Working with an artist

[slayed]

So Ive finally got a small crew together. We have a manager, producer, artist, and Im the DJ. Weve all begun working on a mixtape and the artist is slowly sending me tracks.

What exactly am I supposed to be doing? Since we want this to be official, I wont be recording it live so it makes no sense to use SSL for any of this unless I want to scratch.

Im going to mix any tracks that are close in tempo, but what do I do about tracks that do not flow together? This is my first mixtape working with exclusive material. Im going to do some backspins, add effects, drops, talk a little bit, maybe chop and screw a very little bit, beat juggle for transitions.

Most mixtapes in my area boast about the DJ on them, but the DJs arent really doing anything besides picking what tracks they want to promote.


What other tricks could I do to let my presence be known on this mixtape?

 

[TJ]

What's SSL?

 

[adg13]

serano scratch live

 

[slayed]

so no one really does mixtapes?

 

[muscldancr]

well im the producer and dj in my crew.... some options are
1. mix the entire thing.....if the bpms dont match, sound FX are always good....
2. dont mix the entire thing, let the music speak for itself.....
3. you're the one doin drops over the exclusive tracks, so youll need to put some fx over your voice.....

 

[DJ enCore]

personally...I'd get all the tracks together, get the order you want them in, then do a rough mix in real time that way you can do all your backspins and jugglin and all that good stuff. If you mess-up, KEEP GOIN, you can always cut and paste later. IF you're good enough to where you can get this all on one take, more power to you, whatever. When your mix is finished, then LIKE I SAID, go back and cut and paste and add your FX and vocals, tags, drops, etc. Once it's all together I'd save it all as one big file, then go back and then make sure the whole file is at equal volume throughout. And basically just try to clean it up, and make the sound quality as clean and crisp as possible without distorting your whole mix. Then you track it up, and burn it, then make copies...

I hope this makes sense.

 

[DJ enCore]

and oh yeah when the track don't match up just throw a sound effect in there to break it up and then drop it.

 

[Diamond Dog]

well im the producer and dj in my crew.... some options are
1. mix the entire thing.....if the bpms dont match, sound FX are always good....
2. dont mix the entire thing, let the music speak for itself.....
3. you're the one doin drops over the exclusive tracks, so youll need to put some fx over your voice.....

Good points. Most mixtapes that are dedicated to one artist aren't mixed all the way through. Make use of the audio editing software out there by putting together some party breaks and maybe even a short megamix of the tracks on deck. Have your artist(s) put together some vocal intermissions to work between tracks with distant BPM's.

Above all....be sure to promote your website, MySpace, Facebook, or whatever else your squad has online...do this on the cover as well as on the actual cd. Once peeps can contact you or find your new release info....you'll have an easier time marketing the next mixtape or album.

 

[richardik03]

just put some parts in which it says your dj name, but don't use it too much because it is a type of frustrating to hear it all the time, also use a scratch that is not used too often if not u'll sound like any others, and don't ever use sound samples like the siren sound, it's just too used, also what i'd been using is to put a nice scratch and put some effects into the scratch, like flanger, rise up the velocity and then slow it down, etc...., just be original

 

[slayed]

I was thinking of doing the effects over the scratching. Does anyone have experience with this?

 

[richardik03]

Don't worry its easy, just mess around a little bit and you might do everything,

 

[slayed]

I wanted to add a flanger effect to my scratching, but I cant figure out how to do it.

Im using SSL on my laptop and recording using my desktop. (Mixers Booth Out -> Desktops Soundcard Input). How would I add flanger to just the scratching instead of adding it to the beat and the scratching.

 

[djmarcwest]

What other tricks could I do to let my presence be known on this mixtape?

I used to have this same thought, lol, like its one thing to mix major music for a mixtape, but then it just seems different mixing a whole artists' cd. What i found works best for me, is just do whatever, if you do backspins or loop tracks, make sure that you let the world know that you mixed it vocally and through the music and that you the dj are presenting the artist, market yourself but make the artist sound good, by having good transitions and so on...

 

[DJ enCore]

I wanted to add a flanger effect to my scratching, but I cant figure out how to do it.

Im using SSL on my laptop and recording using my desktop. (Mixers Booth Out -> Desktops Soundcard Input). How would I add flanger to just the scratching instead of adding it to the beat and the scratching.

probably best the lay the scratching of top of the beat on seperate track.
That's what I'd do

 

[richardik03]

to do a flanger effect into your scratch just save your scratch separate from the song, then save it as a mp3 file, and load it into serato (or any other dj program) (put it into the two decks), then try to put it into the same time, and it might do a flanger effect (but it only does well when done almost in the same time), a trick for this is to put play a t the same time. Hope it worked

 

[slayed]

How do I record the channels seperate?