right or wrong answer between these two mixes. There are no clashes of significant sounds. There's only one vocal playing at a time. There's only one melody plane at a time. And because we cut the base on the track insomnia, there's only one base line playing it at a time. Whether you want to mix over the drop or over the outro beats is up to you. Either way should sound good to the audience. Now for me, if I was deje, it would come down to the speed of mixing and how fast I would want to mix between my tracks. If I was Dejan in a high energy environment like peak time in a club, I would probably choose to mix the vocals over the top of the drop. But if I were De Jin in a lower energy setting, like a pool party, I will probably choose to mix it later and put the vocals over the outraw of the last two phrases of the track, making it a longer and more gradual mix. It is completely up to you and what style of mixing you want to do and at what time. But for now, I'm going to do that mix again and this time without talking over it, so you can watch and have a listen to it fully and see how it's done properly. Let's do it, Ci. 8. Keeping Your Track In Key: Now it's worth noting that whenever you are putting a vocal over the top of another track, especially when it is the drop of the track or over the break of a track and there are more sounds involved, such as baselines and melodies. It's important to keep the tracks in key with each other. If you notice here, these two tracks are in the key of ten A. You can see this here just under the track title, and then here on the right hand side as well, but also just under here where it says Key sync should show you the key which is ten A, Same on the right hand side, ten A for this track. This means that these tracks are in the same key. When doing any mixing or mash ups, this is sown, harmonically sound and sown good together. One easy way to find tracks that are in key with each other, besides from just looking at the key in the library, is to click this Master button just here above the library. Just here above your track titles, it should say Master. Now if I were to click this, all the tracks that are in key with the master deck, which is here on the right. So this orange sign, say Master, tells you which one is the master deck. And this can switch from side to side, depending on which track you played last. From here, the track you're no good for me is in ten. And what this master button will do is show you all the tracks in green that are in key with this track. For example. Now if I was to switch the track on the right to say this track here, give it up by Carl Flanagan. Drag it on the right hand side. Now this track is in the key of forward A, and now it highlights all the tracks in green that are in key with this track. This also applies across all your playlists, so not just the playlist that you're playing from. So for example, if I go into this folder here and click a playlist, it'll also show me all the tracks in key with this track in this playlist. This is an easy and fast way to find tracks that are in key with each other when dejaying. Once again, just the final point. Whenever you're doing any track separation stuff with vocals or mashing up your songs, try to make sure that the tracks are in key with each other. Let's move on to the next mix and the next video. 9. Mix 3 - Loops: In this video, we're going to use loops on a vocal to transition between two tracks. This time on deck one, on the left hand side, we have the track jump. On the right hand side, we've still got the track. No good for me. Now, we have done this mix previously in the course, but I wanted to do it again to show you the difference of track separation and being able to isolate the vocals. So what we're going to do is create a foward beat loop on a vocal on the track. Good for me. And then start the build up of the track jump and then reduce down the loop. Create a build up with the vocal ready for the drop. The loop that we're going to create on, no good for me, is at bar number 72.1 What we need to do is find the bar number 72.1 on the track. You good for me. And that's just around the start of break number two. Around here. From here. I'm just going to press plate for nobody. No one here, we have it. 72.1 This is the point where we're going to create our four beat loop. Now, last time we did this automatically ahead of time. In preparation, we set the four beat loop. And it set automatically when we got to this point. But this time what we're going to do is try to set a manual loop as we should be getting a little bit better at gone and a little bit better with our timing. We're going to set this beat loop manually. Now, you don't need to do this, I'm just giving you another option. Now on your deck, you probably have a loop in and a loop out. There are two orange circles. That's what most DJ controllers have. But on my DJ controller here, it's in the bottom right hand corner. Just here at this area, I have an In button and Out button. What this does is you press the In button at the position you want to start your loop at. And then you press the Out button, where you want the end of your loop to be. Just as it gets to this bar number 72.1 I'm going to press the In button. And then four beats later I'm going to press the Out button. And that should create my loop. Let's have a listen to that. I'm just going to bring the track back slightly, press Play, So I'm going to press the button, 72.1 No one good for me. And then the Out button four beats later, just like that. And this should loop this part of the track. But this time the difference in this mix to the previous one is we're going to have track separation to isolate this vocal. So I'm just going to play the loop as it is, and this is how we used it last time. You can still hear a little bit of a melody, so what I'm going to do is take out the instruments and the drums. Good for me now this sounds like a lot clearer loop. Good for me, that's good. And this will be used a lot better to go over another track now, because we're doing this mix a little bit more on the fly whilst the track is playing. I'm going to change the setting slightly to show a different way of isolating the vocal. Just then what I did is I removed the instruments and then I removed the drums to make sure the vocals on its own. But what I'm going to do is go into settings, then to extension track separation. Now instead of having it on mutes, we're going to change it to solo. Then just exit settings. Now this time, instead of removing the instruments and drums, all I need to do is press the vocal button, and the track separation will isolate them. Vocals. Let's have listened to that again. Now I've put it back so all three sounds are playing. So I'm going to press play on the track now with just one press of the button on the vocals, it should sol all the vocals by itself. That's no good for me. That's no good for me. That no. So what we're going to do once we've created the loop, and then remove the instruments and drums by soloing the vocal is we're then going to start the build up of the track jump, and we're going to start the track jump one phrase before the drop. So what we need to do here is just go to the drop of the track. And as you can see here on the wave form, it changes from green and a quieter wave form to a more purple and pink color, which should be the drop. So let's have a listen to this, okay? So I'm just going to wind that back. All right, from here we're just going to beat jump back 32 beats. This is the point where we're going to set hot A on this track. Once we've set the loop and isolated the vocals on the track, you're good for me, we're going to start the track. Jump at this point, let's quickly have a listen to what we've got so far and what we're going to do. So I'm going to put the track good for me, back in full sounds So we've got all three sounds going. I'm going to exit the loop. Bring it back slightly from here. When it gets to bar number 72.1 I'm going to start my loop within then, four beats after, press out. Then I'm going to remove all the signs apart from the vocal and slow the vocal just here. Then I'm going to start the track jump 32 beats before the drop. What we're also going to do when we start the track jump is just remove the high frequencies from the track and turn the low pass filter over to the left. This just gives it less of an impact when it comes in. So then we can gradually fade that track. Let's ever listen to that. I'm going to press Play. When it gets to 72.1 I'm going to press in button on my loop. For me, no good for me. Then four beats later, press the out buttons. We created that four beat loop. Isolate the vocals. That's no good for me, that's no good for me. And then when we're ready, good for me, press the hot que A on the track, Jump me and then fade it in. That's what we've got for the mix so far. But then once we've started the track jump, and we've faded that in with a low pass frequency dial. We're then going to reduce down the loop on the track. You're no good for me. As we get closer to the drop of jump, I'm going to reduce down the loop after 16 beats and then eight beats after that. And then for the last four beats just before the drop. From there, I'm going to try and finish with a spin back as well. Now it's up to you how you reduce down the loop, but it does help if you do it in time with the tracks natural bars and structure to make it so more natural, I would suggest reducing down the loops in time with 16 beats, eight beats, or four beats. And gradually shortening the intervals the closer you get to the drop. So let's have a listen to that mix again. I'm going to reduce down to that loop 16 beats before, then eight beats after, and then four beats. Let's have a listen. I'm going to put back in the sounds on the track. You're not good for me. Bring the track back to hot on jump. Exit the loop and bring the track back a few beats. Okay. Turn the low frequency dial down to the left on the track. Jump, and let's have a listen to that. Okay, From here we're getting ready to press the eight button to create the loop. Press in, there we go. And then remove all the signs apart from the vocal by soloing the vocal. And then get ready to press the start of jump by hot, filter this in. And then get ready to reduce down that loop at 16, just here. Then again, eight beats after one more. So there you have it. That is how we can create a loop and a build up and use track separation to isolate them vocals. Now I know we've done this same mix previously in the course with the same loop, but I just wanted to highlight and do the same mix again, but with track separation so we can see the difference. But now we have track separation. We should be able to use this kind of loop build up mix with any kind of vocal that we can isolate. The reason why I used this track previously because it didn't have much sounds around the vocal, but now we have track separation. You should be able to use it pretty much at any point with the vocal and create a build up. Let's do that mix one more time without talking over it. And what I'm going to do is just tighten up the mix a little bit and just do things a little faster. Whilst I'm not talking over it, you should still be able to pick up on what I'm doing. I'm just jumping between each stage a little faster. For example, instead of waiting a couple of loops before I solo the vocal, I'm going to do it straight away. And I'm also going to press play on the track, jump a little faster and reduce the loop a little faster. But all the same principles still apply on the mix. So let's do that mix again, and I'll do it without talking over it. I exit the loop on the right, make sure all the sounds are back in on the track. Move it back slightly, put the low frequency dial over to the left and let's do it for me. I need no need. No one. That's no good for me. That's no good for me. That's no good for me. That's no good for you. It. 10. Mix 4 - Hot Cue Play: Now what we're going to do in this video is the same mixer game with the same two tracks. But this time instead of using loops, we're going to use some hot cue play instead. Also when the track jump drops, instead of mixing go, we're going to play the vocals of the track. You're not good for me over the chorus as well. What we're going to do for this mix is set two hot cue points. The first hot cue point is going to be set at bar number 72.1 in the same place we started our loop. At the start of that skoll just here at bar number 72.1 We're going to set our first hot cue, going to put it in a hot que mode and press hot A. And then the second hot cue is going to be set at bar number 72.3 And this is two beats after that, which is halfway through the bar. And at the start of the words, good for me. So let's play this forward two beats. And just here where it says good for me. We're going to press hot cue and that's at bar number 72.3 Now we're going to keep it furs slim pole for this pattern and it's going to be eight beats long. We're going to press a hot cue every two beats. The patterns to be, we're going to press hot cue A first, and then we're going to press hot cue B three times. The temple we're going to use is we're going to press the hot cues every two beats at a two beat tempole. Let me show you an explain. So we're going to press hot cue A once, and then hot cue B three times. I'm going to press a hot cue every two beats. It sounds like this. Good for me. Good for me. Good for me. Good for me, good for me. I'm going to press it 123-41-2340 Good for me. Good for me, good for me. Now to help us with this hot cue play, we want to make sure that we have quanti activated. What quantize does is when you press hot cues and loops, it makes sure that what you're pressing stays in time with the beat grid. And with the other track just here next to the BPM, we've got a little cue that is red and one on the other side as well. We need to make sure that that is activated and red and quanti is on. Now another thing we need to quickly change on the settings. If we just go to the settings and then we go to controller and then we go to others. We just need to make sure that these first two values here are at half a beat. For the snap we need that at half a beat. And for the hot que, we need this at half a beat as well. Now normally I will keep these at one beat to make sure that everything I do is in time with the other track. But just for this mix, as we're creating a build up, we just want them at half a beat. You can change this back afterwards if you like. Now to make things a little more interesting, we can also set these hot que points on the fly as we are de jin, they don't actually need to be pre planned. So what we can do is press and set the hot cues as the track is playing. Just like we did in the last video where we set the loop whilst the track was playing too. So let's just delete these hot cues. And you can do this by holding shift and pressing the hot cues down. Or you can just go to the software just here. And in the top right hand corner there should be a little cross and you should be able to delete the hot cue. This time on the track is playing. We're going to do the same routine again, but set the hot cues on the fly. Let's have a listen to this so I know as it gets the band of the 72.1 and 72.3 I'm going to press the hot cues and keep the rhythm. One that for me, for me, for me, that for me, for me, for me that he for me, K for me, for me. Just like that. That is how you can set hot que points and do some hot que play on the fly whilst you're J in live. Now, it's not necessary to do it in this way. You can set hot cues beforehand. I just wanted to give you a different way that you can do this. Also, as we go through the course, try and make things a little more entertaining for you. Now, because we're using the performance pads to do the hot que play, we're going to have to use a different way to solo the vocals on record box. One way we can do this is we can use the part isolation frequency dials to turn down the instruments and the drums. You can do this just before the hot que play or during the hot que play. For example, if I start doing the hot que player, now I can turn down the low frequency equalizer, which is the drums, and the mid frequency equalizer which is the instruments. Just leaving the vocals playing. Let's have a listen to that, that Crecer Mecray cry. Cry that Mel Cramer Crcracrmcrme. Now that can be quite difficult. Coordinated two things at the same time. So if you're not feeling quite up for that, what you can do is do it beforehand. So let's have a listen to this, let's reset these and turn them down. Just before I do the hot que play for me, touch for me. I don't need Nobody. Don't need. No one. That's no. Uh, ut for me. Dutch for me. Dutch me? That's no. Dutch for me. Dutch for me. Dutch for me. That's no U for me. Dutch for me. For me. Now in Serrato, on the bottom line of your pads, you should have an option to echot the instruments, leaving just the vocals playing by themselves. I would suggest using this button to echoate the instruments a few beats before you do the hot que play. And then switch to hot que mode and do the hot que play from there that You can set this up also in record box from here on my pad mode, if you had pad effects one, I've changed the bottom left pad just here to release echo mode for one beat. What we can do in just click the effects here is make it so it's just the instruments and the drums, the echo effect does not affect the vocal. Okay, so that was actually at half a beat, but I was going ahead and changed it to one beat. It doesn't matter either way, if it's half a beat or one beat, it's just to your preference. What I can do here as the track is playing and coming up to the hot que play, I can press the echo effect. And then at the same time, once the instruments and drums are echoed out, press the solo button for the vocals to solo the vocals and then let go of the echo. Let's have a listen to that. I'm going to press the Echo and release Echo to echo out the instruments and drums rack and then press the vocal on back to hot cue. Good for me, good for me, good for me, that's good for me. Just like that with Serrato, you can do this with the instrument echo just on this pad here and this pad here on your J controller. Once again in record box, you can go to pad effect one. Set the bottom left pad to echo and release effect. Set it to one beat. And then make sure that you have just instruments and drum set up on your track separation effect and the echo should sound like this. And then press vocal to solo. And it's just the vocal that's now, once we have done the full eight beat sequence twice, which will be in total 16 beats, we're going to press play on the track jump. Then once the build up has started on the track jump, we're going to repeat the same sequence again for 16 beats. So let's have a listen to all that put together and I'll talk you through it. So from here I'm going to go to hotel Hold shift and delete the two hot cues that we've already set. So we're going to do this on the fly. Bring it back slightly, and then once the brake starts for this one, I'm going to echo out the instruments just like we're doing Serrato as well, solo the vocals, and then do the hot cues on the flight. And set them and do the pattern once we've done the pattern for 16 beats, which is twice, I'm going to press play on the hot, on the track jump and then do the pattern one more time for 16 beats. Let's have a listen to that. I'm going to put my controller on pad E Fx mode first and press play on the track. Good for me. When I'm ready I'm going to echo the instruments, then sol all the vocals, go back to hot cue mold and get ready to set the hot uls. That's not good for me. For me. For me that's for me. And then get ready to press play the next one O for me. Now after we've done the sequence again for 16 beats during the build up, we still have 16 beats left of the build up. And what we're going to do from here is press hot for every beat for eight beats. And then every half a beat for four beats. Which should sound like this, that for me. So I'll do that one more time. I'm going to press hot B for eight beats and then double speed for four beats after that. 1-234-567-8234 for me. No, because we've set our quantize value to half a beat. No matter how fast I press that pad, it won't go any faster than half beat. Because quantize is activated, it will always stay in time with the other track. And the beat grid for the four beats where I press the button every half a beat, we can actually just press it as fast as we want and it will still stay in time. Have you listen to this, I'm pressing that as fast as I can. With quanti off, this is what it would sound like. So I'm going to turn quanti off. Let's just remove the effects counter. So I'm going to turn quantizes off on the right deck. I'm going to press it as fast as I can, so it's at a different speed. If I do the quantizes on it just does it to half a beat in time. The beat gridded side. Then after we're pressing hot que, really fast to add tension to the build up, we're going to then press hot four beats before the drop. And then what we can do after pressing hot four beats before the drop is leave the vocal to play over the drop. And this is that sequence with the build up. So I'm going to start it from the hot press halfway through. Just like that. This works because the four beat section that we're using for the hot que play on the track, you're not good for me, is the last four beats of a phrase. When we press four beats before the drop, the phrases should then line up and time, right? This is why the vocal should time, right, and so good over the drop of jump. Now if you want to set some hot markers on the track jump to remind you when to change the pattern, that's all good, we can do that. We need to set one 16 beats before the drop. So let's press play on the track jump, 567-89-1011 12141516, Just here at bar number 9.1 If we press hot cue beat, we should have a hot que marker just here. And then eight beats after that, 45678, here at bar number 11.1 we can set hot. And then four beats after this, just here at bar number 12.1 we can set our last hot cue. So these are just little reminders to remind us when to change our pattern when we're doing the hot que, play A hot B, that's where we start pressing hot QB ourselves on the right deck. Then at Hot we start going a little faster. And then at Hot D, we press Ho QA to reset. But if you can, at some point, try and do without any hot cues. And try and listen to when the music changes naturally. And watch the wave form as well. To determine when to change your pattern, let's try and put all that together and I'll do the mix and talk you through it. Let's have a listen, what we're going to do is reset the track on the right to make sure it has all the sounds in. Reset the track. Jump to hot a bring the track. You're no good for me. Just before the break. What I'm also going to do is turn the low pass filter down to the left on the track. Jump and introduce that as I'm doing it. And I'm going to use the instrument Echo on this track first to echo out the instruments and then isolate the vocals. Let's press play on. You're no good for me. All right. Getting ready to echo at the instruments and isolate the vocals. Then to the hot que setting for hot que play. No one that get in play on the next track, then pressing hot fast que for me. So there you have it. No, it wasn't perfect because it is quite hard for me to talk whilst doing so many things. And I do have a microphone and a camera in front of my face. So what I'm going to do now is do that, mix you one more time without talking over it and let you watch and haven't listened to it done properly. Let's do it for me. I don't see nobody see no one. That's no good for me. Go for me. Good for me, That's no good for me. Go for me. Go for me. That. No, for me. Don't go for me. 11. Mix 5 - Vocals Over Break Mash Up: In this video, what we're going to do is create a live mash up by putting a vocal of one song over the break of another track. This time on deck one. On the left hand side we have the track jump. And on the right hand side on deck two, we have the track, How Deep Is Your Love? Now what we're going to do is play the vocal of How Deep Is Your love over the top of the break of the track jump. Playing vocals over the top of breaks is a great way to use track separation to create live mash ups. Every time you use track separation, it doesn't have to result in a transition. You can just play the vocal of one track over the top of a break of another track to add some extra excitement to your sets. So let's have a listen to the start of the brake on the track jump. So I'm just going to flick this on to around here. And let's have a listen to the start of the brake. What we can notice here is that there seems to be a short 16 beat phrase just before the melody starts. Now the way that we can check that this is a regular 16 beat phrase is by counting the phrases backwards from the drop. From here I'm going to go to the drop of jump. Then from here I'm going to be jump backwards using the 32 beat beat jump to see where this takes me. I'm going to go back 32 beats, once, twice, three times. It takes us to the start of where the melody comes in the drop from this point. Here is three phrases to the drop. This to me tells me that this is an irregular 60 beat phrase. Another way to check this is if we go from the drop of the track. Jump on the first drop, and then we jump forward 32 beats, 123, it takes us to the start of this 16 beat phrase. Once again, this means that this track has an irregular phrase in the middle. It has a 16 beat phrase at the start of the break. This is worth noting because if you want to do any kind of mash up or mixing around this part of the track like we're going to do now, it could throws off our timings if we wasn't aware of it. Some tracks do have 16 beat phrases in. If a track does, all you need to do is be aware that it's there and then adjust your timings accordingly. So now let's have a listen to the vocals of the track. How deep is your love and see where they're coming on this track. So I'm just going to put it forward towards the start of the break and let's have a listen to this track. Let me be your, let me run your body. So what you could hear then is the vocal slightly started off before the break, around 16 beats before the start of the break is around here. Lets will listen just here I would say is the start of the break. Again, we can count the phrases. So if I got to beat, jump and jump backwards one to three phrases, it takes us to the done beat, the first beat of the track, and jump back one to three phrases. And this would be the start of the break, as you can see here on the wave from the vocal start around 16 beats before. Another way we can check where the vocal start is just by isolating then vocals using our track separation. As you can see, the vocals start around here. But this is the start of the break. Now we want this point here in the track, how deep is your love to start over here when the melody starts. Three phrases before the drop. I'm just going to press play on the track jump just here. This is where we want our tracks lining up. The start of the break of the vocals and the actual start of the break on the track. Jump, where the melody comes in. This means what we can do to time this mix, right, is to play the vocals that are 16 beats before the break on the track. How deep is your love during this 16 beat break on the track jump. Then these vocals here will cover this gap on the track jump. And the tracks should time perfectly just here. The main vocals of the track, How Deep Is Your Love? Should start as soon as the main melody comes in on the track jump. Let's have a quick listen to that, wind these tracks back. So I'm going to time it so that this red marker here lines up with this red marker here. Let's go, oh, know this picture time correctly. A perfect. Now to help us to do this mix, as the timings can seem a little complicated, we are just going to set a couple of hot que markers as visual aids for us to use so we can line them visual markers up and make it easier for us tying the mix correctly. So what I'm going to do is wind these two tracks back again. Now for the first part of the mix, we want these two parts lining up correctly. Just here. Then when the vocals on the brakes starts, the melody starts on the track jump. But because the vocal starts three beats before this point here, we're going to wind these tracks back another four beats, both of them at the same time. This is where we're going to set our first hot que markers. I'm going to put them on hot que settings on the track here on jump, I'm going to use the bottom left performance pad. The next one that's available, I'm going to set a hot que marker here and I'm going to color it blue. Then on the track, how deep is your love? I'm going to use hot A and then color this one blue as well. This is the point where we're going to start the track, how deep is your love? But just for extra clarification, what I'm going to do is wind these two tracks forward to the point where it starts the break and the melody just here. What I'm going to do is set another hot que marker on the track. Jump and color this one blue as well. And then saying with the track, how deep is your love? I'm going to set a second hot que marker and color this one blue. Now what you should see on the extended wave forms here at the top, is that these two blue markers should line up. And this is when we're going to start the track. How deep is your love? Then what should happen is over just over 16 beats, is these two parts of the track, the actual break and the melody should start at the same time. Now the reason why I've set hote markers here is just so we can see that it's in the correct place. This is the true point where we want the tracks to line up. I'm going to quickly just go over the number bars here. On the top one it is bar number 41.1 On the bottom one it is bar number 25.1 And then let's wind the tracks back to the other two. The first two hot que markers should be at bar number 36.1 on the top one and bar number 20.1 on the bottom track. Now when the first blue hot que marker comes up on the track jump, I will press the first blue hot que marker on the track. How deep is your love? And the breaks of the two tracks should start at the same time, and the mash up should sound correct. Let's have a quick listen to this. I'm going to bring the track jump a bit further back then when the blue mark up from the top track gets to the middle to the playhead, I'm going to press play on the hot que marker on the track. How deep is your love? This your time. Right? Let's have a listen. So we're getting ready to press hot cue. A line the blue markers up. And then the second two blue markers should line up as well, knowing we're in the correct position. And then what we're going to do is just let these play through. And then when it gets to the drop of the track jump, I'm slowly going to fade out the track. How deep is your love? They're slowly fade out this track here. There we go. So what do want to do on the track? How deep is your love is? Fade it out after the drop of these eight beats just here where it repeats itself. So let's have a quick listen to that. As the track drops just over these eight beats here, we're just going to fade it out as it echoes out. So basically it's as simple as that. We're just going to play the vocal of the break of how deep is your love over the break of jump. So I'm going to show you that one more time. I'm not going to play it all the way through, but I'm just going to show you the start of the mix and show you how to time that correctly. One more time. When the blue, the first blue marker comes up, I'm going to press the first blue marker on the track. How deep is your love? Let's have a, listen to that one more time. Here and there you have it. And then when the track drops, you slowly fade the track. How deep is your love out of eight piece. All right, well don't, let's move on to the next video. 12. Mix 6 - Transition 2: In this video we're going to do another transition mix using track separation and vocals. We're going to put the vocal of one track over the Otra of another track on the left side. Here on deck want we've still got the track jump, but this time on the right hand side we have the track last night, a DJ saved my life. Now normally to time this mix correctly, we would have to listen to when the significant ones end on the track jump and time it with when the significant ones begin on the track. Last night, a DJ saved my life. Let's do that mix first, so we have something to compare it to. Have a look at the end of the track jump. Here I can see that it has five phrases where it slightly changes color. We've got 12345 and it looks like these last two phrases are slightly different color. These could be the outro. Let's have a listen to the track from here that still sounds like the chorus. A lot of energy, a lot of melody, a lot of baseline, and then the energy drops just there, but it's still got a little bit of melody in there and quite a bit of bass line, so let's keep listening. Okay, so at this last phrase here, the melody goes out and it's just baseline and percussion. Let's keep listening. There's no melody there, it's just a baseline. And some kick drums from here. Then we can see that it is three phrases of chorus and then two phrases of outro. But just to note that this phrase here, the second to last phrase, does have some melody in it, so that can be classed as an outro or not. That's up to you how you mix. But I generally probably wouldn't mix anything significant with the melody over this part. I'd wait till the last phrase, when the melody is completely up, if need beat, I'd cut the bast with the low frequency dial or the lower equalizer frequency dial. Have a listen to that last part again. So from here if I just cut the frequency dial to the right, you can hear that the bass goes out. Just a little bit of melody there. Then you've just got them high ends of the kick drum and no bass line. When mixing this track, the chorus is three phrases long, then we just have to be aware of the melody on this fourth phrase here. But we can turn the baseline down and then we can use this last bit for a full mix. Now like I said previously, once we get used to these tracks, you should be able to remember some of the phrases from your tracks. You don't have to make notes on them as strongly. This track here last night, a DJ say in my life, we've used this track quite a few times. Just remember now I should know that here should be two phrases long and it should be one phrase of baseline. And then the melody comes in after another phrase on the fourth phrase. Let's have a quick listen to this just to check. As you can see though, it's just percussion right at the start. This should be for two phrases and then just the baseline comes in. There's no melody there yet. All vocals, it's just that low frequency baseline and some percussion. Then after one phrase of this, the melody should start trickling in. Let's tabolismn for one phrase until it gets to the break, save my life. So what we can do here to avoid any clashes of significant sounds and to make the mix sound good, is to start the track last night at DJ Saved my life. One phrase after the drop. This way the track jump should end and the break from last night, a DJ saved my life. Should start and then should time, right? But now if you have a look at the significant sounds that are in play, the first three phrases will be okay. There won't be any clashes. This is because there would just be the bass and melody from the track jump and it would just be percussion from the track. Last night a DJ saved my life, for example. Just here, imagine we've waited a phrase. What I'm gonna do is best play on the track last night, did you go Save my Life? So just here you can just hear the percussion and this is no problem going over the top. I'm not going to have any clashes of significant sounds. Then three phrases of the drop, Just here is when there's going to be a clash of baselines. We're going to have the baseline of last night, a DJ saved my life. Coming in with the baseline of jump still there, but there's going to be no melody from the track last night, a DJ saved my life. There's going to be no clashes of melody, no clashes of vocals, because there isn't any. But is there baselines we have to worry about? What we can do here is just turn the baseline off and turn the frequency dial over to the right to cut them baselines like I showed you before. Then it would just be the baseline from last night. A DJ saved my life playing. Let's keep this mix going and listen to that. I've just cut the baseline out, as you can hear here on this track. And it's just the base line of last night, a DJ saved my life. But there's still the melody of this track here. Then when it gets to the last phrase from the mix, the melody from jump will naturally end. And the melody from last night, a DJ saved my life, will start to come in again, leaving no clashes of significant sounds. Then at this point in the last phrase, it should just be the percussion from the track and the baseline and melody would have transferred over to the track last night, a DJ saved my life. Let's continue this mix. There we go. So there's no low end from here. Just a little bit highs, it's all into that. Last night, DJ Saved my life. That is how you would do this mix. Normally, we will press play on the track last night at DJ Saved My Life. One phrase after the drop of jump, then after fading in the track last night at DJ Saved my Life, we will cut the base on the track. Jump just as the bass comes in on the other track. This is to avoid any clashes of baselines or significant sounds. Then the melodies of the track should naturally switch over by themselves over the last phrase of the mix. Let's have another listen to that and see how that sounds. And I won't talk over it, so you can have a listen and watch it properly. And then we'll go on to how we're going to do it with track separation. My save my life, my now. Again, that sounds pretty good. And this is how I'd mix these two tracks without track separation. But this time what we're going to do is play the vocal of the track. Last night a DJ saved my life over the top of the out drop of the track. How we're going to time it is so that the track jump ends and the drop of last night, a DJ saved my life, starts to time this, right? We need to work out how many phrases the break is in total on the track. Last night a DJ saved my life. So I'm just going to put it on the drop here. Then count backwards with beat jump 123, that's three phrases. At the start of the break to the drop, it's three phrases of vocals. Then we need to work backwards from the end of the track. Jump three phrases, and this should be where we press play on the track last night, a DJ. Say my life to time them correctly for the vocal to come in, let's go to the end of the track jump and then use a jump to go backwards three phrases, 123. It's just here where we want the vocals to start on the track. Last night a DJ saved my life. So that when the track jump ends, the drop happens on the track last night, a DJ saved my life. At this point here on the track jump is two phrases from the drop. This is where we want to start the vocal, but because the vocal starts slightly before the next phrase, we're going to have to press play on the track last night, A DJ saved my life before the phrase starts to fit the full vocal in. For example, let's just isolate this vocal. As you can see here, it's got two beats of green, which is two beats of vocal before the start. And the next phrase, which is that now we can do what we did in the previous video is set a hot cue four beats back on both tracks to time this, right? But what we're actually going to do on this one is still set a hot cue here, but use the technique we've done in a couple of videos back where we press play it early, spin it back, and let it catch up, and time it beforehand. Now to do this, we're still going to have to set some hot cues. What I'm going to do is set a hot cue just here. And I'm going to color this hot cue a different color. Let's do it red. Okay, so we're going to color this hot cue red. And then same on the track jump. I'm going to set another hot cue so it can be any of the two available ones. It doesn't matter. I'm going to color it red just so it's color coordinated. Now, instead of waiting for the red marker to come up and pressing plate on the red marker on the track last night, DJ saved my life. We're going to do it beforehand and just use a bit of catch up with a bit of spin. Back to time it, right? So I'll show you how to do this now. As I press play on the track jump, I'm going to press play on the track last night at DJ. Saved my life. And just get the red markers lined up. And then from there, let go of the platter. So it plays. Let's have a look at this line, these two red markers up. Let go, and let them time correctly by themselves in. And that's how we're going to tie the start of this mix now, because we are just playing a vocal over the top of the track jump, and the track jump doesn't have any vocals in it at all. There will be no clashes of significant sounds during the mix, but we are still going to have to bring in the rest of the sounds from the track last night at DJ Saved my life at some point during the mix. So what we're going to do is bring the melody back in on the track last night at DJ, Save My Life, when the melody stops on the track jump, which is the last phrase of the track. And then we will bring the drums back in 16 beats after that and slowly fade out the track jump with the low frequency equalizer. So what I'm going to do is do this full mix for you and talk you through it. So I'm going to bring the track jump a bit further back before the red marker around a phrase and a half into the drop wind this track back on jump. If we're doing any kind of winding on this vocal, we've just got to make sure the channel fader is down so you don't hear any sounds coming out to the audience. Let's do this. I'm going to press play on the track. Jump, then press play on the track. Last night, DJ said, my life. Match the red markers up. Let go of the jog wheel. Put the volume fader up. There we go. I'm put it on pay to bring back in the sounds like the instruments and drums. So at the start of the next phrase, I'm going to bring back in the instruments, 121234. As you can hear though, we've made a mistake. We're still on solo. That solo the instrument. So we're just going to have to go and change this back. That's one thing I forgot to do from here. We're going to go to settings and then extension track separation. And then put it back onto mute instead of solo. All right, and then exit settings. All right, so let's give that another goal. So we've got all the sounds back on the track here. We'll put the track jump around a phrase before the red marker. Let's pull the channel favored down on the track last night. Dj saved my life. Go to that first hot marker. Isolate the vocals by this time. Turning off the instruments and drums. Spin this track back and we should be ready to go. So I'm going to press play on the track, jump. Then when we see the red hot cue marker come up, we're going to press play on the track last night, DJ saved my life. Line up the red markers, let go of the drug wheel and channel fader up. All right, second attempt. So the next phrase was going to introduce them instruments this time. Hopefully it won't solo it. Are you ready? 1234. Then after 16 beats we'll do the drums and slowly start to fade out. J, there we go, We got all the sounds back in on the track last night. Dj saved my life. And that was a little smoother mix. So what I'm going to do is do that one for you one more time without talking over it, so you can watch and listen to it done properly. And let's do it. I'm going to put the track, jump around one phrase into the drop. Go to the first red hoc marker on the track. Last night DJ saved my life. Isolate the vocals by turning off the drums and the instruments. And then I'm going to line them red markers up on the track jump and then bring the instruments back in over the last phrase. And then the drums and fade out the track jump. Let's do it. Say my life. Let's not be say my life. Let's not be say my, let's say my life. Let's not be say my life, let's save my life. Song 13. Equaliser Dials For Rekordbox: Now, throughout these mixing techniques, one thing that I haven't used as much throughout these videos is the track separation function on the equalizer dials on record box. We've mainly just been pressing the performance pads and turning the sounds on and off. This is mainly because you can do this on both record box and Serrato, but in this video we're quickly going to highlight that you can do these same mixes, but instead of turning them on and off, you can gradually fade them in and out with the equalizer dials. When using track separation, this is actually my favorite way of using it. I feel you can have a lot more control over the sounds and you can gradually fade them in and out a lot better. In this video, we're going to do the same mix of gain that we did in the previous video, but this time using the equalizer dials. This time in the break here, let's isolate them vocal this time. Instead of using the bottoms, I'm going to turn down the lower frequency and the mid frequency do, then we can slowly bring them in using the dial. So my las life A, My life, my life. So let's give that mix a go again and see how that sounds. But one thing to bear in mind when you are using the equalizer dials is that it doesn't remove the frequencies from the waveform. So as you can see now I'm turning them all down but the waveform stays the same. But if you do have hot U markers to remind you are you're good at looking at the waveforms, this shouldn't affect you too much. All right, so let's tt this. The drums and instruments are already faded out. The vocals are P channel faded down. Let's do it. Let's say, let's say let's save my life. Let's be my life, my life. Now for me that's a lot smoother mix and a lot easier to do than pressing the buttons on and off. So if you have recoil box, that is another good way to use these track separation dials. 14. Final DJ Routine: In this video, we're now going to put together all the mixes that we have learned in this section with track separation. To make things a little easier, we can create a separate playlist and call it Track Separation mix. Or if you are using Serratos, you can create a new crate called stems mix. For example here is going to go over to the library, I'm going to click the plus icon. And then from here I'm going to call it Track Separation Mix. In this playlist, we need to put the following tracks in there. Last night a DJ saved my life. How deep is your love? Jump insomnia, and you're no good for me. I'm just going to go ahead and do that. No, now we have them in a separate playlist. We can go one step further and put them in order to do our mix. Previously in the course, we have used the comment section to put our tracks into order. But there's also another way in which we can put our tracks into order in the playlist. If you click the hashtag option here on the far left to the library, this will put the tracks in order that they were added into the playlist. But what we can do is change that order ourselves manually. So what we can do when we have this column selected is simply drag the tracks into position that we want them in. So for example, we can simply drag the track insomnia and put it as number one in the playlist. So from here I'm just going to drag insomnia and move it up to the top, and that will put it in number one position. Then you can do the same for the track, you're not good for me, and put it as number two. I grab the track, you're not good for me, and move it up to position number two. You can do this for all the tracks. The order we want the tracks in are number one as insomnia number two, you're not good for me. Number three, jump number four, how deep is your love? And number five, last night, a DJ saved my life. So I'm just going to go ahead and do that. No, if we've been following along, we should also have all the hot cues ready for us to do the full mix with and to remind us when to do an action and to keep our timing of mix is correct. So what I'm going to do now for you is the full mix and I'll talk you through it and then I'll do the full mix again after that without any talking. So you can watch the mix done properly and listen to it fully. The first track we've got is insomnia, drag that on left hand side then the track, you're not good for me. Now, on this first mix, we don't have any hot cubes set up because you can either mix at the start of the chorus or at the start of the out raw. That's up to you, but the timing on this is pretty simple. What I'm going to do is start the track insomnia halfway through the break and talk you through it as if I was doing the mix live. Let's do it. What I'm going to do here is just turn the volume faded down on the right hand side, isolate the vocals. I'm going to turn off the drums and instruments and then beat jump forward two phrases. One, two at the start of that break and start the vocals. Then I'm going to turn it back on the track separation mode, and I'm going to do it over the drop just for the sake of saving time. So I'm going to press play on the track on the right hand side. Spin it back, then when it gets to the drop, I'm just going to release it at the right time. As you can see, the drops coming in just here, let go the jog wheel. So that's the time, right? Move the fader up so it's ready. And then after 32 beats I'm going to introduce the instruments and the 60 beats after that, the drums and fade out the track on the left, 1234 and then the drums. Let's give it a spin back. All right we go, let's get the next track ready. It's the track jump. We do have hot que A ready, so we can just press that to start it, but you can also set a hot que. You can also set sorry, que point. Se que point, just the volume fader up. And then filter dial to the left hand side. What I'm going to do when the brake starts is use the quit created earlier to get rid of the drums and the instruments just like this, which will just leave the vocal. Then I'm going to use the loop function to loop that four beats, but then also jump back to the hot four beats before the drop. To time that, right, the vocal goes up the drop as well. Let's give that a go that's echo at the other sounds. For me. A, Right. Get ready to be loop one. That's no good for me. That's no good for me. That's no good for me. They just track in, reduce the loop down, and they get ready to press hot QA just before, there we go. Good for me. That's a bit of channel flicking. All right. We're going to let this vocal pad and then get the next track ready, which is How Deep Is Your love? We'll go to do the vocal shop. All right, let's isolate then vocals. Get it to hockey. Just press it there and there's our vocal mashup. It is quite a fast one that we should be able to get it sort this track drop and then slowly fade the track. How do you push your love out over four beat, over eight beat, sorry. And then get the next track ready and then we're going to mix it at that red hot que. All right, let's grab that next track then. All we need to do here is line up these two red markers. Get rid of the drums, instruments, press plate, spin it back. Let's line them red markers up. Before it happens, let's go the jog wheel and push the channel fader up. Let's introduce their instruments back in on the next phrase. And then the drum 16 beats after a song. And there you have it. So I'm just going to stop it though now. You might have heard the distortion on that track. Then last night, a DJ saved my life. And the only reason for that is my laptop isn't fast enough and powerful enough to process everything that I'm doing with the software right now. So I've got cameras set up, I've got microphones set up and the DJ software, so that shouldn't happen to yours. But if it does, I do have videos that are coming up next in the next couple of videos showing you how you can get around this crackling. So that is one of the issues at the minute with track separation and record box. But like I said, it's just because I've got a lot of things running through my laptop at the moment, But that shouldn't happen to yours. But the mixing should have been on point. Should have talked through all the mixes Then what I'm going to do now is do all that again for you one more time without talking over it so you have a watch and listen to it. But what I'm going to do through the first track is just beat jump through just in case you don't want to listen to the track fully. Just this bit here on the track. No good for me. In the chorus, I'm just going to be jump through a few of them so I can get to the mixes a bit faster. But apart from that, I'm going to do everything properly for you and I hope you enjoy it. Have a listen. Have a watch, and I'll see you in the next video special. First, first, first. That's good for. No good for me. I don't see nobody see no one. That's no good for me. That's no, you may Godin. I say my last Let's not be say my, let's say my last strong. 15. Real Life Examples Part 1 : In this video, I'm going to show you some real life examples of how I've used track separation when I deja live at clubs and at events. Now the first thing I'll do is I'll look for a big track that I might play that may have any gaps in vocals, where I might be able to layer another vocal on top of it. And then I'll try and find a track with a big vocal on over a break that I should be able to isolate and put in that spot. Let's just dive into my actual playlist here. These are the ones that I've just used over this summer for my residences. And zigzag is the club that I j at every night. So I'm just going to dive into the peak time folder here. And there is one track that I like to use called Love Tonight, which you might be familiar with just here. If you have a listen to this track, it's got some big vocals for the first two phrases of the break, and then for the second two phrases of the break, it doesn't have any vocals, but it's still quite a powerful break. I have a listen to this, then this goes for two phrases and then the vocal fades out. Just around here were the green hot markers that I've set. Let's have a listen. This is a really good point here that you can put a vocal over the top just to fill this gap. It's still a really good break and it would still work with the audience because they're not this track. But what might be even better is to put a big vocal over the top of that just to fill this gap and add a bit more energy to your DJ set and your mix one track I do like to use for this, in fact. First I'm going to just press this master button here, and as we said before, this highlights in green all the tracks that are in key. That should be potentials for me to use one here is titanium. I like putting the vocal of this in this gap. The break here, as you can see in green is two phrases. So I'm going to go to the drop and just show you. So I do have my controller set up and the DJ software, but I'll try and use my moe so you can see. So it's just a bit easier for you to visualize on the DJ software. So from here I'm just going to beat jump. So I'll just go to beat, jump, beat, jump back two phrases. One, 2 minutes at the start of the break. Let's have listen to that, listen to, so we're going to isolate that vocal and put it in the gap of the track, Love Tonight. For this first mix, I'm going to keep it so that the waveform disappears when I move Sounds. So I'm just going to move the drums and instruments so you can see the waveform move there and remove them frequencies from the wave form. Most of the time when I j alive, I don't actually like using this option because the waveform jumps and it makes me a little uneasy trying to process that. I also like to see where the brakes are and where I am in the track by looking at the wave form from here. If I was to look at this fresh now, you wouldn't be able to tell where the break starts. Now you can look at this wave form here and you can see where it goes from the intro into the breakdown. But I'm not 100% sure if it's going to be at this point here, this point, or even this point. So this is why I like to keep it like this. So I know that this point where it changes color is going to be the start of the break. But for this first mix, I'll take it off just so you can see. And then on the next mix I'll show you how I do it without the wave form disappearing. All right, enough chat in. Let's have a listen to how that sounds. Well approved. The far away, far away break a ship, we take a far away. There we go. Sounds pretty good, right? You can also add a bit of a loop though, as well, at the end of the vocal to create a bit of tension or just to fade it out over that drop. Now, another one I can see here that I quite like to use for this track here. I'm not sure how to pertain to that, but we'll call it piano. Okay, from here I've got my hot que set up and I like putting the vocal hangover over the top of this. I normally mix this track in here with this loop, so I'll use this loop here, and then when I'm ready I exit the loop. I just think that's quite a nice part to mix in with this track. And then I'll start the hangover vocal, just here where it says B. This time I want to turn these wave forms off so it doesn't change the track. It's quite a lot of vocal anyway. But when we get up to the drop, you'll be able to see the drop coming up. Let's have to listen to this. Just removed the drums and instruments from this track, now it should just be the vocal, but you can't see the wave form change. So let's just remove the drums and instruments and let's do it. I got a hand hover I've been here to get so much so I got to hand hover. I got y. So I can. So there you go. As you can hear, that sounds quite nice as well, but I forgot to show you the track beforehand, so you just listen to the breakdown first out the vocal over the top. This is still a very nice breakdown, but if you're playing at peak time to a commercial crowd, it can be quite a long gap without any vocals. If you're playing at a big festival, are you playing at a bigger arena where it's not as much of a commercial crowd? It will still go do really well, just like I said before, but one more time with the vocal. So as you can imagine though, it will get a lot better reaction with that vocal coming in. It just fills that gap with no vocal. That's another example there how we'd like to use track separation just to fill in the gaps of my sets and just make them a little bit more energetic. Then from here, you can also use a capella bridges like I've taught you before in the course to transition from one track to another. I've got a track here, if I can find it. We are your friends that I quite like to use from here. I don't necessarily play this track in Follow, just use this little loop in the middle to transition between two tracks. Let's just have a listen to the loop here. It'll be playing from this part of the track. Be a friend. Now there's not much other instruments in this track. I have used this in the past before track separation came out. But with track separation note, it should sound even better. But I'm just going to show you this loop. Your friends never be alone in J. Then I will go into a different track. Now, I do have multiple tracks that work with this loop that I can just bring in straight away. But just for the purpose of today, the one I'm going to come in with is, let me find it, This track insomnia. So when piano pijano's playing, I get this going in the background, bring in we are friends. You never be alone again. A, a friends never be alone. Never be alone. He, then we can stat you stand up lot. Oh we wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki. Then you can have a little bit of a build up as well as you watch me do. And the reason why I want to show you this track insomnia because from here I can go into the track, feel so close. So we have to listen to the start of this track. There's no intro, there's no build up or anything. It goes straight into the vocal. I feel so close to you right now. What we can do is isolate that vocal. I wear my heart up and use that to do a transition. We All right. What I'm going to do, as you can see my hot que markers here, I've got the blue ones. I'm just going to start the feel so close vocal in time with this. And then transition at the end where this track breaks down into the breakdown just here. That should then go into one phrase before the drop of feel so close. I'll just show you how I use this. Just going to tie the vocal with that blue marker and put the channel up so you can see what I'm doing here with a mixer. I feel so close to you right now. It's a boss I wear my like the big. And then when it gets closer to the end, I'm obviously going to bring in the instruments and drums back in on the track. Feel so close. Just there where that blue marker is. There's no you can see here. So let's just have a listen to this drop. That's a very nice and big drop. But what you may notice is that it doesn't have any vocals on one vocal. I like putting over the top of this is the vocals of from here you can already see that I've got a hot mica set up on B'. Just going to press that. Everything Laughing, what it seems. I wait cup just to go back to sleep. I, a real shallow mean to a. What' going to do is isolate these vocals. Silence. Everybody says that I've got to get out grip, but I let Sana give me the slip. Some people think I'm just think I'm free now. Again, it's not perfectly clear. It has quite a bit of background noise. Some people pay for thrills, but this is why I recommend just doing the vocal over the top of another track because that will sound clear enough for you to use. So this part of the track, it's going to sign clear enough, put together with another track without anything removed from it. So let's have a listen to that. Over the drop away crop, dangers of dangers in the away crothall sex. Also what's good about this mix as well is as the vocals of bonkers ends, it goes back into the vocals of Feel so close. So I have to listen to this. The Mary Free and from my Lfracye Brandieracy, Brandy, I feel so close to you right now. It's the boss feel. I wear my heart from them. From there you can go into track separation again, just here at this green marker, you fast down and then mix in another track. Wonderful. Which I'm not going to go on. I can go on all day doing this. But there's just some examples of how I would use this in real life scenarios that I have used in the past when I DJ live to use the track separation, just to fill up my DJ sets a little bit more and add some extra energy to them. What you might notice is all them tracks are similar key and I can pretty much jump between all them during a set. So that is the kind of flow that I would use, among others, that I could use whilst doing my DJ set. After years and years of doing this kind of thing, your brain just goes to naturally what sounds good and what you've done before. You start to pick up on patterns through trial and error over the years, fine tune your J until you get to a point where you can do this very fast and you're already thinking like three or four tracks ahead of time. Just for the sake of this video, I'm going to go through the tracks again in order and try and mix them for you as fast as I can. But also after that I'm going to show you some Hi pop and be examples of how I can use track separation. If you want to watch me do the mix, you can do. I'll just flick it on. Let's go back up to the track Love Tonight on the left hand side, Titanium. Let's do this breaks. I got a handcover, I can hand drink it so much so I got a handcover. I got it empty. Comes from so your friends, you never be alone again. Your friends never be alone again. Queens, your friends, you never be alone. Jam, we queens your friends, you never be alone. Jam queens, queens, wings, love wings, love wings. Friends. I feel so close to you right now. It's a boss. Do I wear my heart up on my see like a big you love down on me, around me like on the call. There's no stopping us right now. I feel so close to you. I wa sleep shallow into deep silence, Silence sake. Asleep. See? I feel so close to you right now. It's a boss. I wear my heart upon my sleep a big deal. You let us down. I mean around me and I go on to fall and there's no stopping us right now. I feel so closely, every girl here won't appear. She's a fever. All right, so a little extra mix there at the end as well. But as you can see though, that is how you can use some track separation to add some extra energy to your sets and fill in some gaps. No, it is quite fast. As you notice, they have to move very fast. That's where the hot cues and the preparation come in. And obviously as well, just the years of knowing the songs and getting familiar with how they work. So what I'll do now is I'll just go into the hip hop and R and B section of my playlist and have a look at some tracks here where I may use track separation as well to help me out. So if you notice though that my dance tracks are all normally setting key in order of key, This is because they're all a similar BPM anyway. But when I go into the hip hop and R and B, I always change it to BPM and you can use the master to help you with the key, but it's not as important with hip hop and iron B music It's more about the BPM and mixing between them. Okay, so we've got the track work here. I'm going to put that on the left hand side and the track family offer on the right. Family infer has a really good beat coming in at the start. I'll listen to this, it might be quite an old song, but it goes down quite well in like quieter bars. Not so much peak time in a club, which can still work, but it's got a really good beat and I'll just like mixing with it. All right, with this track work here. What I'm going to do when it gets to the chorus, I'm just going to remove the instruments and drums. I have to listen to this first. Remove this something that little wake up and the names wrong. Just get ready to work. Work, Work, Work, Work work. See me up. You work work work, work, Work, work. See me, dad. So we're going to mix it over that chorus and what we going to do is just a quick little beat. Yoga lemon as well. So what are we going to do when it gets to this chorus bit? Just let's move the instruments and drums wake up and just get ready for work. Work, work, work, work. To me, you work work work, work, work, work. See you can hear it's a lot cleaner acapella. I should be able to use this to mix with, with the beat of family affair. So let's have a listen to how that sounds. Something that you never think, something that you never think. Wake up and just get ready for work. Work, work work. We work work, work work. To me, w you have an let's get. So I may have echoed out a little early there, but you get the idea that we can use the track separation to bring the B to the next track over the chorus. Let's try and find another example here. On the left hand side, we're just going to drag the track rote, and on the right hand side, empire stick. And as you can see, these are in key as well. So the other two tracks are also in key. So it does help if they're in key. It's not essential with hip hop and R and B mixing as such with dance music, but it does help from here. Let's have a listen to Routt Back Baby, Back. Come by. You come boy boy, you should. All right, and then the start of Empire State. No, with this it is only 16 intro. So this blue section here that I've highlighted with the hot cues is one phrase long. So I'm going to start it halfway through. Remove the instruments and drums, and then bring in the Empire State track. Let's have a listen to that. Sounds wants put you come by bark. Come in. R, boy boy figgy. Barker. Boy boy figg. Yeah. Up at Brooklyn. Now I'm down in Tracker right next to the Nero, but I'll be hood for the Nina. There we go, still with the echo going on. So as you can hear there, there's a couple of examples of how you can use the track separation just to help you with your hip hop and R and B mixing as well. You can pretty much do that with most of your hip hop and R and B tracks if it has a certain beat at the start of it. So let's try that same mix again with this track. And I'm not sure if this will 100% work, but again, the tracker has a good beat at the start. Let's say how long it is, if it's a phrase or 16 beats. Yeah. You know what, I like to play? No doubt. Play. Play. No. It's not got a strong kick to it, so I'm not sure if that will work too well. Well, let's just give it a go. I think it's a phrase long, but let's try and bring it in halfway through. Okay, so I'll start the track, a phrase, write at the start of the track and then bring it in halfway through and see how that sounds. Who come? Boy boy, you get it, come in. Rule, boy, boy, you should be no pain. Takata Blake, Boy, boy, boy. You should be pairs. It's going down. Freak of black street, the homes got out. Beceb creation. That was all right. Kind of worked quite like it would work in a bar, rock club. Definitely it wasn't perfect, but it was very good, very plausible. Let's try one more. Again, I like mixing in this track. Teach me how to dug it so that's on the master, what is in key with it. Let's try this track here down on me. So I've got my hot que set up. Let's have listen to the start of Teach me how to dug it. I think it might be 16 beats before the vocal comes in. Teach me how to be, Let's move. Yeah, so let's have a God. That same principle, so this is a phrase long, so I always set my outraw sections a phrase long halfway through this. I'm going to remove the drums and instruments and bring in the track. Teach me how to dug it. And what I'm going to do this time is show you how I use the loop function to make sure I always have good timing. So I'm going to start the loop, bring it in, and then exit the loop halfway through. So I'll have to listen to this, but we have beat, they must have been ripping left me up a leash. What are you found? With that buddy on me. Sorry down. Are you looking? Only go by another round on me. As long as I around down on me. Just put it down on me, Put it down, put it down pounds, put it lets you teach me how to do you know why art *****. So they got I could do a bit better job with the Ect, but it's quite hard with all the equipment in front of my face. The cameras and microphones as well. Yeah, that's sounded pretty good when it came in, so this one's been probably a bit of a longer video. It's not been scripted like some of the other videos that I do to make sure that they to the point and get the information and value across fast without any wasted time. But this one hasn't been scripted at all. I just wanted to talk you through some of my processes of what I actually do live and some of the examples that I use track separation now, it is still a new technology and myself and other DJs are still getting used to it and seeing what it's capable of. And also it should be getting better and better all the time. So hopefully they'll keep improving this, making it better and making it more fun and accessible for us Jays. But I hope you enjoyed that lesson. Just a bit of an insight into my playlists and how I use this when I DJ live and I hope you can take some value away from it. Well, thanks very much for watching this video and I'll see you in the next video. 16. Real Life Examples Part 2: In the last video, I've shown you some real life examples of how I used track separation in my Jay sets. But in previous videos, you may remember that I've also said that I've had some issues with track separation function when Jay in live. You also heard this as well in the full mixed routine video where one of the tracks went cracking and distorted. These are the kind of issues that I ran into whilst using track separation. 90% of the time the tracks will work fine, but in that ten, 5% maybe a track may go track crackly or distorted, but that can mess up the whole set and the whole flow of the set and bring some bad attention to you from the audience. Now this happened to me because record box analyzes the track separation on each track every time you load a new track up. And as you know, this can be quite heavy on your laptop CPU and can make it hard for the laptop to run the Deja software smoothly. So when I was deja live at peak time, I couldn't rely on the track separation function to not go crackly or distorted at some point during my set. But I do like using the vocals of other tracks. So what I had to do is come up with a workaround or an alternative way to use this feature. Also, when I dejate at peak time in a club, I usually mix tracks quite fast, as you've seen in the last video, and sometimes only having a few seconds in between tracks to load it up and get it ready. Now I've got a sequence of tracks here that I would consider using when I'm deja, live to use track separation. Some of them were in the last video, but I just want to give you an example here of the speed that will be mixing through these tracks and how fast I need the track separation function to work. But to mix through these tracks live, my laptop would struggle to analyze the track separation in time for me to be able to use it fast enough. A lot of the time the track separation process bar at the bottom wouldn't finish in time. By the time I wanted to use the track separation function, again, this is mainly due to me not having a powerful enough laptop. The system requirements to use track separation on record box is recommended to have at least 16 gigabytes of Ram memory and my laptop only has 8 gigabytes of Ram. Now my laptop isn't a bad laptop. I bought it in 2021 and it was a brand new Macbook Air and it has a new one chip. But I still have issues with the track separation. So there are two reasons why I'm highlighting this next method that I use for track separation when deja live. The first one is because other people may not have a 16 gigabyte round memory, and your laptops might struggle processing the track separation also in time. And secondly, because you can only use track separation on your laptop. So if you wanted to use vocals over the top of other tracks when you're deja live, but you're only using USB, you wouldn't be able to use track separation live. It doesn't yet have this function on the DJs if you're just using USB only. So I'm quickly going to show you my work around that I've used during this summer of dejame without having to rely on the track separation function live. Now the method I'm going to show you may take a little bit longer to do whilst you're preparing your tracks. And it's not as flexible as using the track separation on the fly when game. But it can help you if you want to use some vocals, other tracks when you dejame live and if track separation function is causing you some issues. First what I did is I found some tracks where I like the vocals over the top of the other tracks, just like I did in the last video. And I've got some of them here, so I'm going to quickly mix through these for you. No, and I want to see how fast in the speed I do it and if track separation keeps up with me. So I'm going to put the first track on Play Hard on the left, and then mix into the track insomnia, and then I'm going to try and use the vocals of Summer, Feel Good Bonkers, and then intersexyick. Let's do this. I'll try and talk through it as well. I'm going to turn the volume of the tracks down and you can see the mixing section here where I'll be mixing. We make mix, we make it more the only thing we know how to do, the only thing we know how to do. Work hard, play, hard work, hard play. We work on playing hockey. Put again like a showing job. Were play hot. We card play hoge were card play hot part again, like you show joking. I can't gather no se so when I met you in the summer to my hot band Sound we fell in love. And so these turn brow and we could be together as long as skies possible. You act so in the S town, July, so soon and I'll miss you in the summer. I feel so close to you right now. It's a bose, I wear my heart upon my set like the big love down on me around me like the water fall. There's no stopping us right now. I feel so close to you way, day, way. Crop, sleep shallow into deep and then I came back in. Sex and Beric down, drip, bathe. Give me a sniper. My tree. Dyck Gracy by Skype Hunter Gracy, Bye. I feel so close to you right now. It's a boss. I wear my heart up on my step like a big deal. You love bars down me. I go water ball and there's no stopping right now. I feel so close to you wants all right. So I kind of messed that last mix up a bit though, but you get the idea of it. You can see that pretty much every track that I finished mixing within the next phrase and the next 10 seconds, I'm mixing another track in using track separation. And it was okay there. It kept up. So, but you could see the progress bar at the bottom wasn't finished by the time that I loaded the track up and wanted to use it. And like I said, 90% of the time track separation is good enough for me and it can keep up, however, that 10% of the time where a track can go crackling and distorted, especially later on in your set, once you've used the software. And it starts lagging slightly, just like you've seen in the full mix lecture of this section at the course can go crackling and distorted. So the work around that I've come up with or that I started using when I was dejen live in the clubs, is to isolate the vocals of the track that I want to use. Record them with the record button here, just like I'm doing now to record this audio for the course. Create it into its own audio file by itself and then re, upload it back into record box. And then use that new audio file of the vocals by itself to mix in all the tracks instead of using the track separation function. So I'm just going to show you a playlist I did here. So I was experimenting with it whilst I was in Greece for the summer. So this is why it's not got a title. It's just called Untitled Playlist and what I did is come up with a little set here using this method. This is the first time I started using it and trialing it out whilst I was dejame, as you can see here in this section. From here, downwards at the same tracks that I've just shown you. But instead of using track separation, what I've done is isolated the vocals themselves. So I'm going to put insomnia up on the left hand side again, and then some are on the right hand side. If you watch on summer, I don't need to use track separation functions. I'm just going to turn that off for no, just can I got to Settings Extensions, Track Separation. I'm just going to turn that off and then click Yes. What it's done is turn track separation off for me. Just drag them tracks back up again. Now if I play the track on the right, it's just the vocals that have isolated and recorded from the track. Summer when I made it in the summer had Beat Sound, we fell in love. What this allows me to do is use these a capellas and these vocals, all the tracks without having to rely on track separation. Now if I was to do the same mix front, Play Hard into insomnia, then at this point in I can go straight into the track. Let's see how that sounds. It says, the only thing we know how to do, work hard, play hard, work hard, play hard. We work hard. Play hockey pot again. Show job. Work hard, play hard, work hard, play hard, work hard. Play hockey pot again. Look, show job, I can't gain no sleep. Drag this track ball on the left and it's ready to go straight away. I could've even played it though, if I wanted to go to Press Play, Wind it back and that vocals ready to go when I met you in the summer. High beat sound. As you can see there, there's no waiting around for track separation to do its thing. And it's just a vocal straightaway and I know where I stand with it. Now like I've shown you before, you may have a few familiar mixes that you like to do that, you know, sound good and you do quite a lot of the time, but you want to use track separation for it, but not just the vocal. For example, the mix after this, I like going into the track feels so close, but I use track separation for the first two phrases and then into the main track itself. What I did for this mix is I recorded exactly what I wanted through the record button here, if I just get the track up on the left hand side. So what I did for the first two phrases is record the track through the record button, just isolating the vocals. And then after two phrases, I brought the instruments back in. So let's have a listen to that. Sounds. No, so no track separation on. Just going to press plate. I feel so close to you right now. It's a false phase. So it's two phrases. A vocal just here and then it comes into as the instruments just here, right now I feel so close to you now. And then it goes into the drop. So that's pre recorded, so I did that with the record button. And then from there what I've also done is the acipella, from the track bonkers too. So when this track drops, I can go straight into the acipella bonkers. Listen a way crop, the day is a daydream between the map away crop in the back. Shallow, straight away. Then as soon as I loaded that track on the right hand side, without any delay, I could use the a. Cappella. Now it's similar from the track feel so close. In the previous mix, I went straight into the track Sexy Chick, but I like to use track separation. Again, from here, what I can do is record the track. So then it isolates the vocals at the right point that I want them to on the track feel so close. If you have listened to the track feel so close, now I'm just going to exit the track bonkers like a big deal. You fast down on me, surround me like a waterfall and there's no stop again, this is pre recorded. If you like doing a certain mix, you can pre record it so you're not relying on the track separation function. And then go into the mix on the next track using track separation with your preparation. So have a listen to this. I'm going to drag the track sexy chick up on my stem like a big deal, lets down me around the water ball and there's no stopping us right now. I feel so close to you. So that's without me having to do anything. I just have to get the timings right. And I've got some more examples here that I'm quickly going to show you. So I've got some more vocals, so Heads will roll. I'm going to drag that on the left hand side, and I like putting the vocals of the track when love takes over over the top of them. But again, it has to be quite quick and I have to move very fast and track separation can't keep up sometimes. So what I'm going to do here is just show you this. In fact, what I'll do is just show you this next little section from start to finish. So I'm going to go from head to roll into when love takes over into hotel room service, into the track low, and then to play hard. Now if you look at the track low, this is where I've also used track separation for the first phrase and then the last phrase. Now this is very fast, the track is only 50 seconds long or 47 seconds long. So I have a quick listen. Then for the last phrase, I use track separation pre recorded to go into the vocal. So let me show you just flicking through these tracks, known how it sounds and see what you think. Oh, time can, when I take over the chain of oh, she. So blood for you hole. Looking at her. No, no, come on, droplets, scrub the blom. Just maps show these gangsters how you blocks don't care and there you have it. So that's a quite fast part of my mix. And then I'll continue there in the tracks that I've already shown you. And like I said, I'll just try and testing out these and experimenting these over the summer with this new track separation of software to see what we can do with it and what I could teach you guys as well. Now this method does favored plan sets or routines, but if you do like certain mixes, doing it this way can make your set so really interesting and unique. Now, it doesn't always have to be preplanned just like this. Again, like I've said in the previous videos, once you get used to your tracks, this is just like getting used to a normal track, but with your own edits. For example, I know the lyrics and the vocals here from the track. When love takes over, it is just one phrase, so it's 20 seconds long, and this is the start of the break. So we can find another track that is in key With this track, I can use the same layering of the vocal over the top of the track. Let's have a quick look. So I'm just winging this. Now. Let's see what's in key with this track. Okay, so we've got the track here. Animals. Let's see how this sounds. I'm not actually tried this before, in the past, but I do have a hot cue just here. So let's see if this works. It's in key, let's see if I can add a bit of extra flavor to the track animals gonna takes over. Okay, that works. That's not too bad and again, just winging it. So we have the track titanium here, so I know I've got that isolated as well that's in key with it. Let's see if that works. I've never tried this before either. I know that titanium should be at the top of this. Okay. We actually have animals and runaway. Let's listen to that. That's the one normally use. Oh, all right. So there's another example of where you can use an acapella over the top that a pre recorded. No, I don't think titanium is in key, but we'll give it a go just for the sake of an example. So let's try that again and use titanium. Break the show you take a. That works. The whole point I'm trying to make here is that you don't need to use track separation on the fly. What you can do is just add a bit of extra preparation and plan into your sets. It doesn't have to be track one to track two, to track three to track four, like I've got here, just like I've shown you. Then you can mix and match your tracks once you get used to them. One idea that you can do, which I'm going to actually do in the future for one I'm de Jane is just go through my whole playlist, find out where the big vocals are, and then just isolate all of them. And then have a folder like I've got here just for a Capellas. Then from here I can go through these a Capellas and know how long the phrases are and then just drag them up onto the track and see if they, so it doesn't just have to be pre planned to the dock. You can then start mix and matching and dig in a bit more on the fly but with these acipellas and putting them over the tracks in gaps that don't have vocals. Okay, so just again, let's try and wing this. Just for the sake of experimenting, let's try this acipella here. I'm not sure how long it is, it's quite long, but from my hot cues I should know that A is where it starts and B is the drop. Or how far is that one? Two phrases. Alright, let's give this a go. It's in key, let's see if it sounds okay. I've been thinking, I've been drinking and it's in the s. I ain't drinking, I'm broken. Something triggers me at any given moment, wasn't my time, but it's the truth. And it ain't a face that I'm going through all that I am all that I do. All we see the beer revolving around you. It's be in the cup someone else has done. All I got to do is think of us and I get this satisfied. Okay? I don't think that one sounds too good. It's not the best kind of style of music going from a dancing track to a bit more of an EDM track, but you get the idea. You can try and error these in your own time, like now, find out which ones work, which sounds good, and then put them into your live sets later on when you're deja in life. Like I've said before, if you do have a fast enough laptop to process the track separation before you want to use your vocals and you have no issues, you don't really need to do it this way. Or if you have Serrato where it analyzes the track once and then it's done for the rest of the time. You also didn't need to learn this technique, but I just wanted to share this information with you because it is a good work around if your laptop may not be fast enough and you may come into a few issues using track separation or if you want to use USBs and DJs and not use your laptop. This is also another alternative way that you can use acipellas off the top of your tracks. This can also basically give you unlimited resources of vocals and acipellas to use in your DJ sets. All you need to do is isolate the vocal hit record and then reload the audio back into your DJ software. Once again, just like the last video, this one may have been a little bit longer and it's not scripted, so it's not as to the point and fine tuned as the other videos in the course. But again, I just wanted to show you a few examples of how I use these techniques and from my experience over this summer, using this new function of track separation on the DJ software. All that being said, I hope you've enjoyed this section of the course and I hope you've gained some really good value from it and had a lot of insights.