The Art of Digital DJingMixing Music, Video, and Technology

Alan CannistraroGautam Banerjee

UCLA Extension Winter ’10

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When & Where• Lectures: 1/09, 1/23, 2/06, 2/20, 3/06, 3/20, 3/27

• 10am - 1pm

• 1010 Westwood B06 - be on time as we have to end promptly at 1pm

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Communication• Course blog: http://TheSmoothDJ.com - please read the blog for

class summaries and extras; ask questions here so everyone can see them and participate

• Al: accannis@gmail.com G: gbanerjee@ucla.edu

• No such thing as a stupid question

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Required Equipment• Mac or Windows

• Ableton Live 8.0 (7.0 ok)

• A hardware controller of your choice

• Control surface (MIDI)

• USB Piano Keyboard (MIDI)

• USB Game controller

• Other? Be creative. We can help you get this working

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Weekly Assignments• Weekly assignments

• Each assignment builds on previous week.

• Donʼt fall behind!!

• This is a performance class! You will be asked to perform your assignments. You will be graded on your participation and performance

• The more you practice, the better

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Final Exam• Final Exam will be a live performance at a club

• Location TBD.

• Last year, we held it at Air Conditioned Lounge, Santa Monica

• All assignments will build towards your Final Project

• Start thinking about what kind of music/style you want to perform.

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Introduction to DJing

• History

• DJing Basics

• Tools & Technology

• DJing with Ableton Live

“The DJ” by Justin Bua

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History

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Roots of DJing

• 1935 - The “Disc Jockey” is born; why?

• 1947 - Paris, France, Jimmy Saville uses two turntables to DJ

• 1950ʻs - the “selector” of Jamaica was a DJ who freestyle rhymed or shouted over music. This Jamaican tradition influenced hip-hop culture (rap) and DJs as performers (1970s NYC);

• 1974 - Technics SL-1200s & direct drive

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Technics SL-1200

• Direct drive turntable

• Strong motor

• Quick start

• Lots of torque

• Steady as a rock

• Design mostly unchanged since its birth in 1974

Great for scratching2009 Vinyl sales up 35% over 2008

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Scratching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpIKX1sxFoQ

• Late 70ʼs - Hip-Hop gives us break-beat DJing, sampling, looping, and scratching; DJʼs become performers

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Scratching• The turntable becomes an

instrument with unique sound

• Pioneers - Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc

• Different DJs created different scratches

• forward, backward, baby, tear, scribble, chirp, flare, transformer, etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBRC1nWuWKU

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Disco & House

• NY Club DJs gain notoriety, mixing their records with others

• Chip E., Frankie Knuckles, Junior Vasquez, Danny Tenaglia, etc.

• Continuous Mixes, late nights, huge parties

• Studio 54, Twilo, etc.

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DJ Explosion

• Electronic music tools become cheap

• Breaks into several subgenres:

• House, D&B, Trance, etc.

• Rave scene explodes in mid-90ʼs

• Bedroom DJʼs abound in the 2000s due to dropping costs and ability to DJ with MP3s

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Mash-Ups• “Mash-Up” is a (relatively) new term for an old art form

• Much higher notoriety in the late 2000s due to access (eg YouTube, file sharing etc - no more record label gatekeepers) and low cost in software tools to make them

• DJ Danger Mouse was doing cross-genre mashups in 1998 with two turntables; his Grey Album (2004) and its controversy injected the term and concept “mashup” into the mainstream for good; Eclectic Method: audio-visual mashups since 2002

• More on mashups in a later class (Feb 6th)Mash-ups as we know it used to be called “blends” or “mixes” in the hip-hop community and have been around for decades http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEIPCOwY4DE

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Computer-based DJing

• DJing starts moving to computers

• Production tools & DJ tools start to integrate

• Tech-heavy San Francisco starts experimenting with throwback sounds

• DJs play with song segments (loops) instead of linear songs

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VJing

• Synchronization of Video becomes possible

• Video (already popular at shows) starts being controlled by DJ

• Early stages

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEIPCOwY4DE

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DJing Basics

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Deconstructing Music

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Beats & Tempo

• What is a beat? Textbook: a steady succession of units of rhythm; In practice: what you clap your hands to or step to in dance

• Tempo = the pace of the song expressed as Beats Per Minute (BPM);

• What does BPM mean to a DJ? -> faster songs are generally higher energy; BPM affects mood and energy and informs how you mix; e.g. hip-hop is 80-100 bpm, trance is 140 bpm, etc

• We generally mix songs of similar tempo

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Bars & Phrases

• A bar, also known as a measure, is a segment of time which contains a certain number of beats - usually we have 4 beats per bar, aka 4/4 timing

• Groups of bars = a phrase; Phrases tend to be 8 or 16 bars long

• Why do phrases matter? Helps you predict/remember when something is going to change in the music; eg vocals coming in, a chorus ending, bassline start etc

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Bars, Bars, & Phrases Example

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Key & Pitch• Pitch is the frequency, or essence of a note (eg

middle C is 261.63Hz)

• Key is the center harmonic of tonically related scales and chords - eg Key of C, A-minor; When mixing, you want to avoid “key clashing”, especially when blending (or when making mashups)

• Analog: pitch control on the turntable is used to change BPM - BUT serious limitation (notes and key are changed)

• Digital: we can change tempo/BPM and preserve pitch and key (ideal), or change key and preserve BPM

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Key & Pitch Example

original tempo and key

K-Os, “Highway 7”

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0 pitch change +10% (analog way of increasing bpm)

Key & Pitch ExampleK-Os, “Highway 7”

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digital world: tempo +10%, pitch and key is preserved; this is known as key or pitch correction

Key & Pitch ExampleK-Os, “Highway 7”

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Key & Pitch Example 2

MJ “Billie Jean”

original

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Key & Pitch Example 2

MJ “Billie Jean”

original

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MJ “Billie Jean”

can you guess the change?

Key & Pitch Example 2

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how about this one?

Key & Pitch Example 2

MJ “Billie Jean”

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Song Components

• Drums & Breakbeats

• Bassline

• Melody

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Equalization & Filters

• Helps to isolate song components

• Can help create mood & builds

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Tools & Technology

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Analog gear

• 2 Turntables & a Mixer

• Principle: A song on each deck; Mixer to mix between

• Headphone monitors one or both tracks

• Volumes, Crossfader, EQ/Filter

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Digital gear• 2 CDs & a (digital?) Mixer

• Same principle as Analog gear

• Adds sampling, looping, jump points, digital effects (phasing, etc)

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Traktor - DJing on Computers

• Computer emulates CD decks35

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Serato Scratch Live

• Allows your analog equipment to talk to your computer so turntables & CD players can control mp3s;

• Fine control of turntables

• Benefit of digital processing (jump points, looping ,etc)

• Go back and forth between MP3 and vinyl/CD at will

• Familiar equipment

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Ableton Live

• Professional DAW and sequencing software from Germany; since 2001

• Designed for live performances as much as composition and production

• Loop based performance

• As a DJ tool, features crossfading, monitoring and seamless beatmatching

• Can map your own hardware as your custom DJ interface

• Integrates production workflow

• Recordable/Editable Timeline

• Flexible tracks

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DJing with Ableton Live

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Layout

• Browser

• Session View vs. Arrangement View

• Loops vs. Time

• Detail (Clips & Tracks)

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Screenshot of Live in Session view

browser

session view

clip view

sample editor

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Browser

• Clips (Files, Loops, Sets)

• Preview Clips to Headphones

• 3 favorite locations for quick access

• Effects (w/Presets)

• Instruments

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Session

• Tracks and Scenes

• Clips on a track are mutually exclusive

• Mixer controls for playing tracks concurrently

each column is called a track

each entry on a track is called a clip; can be anything from one note to an entire song

you can label tracks anything you want (helps when DJing)

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Arrangement• Tracks & Time

• Arrange clips sequentially in time

• Used for production more than performance

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Detail

• Clip vs Track

• Track shows effects

• Clip shows fileʼs audio waveform

clip view

Track view (effects)

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Navigating “Clips” • A “clip” is a song or sample youʼve

placed in a track slot. When you hi-light a clip, you are in clip view & see itʼs sound wave and settings

“sample editor” - where you move markers around and can see the sound waves

clip settings

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Navigating “Clips” • What are we looking at here?

If you mouse over the top gray bar, your cursor turns into a magnifying glass - this means you can zoom in/out and scroll left/right

These numbers are a Timeline expressed in bar and note counting (as opposed to minutes and seconds); The format is (depending how close you zoom in) 1.1.1.1 = Bars.quarternotes.eightnotes.16thnotes etc

Visual representation of sound (waves)

If you mouse over the grey bar under the timeline OR the bottom half of the wave, your cursor turns into a speaker, meaning when you click, the sample will playback from where your cursor is

Yellow squares are warp markers

more on soundwaves here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/sound/timbre.html

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Warping• “Time-Warping”, usually just called “warping”

is Ableton-speak meaning the software knows where the beats are in a song. This allows ableton to synchronize any song or sample to the master tempo (which is a big reason why people love the software)

• When you import a song, Ableton analyzes it to mark all the transients (like a drum hit or start of a note) with transient markers, calculates BPM, and tries to line up the timeline with the song waveform

• So, there are two kinds of markers you will see - 1. Warp Markers & 2. Transient markers

Warp markers are yellowtransient markers are small triangles

A sample or song is considered “warped” if the beats line up with the timescale for the entire song/sample. Think of the timeline as a conductor conducting an orchestra - itʼs how musicians know when to play their notes.

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Warping• Ableton does a good job of finding the

transients, but not a great job with warp markers

• Warp markers pin down waves to points in the timeline

• When you import a song, you have to usually fix the warping so itʼs right

• Electronic music (made with drum machines/loops) are easy to warp because the beats are rigid in time

• Acoustic or analog music is harder to warp because humanʼs arenʼt perfect at keeping time

• In Live 8, we move the waveform to line up with the timescale

• For stubborn songs, you will “pin” down transients by double-clicking and making them warp markers (ie anchored in time) to force them to a point on the timeline

you can make any transient marker into a warp marker by double-clicking

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Warping - step by step• 98% of your music can be warped in < 10

seconds

• Step 1: Zoom in & Find beat 1. It should be near the beginning of the song, but it can be any beat 1 in the song. When youʼve found that beat, Right-click the transient marker for it and select “Set 1.1.1 here”

• Step 2: Right-click the 1.1.1 marker and select “Warp from here straight”

• Step 3: Visual check - the first few bars should look “aligned” to the timeline. If not, double-check your 1.1.1 and move the transients to line up for the first few bars

• Step 4: Turn on your metronome and playback song. Listen for the beats to line up with metronome. Start at beginning of song, then check middle and end.

• Step 5: If the end of the song is in time, youʼre done. If not, where you hear the song off time, zoom in and align where needed by grabbing transient markers and putting them where they need to be in time

• Step 6: Playback again and check middle & end of song. It should also “look” lined up visually too. If the end of the song is lined up, youʼre done.

• Any electronic music or songs with programmed drums like hip-hop, these steps are all you need.

• For acoustic songs, the timing will not be perfect, and you will have to tweak the warp markers by hand sometimes (and make your own warp markers). We will cover this later

• For now, just practice. youʼll get it in no time. Good tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP9NqBvgptM

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Assignment

• Decide on a style for your performance

• Find songs you would like to use

• Import them into Ableton Live

• Play around with warping them; come next week with questions

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