most COMMON effects club DJs use ?

Hello all!

Looking to gain some insight in the most common used FX and tricks that big name DJs use the in their sets.

Being new to digital djing and having no experience with effects of any kind I am wondering whats implemented the most to create drama and tension on the dancefloor.

As an example...

I recently recently saw Richie Hawtin and Deadmau5, they would constantly use some sort of delay or build coming out of the breakdowns in their sets and would build with tension and intensity for what seems like eternity....and then the inevitable bass or kick drum would drop and send the crowd into a frenzy.

Probably very common and over used but im new and would like to know how this is created, or the different most common ways to reproduce it.

Possible with Traktor Pro? Or do they have separate effect processors?

Any insight into this and other more common and useful effects would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks,

Bedroom DJ :S

Oh ya ...sorry one more question.

I have recently learned to beat match records. Mostly progressive house. It was very important that that the records would be mixed in "phase" as well as beat matched. The end of a phrase with house is very noticeable and if the new record being mixed in wasnt in the same time signature the mix would sound off and have melodies overlapping and the rest ...

now that I have been using my laptop for mixing with Traktor I have found myself playing more minimal....

my question to you more seasoned performers is...

How important do you think mixing in phrase is with minimal , it is very repetitive and the phrases are just not as obvious to me as they were progressive house. It seems you can just sync up the beats of any track and your good to mix it in no matter where in the song you start the beats on...

Thoughts?

Cheers

 

Effects that I hear every now and again are delay, reverb and sometimes flanger (not a massive fan).

That's not counting things like the Xone filters/loops which can be used to create effects. I think the key is to use effects sparingly as they can make a mix sound awful if overused or used inappropriately.

As for mixing in phase for minimal - I'd say it's just as important. It might not be as noticeable but it will be noticeable and also it would be a bad habbit to get into not to mix in phase - it's something that should just come naturally so it's probably best to always do so.

 

Thanks for your reply!

That is about what i thought and needed someone to confirm.

any one else have any thing further to add on this topic?

thanks

 

A little flanger goes a long way. I like good filter sweeps, if you count those as fx. Especially if you cut out the bottom, kick up the top over an octave, sometimes killing the bass on the EQ, and sweep down at the end of a break, ending right as the kick comes back and bringing the bass EQ back. Also easily overused.

For me the biggest cliche effect is simply a loop that halves on the measure, so that it runs 8 beats, then 4, then 2, then 1, 1/4, 1/16, etc., to generate a snap roll effect. Enuff aready.

 

thanks boysteve,

would the filter sweep you are describing normally be implemented in the break sort of building tension towards a climax ie the kick drum dropping back in?

I really want to learn how to effects properly!

and my music theory is not so good, could you elaborate a little more on "kick it up over an octave"?



I agree bout the snap roll effect, especially in those micro loops...
It's irritating.

cheers

 

That's the most common way to use the filter sweep. By kick it up over an octave I just mean raise the level on the higher end across an octave of the audio spectrum (the "Q" on an EQ). Graphically, make a little hill (tell me T3 is an improvement on T2.5.3. Suuuuure it is).

I'll drop this in sometimes in a very quick, one- or two-beat section where there's a lot in the audio spectrum but the percussion has dropped out; e.g., a big fat electro synth sound that you can add drama to by sweeping up or down quickly and slamming in the kick again.

One note on the long buildup sweeps: removing the audio information as you sweep also lowers your volume, so you need to leave yourself some headroom to turn up the gain and raise the levels as you implement the sweep, or it'll sound too quiet.

 

Nice,
thanks for the info

will work on that

cheers

 

I gotta say Flanger is the most over used, least favourite effect. Saw Danny Howells in Amsterdam n he used it on every build up it just got ridiculous. I think some well executed delays combined with loops work well for minimal as well as reverb and us of the filter

 

thanks for your insight Steinz,

I have been a little overwhelmed with the amount of and combination of Filters and FXs available with Traktor. When I try to create drum rolls with micro loops it sounds like someone is scratching a blackboard with their fingernails...sounds awful and my friends tell me "please never do that again" lol...
but i want to learn to use my effects properly so thanks for the post!

 

I really like the beatmasher, gater and reverb for some nice tension on the floor. Works great!

 

rich: instead of using microloops for drumrolls, try using the delay instead, set to a small amount (experiment to get a timing that works well for you, or you can sweep the timing knob to create the feeling the roll is getting faster). Turn the wet/dry control of the delay up at the same time and it'll sound much more natural than a microloop.

If there's vocals or heavy instrumentation getting in the way and making it seem overloaded with the delay, copy the track to another deck (or use a loop from another, more interesting track) and loop about 4-8 beats where there's less 'busyness', this has the advantage that you can stop the delayed track at the end of the roll, and let the delay tail off nicely. For extra credit, filter out the lows at the same time on the delayed track, and you've got yourself a mean-ass energy builder that you can use anywhere in a track, or even create your own mega buildups from scratch.

Mwhahahah.

 

good advice rufus

 

Rufus Dude!

Thank you so much. This is EXACTLY the advice I was looking for.



Thanks Again!

 

I mostly here flanger, reverb and the transform control on a DJM600 ramped to about 110 to get that stuttering effect.

I'll do all the above but throw in the delay effect to double up beats, and the echo to 'enhance' some weak breakdowns and endings.

John

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCg4V04Cwfo&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCg4V04Cwfo&feature=related[/ame]


ok...thanks...

whats leger up to here @ the 1:15 mark and then at 3:18..

 

1:15 - he's just looped a couple of beats before the drop, maybe with a bit of delay on it.

3:18 - looks like mostly EQ, but he's definitely doing something to the FX section on the mixer as well - looks like a DJM800, I'm not very familiar with this mixer, but I think it might just be the one knob filter it's got on it?

Without knowing what the track sounds like with no fx applied to it, it's difficult to know how much is him and how much is the way the track actually sounds. I've seen DJs putting a lot of work into making it look like they're applying effects to a track, when really that's just how the track sounds! A lot of bigger name DJs make their own edits of tracks (maybe just appplying some fx in the studio) so that work is already done for them by the time they get to the club.

I've learnt not to get too hung up on figuring out what other DJs are doing with fx for this reason, figure out what works for you, and the specific tracks you use, T3 gave us a basic pallette of fx that were useful and usable in a lot of circumstances, and you'll find that most fx you'll hear in a club boil down to the basic types of filter, delay, flanger and reverb. I once spent months trying to figure out what Morillo was doing in a mix I had, until I saw him pull off the same mix live. Turned out it was just a little delay put over the original track. His mixing is really fun to listen to, and it sounds like he's doing a lot, but in reality, it's a very simple formula involving 3 main ingredients: a lot of looping, filters, and delay. When you start to analyse it like this, it starts to lose a bit of it's magic because you realize how simple it really is. But maybe that's what makes him a good DJ - instead of going overboard using all the fx available to him on the Pio EFX1000 he has, he knows how to use a few very basic fx at exactly the right moment to build tension and energy on the dancefloor.

Fus
---
Having said all that, I can hardly talk, having 2 kaoss pads in my setup now

My excuse is I need to make up for losing 2 fx channels from Traktor 3

 

Really wana know if this effect can be done in T3/Tpro . Its obviously a loop but how could you control the speed of it like this? Is it just a pitch thing at high values? It seems the loop length does not change

http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/97742228/file.html

 

Steinz I know Transpose Strech does some of that stuff in pro

 

thats a classic tape echoe thingy.

This became popular after the advent of delay and echoe machines.

YOu are basically creating a signal that is on a tape loop accompanied by a short silence. I had the pleasure of working with an actual 1/2" tape driven echoe machine 'space echoe' The machine has several play and record heads along the tape. these type of effects sounded awesome on that thing.

The model thats available in traktor is pretty sad in comparison. But here is what you need to do.

USE THE DELAY

SET THE FEEDBACK KBOB TO A HIGH VALUE SO THERE ARE MANY REPEATS

START WITH THE SPEED KIND OF LOW SO YOU CAN TAP IN A SLOW SPEED OF REPETITION . THEN WHEN YOU HAVE THE SIGNAL GOING THROUGH THE DELAY AND CREATING A THROBBING DELAY. CUT THE DECK PLAYBACK OR THE VOLUME AND TURN THE FEEDBACK UP TO FULL THEN DIAL IN THE FREQUENCY YOU WANT AND ADJUST THE SPEED UPWARD. THIS WILL GIVE THE SPACEY LIFT-OFF SOUND.

the cool thing about the tape machine was that a certain amount of sound would bleed through the different record heads and you would end up with a ghost image on the tape and this would creat a type of tape feedback and ringing. VEry cool .

I loved my DJM 600 for this effect. IT had a really good delay/echoe effect for back then. YOu could sync the effect to bpm and then use the 1/2 1/4 and double buttons to make it go all crazey like in the video.. I pwned that effet. long ago in gay club far away. . hahahaha

 

The Transpose Strectch works backwards in that you can slow things down but not speed them up. The delay technique works really well just is a little long winded and doesnt give you an infinite effect ie you cant slow it down again once you've speeded it right up as the sound decays to nothing but big thanks for the advice