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Thread: Death of Straight-Mixing

  1. #1
    Member BDC's Avatar
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    Death of Straight-Mixing

    My first mixer I ever owned was a crappy Gemini back in the 80s that leaked like crazy but had a cool echo effect built in.
    I have owned many mixers since like the Numark 1775 and the GLI 9000. These early mixers had an onboard equalizer for ALL channels. Today's mixer has the capability to manipulate highs, mids, lows PER channel.

    I grew up mixing by NOT touching the EQ and just mixing straight channel A with channel B. Today's technology allows for much more control over transitions by manipulating frequencies and countless effects.

    ...Therefore, is straight-mixing obsolete?
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  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by BDC View Post
    My first mixer I ever owned was a crappy Gemini back in the 80s that leaked like crazy but had a cool echo effect built in.
    I have owned many mixers since like the Numark 1775 and the GLI 9000. These early mixers had an onboard equalizer for ALL channels. Today's mixer has the capability to manipulate highs, mids, lows PER channel.

    I grew up mixing by NOT touching the EQ and just mixing straight channel A with channel B. Today's technology allows for much more control over transitions by manipulating frequencies and countless effects.

    ...Therefore, is straight-mixing obsolete?
    Definitely not. Like you, I started mixing without individual EQs. Mixers like the Weston MX-900 (first mixer I used), DM1150 (my first Numark), Numark 1700, 1775, and 1975. During these times, I played late 80s and 90s music until the Pioneer DJM500 came out in 1995. When our mobile group purchased the Pioneer, I still didn't touch the individual EQs while mixing because I was never used to it until the late 90s and 2000s. In fact, I still preferred using the Numarks until 1998.

    I do a lot EQ and blending with my mixes when I play house with long transitions. But whenever I play late 80s and 90s music from time to time, I refrain from touching the EQs like old style. Also, with the old music, transitions are quicker so blending of volume via the faders is the technique.
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  3. #3
    BanHammer™⚒️ Manu's Avatar
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    Today's mixer has the capability to manipulate highs, mids, lows PER channel.
    That's not of today. Coffee?

    My A&H has 4 band EQ + filters. So great to make seamless blends and avoid killing the signal because of having twice too much bass.

    I started on one of those old Tandy mixers 30 years ago, no EQ no nothing. I don't miss them.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Manu View Post
    That's not of today. Coffee?

    My A&H has 4 band EQ + filters. So great to make seamless blends and avoid killing the signal because of having twice too much bass.

    I started on one of those old Tandy mixers 30 years ago, no EQ no nothing. I don't miss them.

    do you find the 4 band eq a bit much for mixing over the 3 band? or have you grown to use it?

  5. #5
    I think it has it's place in mixed-genre venues and broadcast for example (if you mean playing track after another without blending)

    For most EDM and urban music (hiphop, rap, reggaeton etc) I find the majority of DJs use beatmatching and other techniques such as beat dropping, cutting and beatjuggling which are very prominent especially in urban music. In reggae culture the "broadcast" approach isn't that uncommon in soundsystems I think but they tend to use sound FX very generously (dub delay, echo, air horns etc)

    By rule of thumb the more cohesion the tracks within the genre have BPM-wise the more likely it is to be played so that the beats are in sync during transitions.

    As far as EQing goes I think it was given to DJs somewhere around the mid/late 70's for subtle room/track correction etc but someone from that era could confirm this (from pictures I've seen Bozaks had 3-band mono EQs in master L/R, whereas the Urei had a 2-band master EQ, I remember reading Formula Sound was the first to introduce per channel EQs though)

    To me at least the use of master EQ in blending is foreign however the rotary mixer I've been building has one, I included it for correction but also to use as a makeshift isolator to accent stuff and to attenuate overlapping frequencies (mainly in the LF)

    Then there was the GLI which is considered the first mass-produced DJ mixer with faders (afaik Bozak and Urei units of that era were manufactured and assembled by hand) but the general consensus is that the first DJ mixer was Rosie by Alex Rosner which had upfaders and cue (I remember reading Alex Rosner and Rudy Bozak knew each other and worked together)

    Around here the playing style used to be very strictly not to beatmatch (excluding raves, when I first started DJing at a venue in 2007 I doubt they even knew what beatmatching was, I had played a few gigs before that at school events though as I had been practicing beatmatching at home) and they had a shelf full of CDs from mid-90's to mid-2000's so I played those and some of my own until I got a Macbook and began collecting mixed-genre stuff like radio hits to play at the venue (occasionally I would play some house-y radio edits too, and older hits from CDs) along with house and drum'n'bass (which was a big thing back then) for home use and private parties.

    I also collected vinyl, mainly house but techno and dnb as well as some classic stuff like disco (I did a fair bit of crate digging back then, most of the house/dnb records I bought from online stores though)

    Anyway the trend in private parties and later at club gigs turned into beatmatching the first few hours of the night and the mixed-genre/request stuff would be played at peak hours without blending whatsoever (ie. what you call "straight mixing", sometimes because the DJ could've had a few and was not-so-straight ) but this was mainly due to large number of requests.

    I met a few like-minded friends and taught them how to beatmatch so it kind of took off from there, it could've been beatmatched stuff all night as well, but from my experience at clubs people can get bored very easily with 128bpm for 8 hours or more, or we got lit and started playing radio hits b2b.

    I think in other scenes I've been involved in the promoters have done a terrific job at catering to a bit more wider audience but it's hard with house/techno/jungle, usually the residents know their stuff and the partygoers in person so they can adjust the mood if there are performers/DJs coming from elsewhere and it's been an otherwise constant night BPM-wise.

    Sorry for getting lost on the subject.. but this is from my personal point of view.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by BDC View Post
    I grew up mixing by NOT touching the EQ and just mixing straight channel A with channel B. Today's technology allows for much more control over transitions by manipulating frequencies and countless effects.

    ...Therefore, is straight-mixing obsolete?
    I never knew it wasn't obsolete. I mean, iv seen them and used them back in the day, but they dont make much sense to me.

  7. #7
    BanHammer™⚒️ Manu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Joe Like View Post
    do you find the 4 band eq a bit much for mixing over the 3 band? or have you grown to use it?
    It's a lot more precise, more control, and felt like a plus right away. My sound quality improved, and some people became unable to tell where I start and end a mix.

  8. #8
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    I don’t think straight mixing is obsolete. I believe that the advancement in mixers made it not as much of the norm that it used to be.

    I started out on a two channel realistic mixer where you were required to adjust the volume on the line faders and straight mix. I advanced to an Atus AM300 which had separate eq’s for the general right and left outputs from the master but not on the line inputs.

    However, I believe with the advent of more sophisticated mixers (and controllers) with cross fader curve controls and eq’s on line inputs more adjustments have to made in order to straight mix.

    So straight mixing isn’t obsolete. It depends on the transition technique that you use on whether you may have to touch the eq’s and/ or adjust the fader curves.


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  9. #9
    Member Hygro's Avatar
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    Too many people get lost on trying to EQ their way through. I know because I was one of them. Then I saw @marc.s on faderwave smoothly blend vinyl records with sonically perfect transitions only using upfaders and my younger self awoke to the value of mastering basics. These songs are mixed and mastered, you’re as likely to mess them up touching those knobs so get your skills in order, match your volume levels before you try anything fancy.

    Edit:
    That said after years of music production it would be nice to have full control graphical EQs and VSTs and stuff.
    Last edited by Hygro; 04-18-2020 at 02:08 PM.
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  10. #10
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    Im going the other way and buying a Mastersounds Radius so i can get rid of the EQs... ive been using 3/4 band EQ since i started DJing but the Mastersounds setup will sllow me to just use a touch of HPF and smooth rotary knobs to blend tracks.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sigma View Post
    It's only because features like auto-sync have opened the doors for a bunch of lazy cunts to buy some gear and think they're a DJ a week later that we go round and round in circles with this same topic.

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