Chapter 10

Stirring It Up with Mixers

In This Chapter

Finding out about the mixer’s most common features

Looking at the advanced options available

Choosing the right mixer for your DJ style

Keeping your mixer in tip-top condition

Mixers are a very demanding breed of animal. They come with many functions and features, and can manipulate the music in many ways. But in the end, mixers only do what you tell them to do.

This chapter explains how the vital controls on a mixer function and how they relate to your DJ mixing style. Understanding that much sets you on your way to buying the right mixer.

Getting Familiar with Mixer Controls

On your journey as a DJ, you’ll come across a vast range of mixers. Some you may already know about, and some you won’t ever have seen before. If you understand the features on a mixer and how to use them, you should never accidentally press the wrong button and cut out the sound.

Well, never may be too strong a word …

Inputs

The common DJ mixer accepts three different input methods:

• Phono inputs for turntables
• Mic inputs for microphones
• Line inputs for everything else

Professional digital mixers also have S/PDIF, USB and FireWire inputs to connect digital sources such as digital controllers, CD decks and PC soundcards. They keep the music playing at the best possible quality. For information on how to connect any of these inputs, head to Chapter 13.

Phono inputs

Records are created in a special way in order to fit all the music information onto the vinyl. The mixer needs to translate the signal it receives from the turntable in a completely different way to how a CD player or any other device does. To let the mixer know it has some vinyl translation work to do, use the phono input.

Line inputs

All other equipment (CD players, MP3 players, the audio output from your computer and DVD player and so on) sends out a line signal to the mixer. When you want to use any of these items, you use the line input on the mixer.

On a two-channel mixer, both channels have a line and a phono input connection. This means that you can connect two turntables and two CD players to a two-channel mixer, and use the line/phono switch to select the CD player or turntable input for either channel.

Mic inputs

As well as accepting playback devices like turntables and CD players, most mixers also have XLR or quarter-inch jack inputs for connecting a microphone. A separate volume and EQ (equaliser) control are usually provided to affect the bass, mid or high frequencies in your voice, so that you can sound great speaking to the crowd.

Multiple channels

Although you can have two turntables and two CD players plugged into a two-channel mixer and then flick from line to phono, having a dedicated channel for each input is more convenient. You also need more than two channels on your mixer if you want to use three CDs or three turntables, because you can’t plug a turntable into the line input or plug a CD deck into the phono input on a mixer.

A mixer with three or four inputs can cater to most DJs’ needs. If you need more than four channels to use all your equipment, maybe you should be more worried about the electricity bills than where to plug it all in!

Outputs

Basic mixers usually have two outputs, with better mixers having at least three outputs, as follows:

• Master out connects to an amplifier. The LED display on the mixer shows how strong a music signal you’re sending out of the master out output to the amplifier. The stronger the signal, the less you have to turn up the amplifier. Too strong a signal, though, and you may cause the sound to distort because the amplifier can’t process it properly.
• Record out is for sending music to a recording device like a CD burner, digital recorder or computer. The output LEDs on the mixer have no bearing on how strong a signal you send to the recording device through this connection. Only the channel faders (the vertical faders) and the gain control (which changes the strength of the signal that comes in from the turntables or CD players) affect how strong a signal you send to a recording device.
• Booth out sends a signal to a separate speaker in the DJ booth so that you can hear the music too. This is vital in a large club where the main speakers are far away. If you’re a beatmatching DJ, the delay in sound between those speakers and your ears can make beatmatching very difficult.

For more on each of these outputs and how to connect them to their intended recipients, check out Chapter 13.

Input VU monitoring

Your mixer has a VU (volume unit) display to show the strength of the signal going out of the mixer. An important enhancement of this feature is the option of checking the strength of the signal coming into the mixer.

The normal output display on a mixer is two lines of LED lights, one showing the strength of the left-hand side of the stereo music, the other showing the right-hand side. Some mixers offer the DJ an option to change this display into the left line of LEDs showing the input strength of channel 1, and the right line displaying channel 2’s input strength. Some, like Pioneer’s range of DJ mixers, have a separate line of LEDs next to each channel’s EQ controls to show the strength of the input signal. Others, like the Allen & Heath Xone range, have LEDs next to the channel faders. Both the Pioneer and Allen & Heath Xone designs leave the master output display to always show how strong a signal you’re sending out of the mixer.

Cross-faders

The cross-fader (see Figure 10-1) is a simple horizontal slider that enables you to change the music that’s played out of the mixer from one input device to another. It’s a bit like the control on your shower that lets you adjust how much hot and cold water comes out. You can have only cold, only hot and many, many different combinations in between.

After you’ve towelled off thoroughly, go to your DJ setup. To explain how a cross-fader works, imagine that tune A is playing into channel 1 on a two-channel mixer (usually the turntable or CD deck positioned on the left side of the mixer), and tune B is playing into channel 2 (on the right-hand side of the mixer).

With the cross-fader positioned to the far left, you’ll only hear tune A. When the cross-fader is all the way to the right, all you’ll hear is tune B.

However, the cross-fader comes into its own when it’s anywhere in between. If the cross-fader is in the middle, the output of the mixer is both tune A and tune B, and if the cross-fader is to the left of middle, you can hear more of tune A than tune B (and vice versa).

How much louder tune A is than tune B is dictated by something called the cross-fader curve. The cross-fader curve controls how quickly one tune gets louder as the other one gets quieter when you move the cross-fader from side to side. The following figures show some common cross-fader curves you’ll encounter. Figure 10-2 shows a simple cross-fader curve.

In Figure 10-2:

• At position 1 marked on the cross-fader, channel 1 is at full and channel 2 is silent.
• By position 2, both tunes are playing at around 90 per cent of their loudest volume.
• By position 3, channel 2 is at its loudest and channel 1 is silent.

The cross-fader curve in Figure 10-3 helps to stop both your tunes blaring out of the speakers simultaneously at near to full volume:

• At position 1, channel 1 is full and channel 2 is off.
• At position A, channel 1 is still full; channel 2 is starting to come in (playing at about 10 per cent of its full volume by this stage).
• At position 2, both tunes are at 80 per cent of their normal volume.
• By position B, channel 2 is now playing at full volume and channel 1 is playing at 10 per cent volume.
• And by position 3, channel 2 is playing at full volume, with channel 1 silent.

Although this curve is similar to the first example, the straight line in this ‘curve’ gradually brings in one tune while removing the other one, whereas the swooping curve in the first example keeps the tunes playing together for longer at a higher volume.

Figure 10-4 shows the cross-fader curve preferred by many scratch DJs due to the speed at which you can cut in (make audible) the second tune at full volume:

• Position 1 shows channel 1 playing full and channel 2 is off.
• At position A, both channels are playing full volume, and it only took a small amount of cross-fader movement to get there.
• This situation stays constant until position B.
• At position 3, channel 2 is full and channel 1 has been removed.

You can also get a straight X-shape curve, which fades one tune out while bringing the other tune in at exactly the same ratio throughout the move. If tune A is playing at 10 per cent, tune B is at 90 per cent; if tune A is at 73 per cent, tune B plays at 27 per cent, and so on. (That’s likely to be the cross-fader curve of your shower control too.)

A number of mixers come with just one kind of cross-fader curve, but most mid- to high-range mixers have controls that allow you to change the curve.

Channel faders

Channel faders are the up and down faders that control how loudly the music comes out of the mixer when the cross-fader is all the way over to one side, allowing the full power of a channel to play.

Taking another visit to your bathroom, think of channel faders like the taps on the bathroom shower. Even though the water mixer (the cross-fader) is set to only let out cold water, if you don’t turn on the cold tap, nothing comes out. So although the cross-fader lets you mix hot and cold water to the right temperature through the showerhead, the channel faders control how much hot and how much cold water is available to mix together in the first place.

Getting back into the DJ booth, the ability to vary the volume of the two channels as well as mix with the cross-fader gives incredibly precise control over the mix. If you use the channel faders in conjunction with the cross-fader to their extremes, you get the kind of curve shown in Figure 10-5.

Chapter 16 covers how to use your channel faders to help your mixes sound professional.

EQs and kills

The EQ (equaliser) controls on a mixer enable you to control three broad musical frequency bands: high, mid and low. The amount of change is measured in decibels (abbreviated as dB), and although mixers let you increase the EQ bands by 12 dB or more, the amount they take out is actually more important to the DJ.

The common control to adjust the EQs is a rotary knob called a pot (short for potentiometer), which sweeps from all the way to the left (reducing a chosen frequency) to all the way to the right, which boosts the frequency. Often, setting the control all the way to the left engages a cut setting, which removes the EQ frequency band from the tune completely. So when you cut the bass from a tune, all you hear are the tinny hi-hats (the tchsss tchsss sounds made by the cymbals on a drum kit) and the mid-range (which carries the vocals and main melody of a tune).

These EQs let you make the tune you’re playing sound great; if the bass is too loud through the speakers, you can reduce it using the bass EQ, and if the music sounds a little too shrill, reducing the high and mid controls can fix the problem.

Apart from sound processing, EQs are essential for the seamless mix DJ who wants the transition (mix) between tunes to be as smooth as possible. If you get a chance to study DJs such as Paul Oakenfold, Tiësto and Sasha closely, you see just how much they use the EQs to aid their mixes.

In addition to a sweeping control, some mixers have a kill switch, which instantly removes a selected frequency. The difference between an EQ pot and a kill switch is that an adjustable EQ enables the DJ to vary the amount of frequency to cut out from just a little to the entire band, whereas a kill switch instantly removes a frequency at the push of a button, and puts it back in when pressed again. No grey areas here!

Chapter 16 has a whole section dedicated to using EQs and kill switches to help produce seamless mixes, and how to use them creatively too. Chapter 21 has a section about sound processing with EQs.

Gain controls

A gain control isn’t just another volume control. Gain controls shouldn’t be regarded as a way to affect the volume going out of the mixer; look at them purely as a way to affect the music coming into the mixer.

If the input-level LED for channel 1 is at 0 dB, occasionally flashing into the red +3 dB area, and channel 2’s LEDs show that its input signal is well below 0 dB, you use the gain control to increase the input level of channel 2 to match channel 1. If you mix from channel 1 to channel 2 without matching the input levels, you’ll notice a drop in volume even with both channel faders set to full. Gain controls (and input level LEDs) let you get this level right at the input stage instead of panicking at the output stage when it’s too late.

If your bass EQ is set to cut or kill when checking the channel’s input level, it can appear a lot weaker than it really is. In this instance, if you’ve raised the gain to match the other tune currently playing, when you mix in this tune and bring the bass frequencies back into the music, it will be playing way too loud. This can lead to speaker damage and unhappy people on the dance floor, because the volume may be too much to handle. Chapters 16 and 19 contain more information about using gain controls to help to keep an even volume in the mix.

Headphone monitoring

The headphone section on the mixer is simple but extremely important. The headphone socket on a mixer is a quarter-inch jack socket, so if you’re using a mini-jack (similar to the one on the end of your iPod headphones), you will need a converter from mini jack to quarter-inch jack to do this. Plug your headphones into the quarter-inch jack socket and use the headphone volume control (which you don’t need to set to full, please) along with the cue controls to listen to individual channels on your mixer (or a few of them together at the same time).

Headphone cue controls fall into two functions and let you:

• Choose what plays into your headphones
• Control how you hear the music in your headphones

Each channel on the mixer has a cue or PFL (pre-fade listen) button assigned to it. When you press the button, you can listen to the music from that channel in your headphones, without needing to play it through the main speakers.

The most basic but also most essential use of the headphones is to find the start point of the next tune you want to play (called the cue). But DJs who beatmatch also use the headphones to make sure that the beats of both tunes are playing at the same time. Beatmatching is the fundamental concept of DJing with dance music. Go to Chapter 14 to discover how DJs use headphones to help match beats, and how the following ways of listening to music in the headphones can give you more control over the beatmatching process:

• Headphone mix enables you to play both tunes in stereo in your headphones, and a mini cross-fader or rotary knob gives you control over how loudly each tune plays over the other (exactly like a cross-fader, except for your headphones). Headphone mix is especially useful because you can use it to check how the two tunes sound playing together and whether their beats really are playing in time, before letting the dance floor hear.
• Split cue sends one selected channel into the left earpiece of the headphones and another one into the right earpiece (as if you’re listening to one tune in the headphones and have one ear to the dance floor). Split cue is a lifesaver when you don’t have a monitor (speaker) in the DJ booth and the delay in sound from the dance-floor speakers makes it hard to check whether the bass beats are playing at the same time.
• No frills: Some mixers don’t offer a headphone split or mix to help you. In this case, pressing cue or PFL will play that tune at its set gain level through both ears. So if you press the cue button on channel 1 and channel 2, both will play at their full power. You could use the gain control to lower one of the channels and emulate the headphone mix, but the danger there is that you forget to set the gain back to where is should be, and when you mix in the tune it’ll be way too quiet.

Balance and pan controls

The balance control alters which speaker the sound comes from. When the control is to the left, music only comes out of the left speaker; the reverse for the right-hand side; and when the control is in the middle, music comes out through both speakers, much like the balance on your home stereo.

However, some mixers have balance controls (sometimes called pan controls) on each channel rather than a control that affects the mixer’s master output. Why do you want balance controls on each channel? Sometimes (for example), if you have one channel panned all the way to the left and another all the way to the right, and bring the cross-fader into the middle, the effect of having one tune playing in one ear and another in the other ear can sound really good (if you’ve chosen the right tunes and both bass beats are playing at the same time). This feature works well with plain beats, especially if you constantly change the balance settings during the mix.

Hamster switch

Mixers used by scratch DJs often have a hamster switch, which reverses the control of the cross-fader (but the channel faders remain the same). So instead of hearing channel 1 when the cross-fader is all the way to the left, you now hear channel 2, and vice versa. Check out Chapter 17 for more information about scratching – and why the hamster switch has such an odd name.

Punch and transform controls

If you have the cross-fader completely on channel 2 (what I call closed off onto channel 2), pressing the punch button changes the output to channel 1 until released. Note, however, that some mixers don’t take account of where you leave the channel faders, only where you set the gain controls, so make sure you set those gain controls properly, otherwise you may experience a huge drop (or rise) in volume when you punch in the other channel!

Transform controls were designed as an advancement to the technique of using the line/phono switch to cut a channel in and out of the mix (quickly hearing it, then not hearing it). When using turntables, flick this switch over to line and the music cuts out (for CD, flick it to phono). The problem is that you often hear a clicking or popping sound when you switch, so transform controls were designed to do the same thing but won’t pop or click when you use them. (The punch button will do the same thing as the transform controls if nothing is playing through the other channel.)

Built-in effects

Although some mixers offer sound effects such as sirens and horns, I don’t really mean this type of effect. Rather than having to use an external effects processor, some mixers have built-in effects like flanger, echo, delay, transform, pitch, loop and reverb assignable (able to add the effect) to each channel or the master output. These effects are a great way of adding a new sound to the music or during the transition between tunes.

The most common effects you find on mixers are as follows:

• Delay repeats a selected part of the tune while the rest of the tune is still playing. Especially useful for repeating quick musical hooks in quieter parts of tracks or for doubling-up bass beats to play three bass beats where only two would normally play.
• Echo is similar to the delay feature, except the music fades away when repeating to create an echo effect. Useful again in quieter parts of the tune (or at the very end of your DJ set).
• Auto pan swaps the music from the left to the right speaker (and back).
• Transformer cuts the entire sound in and out at a speed you set – a good way to create a stuttering effect as the music builds up or during a scratch. (See Chapter 17 for how to manually perform a transform.)
• Beatmasher/roll samples (records) beats and plays them back over a duration you set. This means you can repeat beats over and over, or if you set the duration to a short amount (a quarter of a beat or less) you can generate a drum roll in the music, even though there wasn’t one in the first place – a great (although easily over-used) effect to create a crescendo from one part of a tune to another! (See Chapter 16 for more about creative mixing.)
• Filter manipulates the sound frequencies of the music to alter its tonal quality by removing a range of frequencies. Using the filter isn’t the same as using the EQs on the mixer to kill and replace frequencies, though, because a specific sound is also added to it.

  If you’ve ever been to the beach and held a shell to your ear, the ambient resonating sound you hear from the shell is similar to the effect as the filter removes frequencies in the music. It’s as if the shell had a tiny DJ crab inside it …

  Depending on your mixer, you can apply the filter effect in one or two ways. One way is to sweep in and out – removing then replacing the frequencies over a set period of time – but some mixers allow you to select a range of frequencies, select how strong the frequency removal and resonating effect will be, and then hold it in this state until the filter is turned off or altered.

• Flanger makes a swooshy sound, like playing music through a jet engine, as it climbs and falls, while retaining the full frequency range (and usually boosting the bass frequencies) of the music. The most over-used effect ever (but really cool the first time you use it!).
• Phaser is what would happen if flanger and filter had a baby. It takes the swooshing jet engine sound of the flanger, but adds in a filter effect too, sometimes sounding like it should come out of a space-ship from the 1960s!
• Reverb adds reverberation to the music, so it sounds as if you’re playing in a massive hall. Turn it up to full, and the sound is like listening to music inside the toilets at a club.
• Pitch shifter can change the pitch of the music – useful to try to match the pitch of another tune, but mixers vary in their ability to do this well.

You’ll encounter other effects as your experience with other mixers grows (and if you’re a digital DJ, the palette of effects available to you can be huge, depending on what software you’re using).

Effects send and return

The effects send and return enables you to send just one channel from the mixer to an external effects processor to add whatever groovy effects you want, and then it’s returned to the mixer in less than the blink of an eye for you to use in the mix. All the while, the other channels on the mixer are unaffected. You can find a detailed description of send and return connections with an effects processor in Chapter 13.

Built-in samplers

Samplers are great, because they enable you to take a short vocal sample or a few bars of beats from a tune and extend or introduce a mix by playing these samples. DJ mixers with built-in samplers can record short samples; for anything longer, you need to buy a separate sampler.

An example of how you can use a sampler is with the 1990s song ‘Nighttrain’ by Kadoc. At the very beginning of the record, James Brown says ‘All aboard, the Nighttrain’. By recording that vocal sample into the sampler and playing it a few times before you start the mix, you create anticipation of what’s yet to come. I used to do this as a scratch (see Chapter 17 for how), but the sampler made this a lot easier and simpler to do.

The better samplers have loop controls on them, where the sample you take is looped seamlessly over and over again, meaning you can really extend the mix. A good use of this technique is to record four bars of beats into the sampler and loop them to extend the outro of a tune, or to add beats over a breakdown to keep the energy going to the dance floor.

Built-in beat counters

Beat counters give you a visual display of how many beats per minute (bpm) are playing in a tune. Two channel mixers with built-in beat counters may have a counter for each channel. Multiple channel mixers can have a counter for each channel, or two counters that you can assign (choose to use) to any channel you like. This can be helpful for beatmatching DJs. By visually comparing the beats per minute of two tunes, you know how much to speed up or slow down the next tune to match the beats per minute of the one currently playing.

A beat counter that displays the beats per minute to one decimal point (for example, 132.7 bpm) is more accurate than one that only shows whole numbers. If one tune is playing at 131.6 bpm and another is playing at 132.4, and the counter simply rounds up and down those figures to show them both as 132 bpm, it’s wrong by 0.8 bpm, which is a huge difference when beatmatching.

Beat counters can be a real help if you’re a beginner, to let you understand what’s happening with the beats and train your ear to gauge when a tune is running too fast or too slow, but they can also be a real hindrance. If you’re going to refer to a beat counter as you develop your beatmatching skills, you need the discipline not to rely on it. Otherwise, the first time you stand behind a mixer that doesn’t have a beat counter (which will be quite often in clubs) and are expected to beatmatch using just your ears, you’ll find it very hard and possibly get into a lot of trouble with the mix!

Beat light indicators

Beat light indicators are little LED lights that flash in time with the beat of the tune. By looking at the lights of two tunes flashing together (or not together), you can tell whether the beats are playing at the same time.

Beat light indicators are very nice to watch in the dark, but personally I think that they’re next to useless when compared with your ears.

MIDI and USB controls

Although MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) can connect a mixer to an effects processor, allowing control over how you activate these effects, the biggest application of MIDI control and USB connections has become how they help to control various aspects of digital DJ software on a computer directly from the DJ’s mixer.

Using these connections you can trigger samples, control effects and playback, and locate cue points on the mixer instead of via the mouse and keyboard (or other separate hardware). The capabilities of MIDI and USB on a DJ mixer grow with each new equipment release and have become limited only by the scope of the software.

Choosing the Right Mixer

Different mixers suit different kinds of DJs. If you’re looking to spend a lot of money on your mixer, make sure that you’re buying one with the right functions on it depending on your mixing style.

The seamless mix DJ

These DJs need a mixer that helps every mix sound perfect by controlling the sound levels and frequencies of each tune as they blend together.

If you’re a seamless mix DJ, the important features you need on a mixer are:

• EQs to fully control the sound of each tune, with the ability to cut or kill the frequencies to help tidy up the mix.
• Multiple channels so that you can use more than two CD decks, MP3 players or turntables at the same time.
• Headphone monitoring, which needs to be as comprehensive as possible, with headphone mix and ideally split cue for when no DJ booth monitor is available.
• Easy-to-use (and see) metering that shows the input level strength as well as the mixer’s output level.
• Beat counters and built-in effects, which, though not essential, are a great tool for the seamless DJ.

The better mixers are quite large, with the controls spread out to remove the risk of accidentally pressing something if the controls are crammed together.

The scratch DJ

Scratch DJs need to chop and change from track to track using a slick cross-fader on the mixer.

Although scratch DJs can use the same mixers as seamless mix DJs, battle mixers are designed specifically for scratching. With only two channels, they make good use of space to allow the DJ unobstructed control of the channel faders and of a robust, fluid cross-fader.

Although by no means essential, extra controls such as punch and transform buttons, along with hamster switches and cross-fader curve controls, are becoming standard tools for the scratch DJ. You can find built-in effects and beat counters on a lot of scratch mixers, although I think I’d fall over if I had to use all that lot and scratch at the same time!

The design of the battle mixer is as important as the features it offers (see Figure 10-6). Because the most important controls on a scratch mixer are the cross-fader and the two channel faders, these three controls take up a lot of space and are kept clear of any obstructions. To this end, the headphone input is located on the front of the mixer (often along with the cross-fader curve adjust), so it’s not poking up from the mixer where you’re going to smack it with your hands one day!

The most important part of any battle mixer is the cross-fader and how it performs. Because you make a lot of fast movements with the fader when scratching, any resistance on the cross-fader is not a good thing, so you need to have as slick and fluid a cross-fader as possible.

Scratching is incredibly taxing on a cross-fader, so it needs to be durable and replaceable (or at least cleanable until you can afford a new cross-fader). New designs of non-contact, optical and magnetic cross-faders from manufacturers such as Rane and Stanton are increasing the lifespan, durability and ease of use of the cross-fader. But don’t worry, the standard cross-fader on a battle mixer is good enough for developing the basic skills.

The effects DJ

Effects DJs aren’t content with the sound of the tunes as the original producers intended; they want the option to add a series of different effects to the music, making a new sound, unique to that performance.

The EQs and design of the club mixer for the seamless mix DJ are perfect for the effects DJ, although frequently the effects DJ demands more than the built-in effects available on the club mixer.

In this case, the send and return function on the mixer may be especially important, because it enables you, as an effects DJ, to send individual channels to an effects processor and add whatever effects you want, without having to affect the entire output of the mixer.

However, the effects DJ is becoming more likely to embrace the effects processing built into software in a digital DJ setup than use an external sound processor. In this instance, a mixer with MIDI capability or a USB connection designed for digital DJ software is of great creative benefit, giving instant access to effects in the software and enhanced control over playback of the music.

The rock/party/wedding DJ

Rock and party DJs use mixers as a means to change between a range of different styles of music. A lot of creative DJs out there who play this kind of music demand features similar to those used by the seamless and effects DJ, but a large number of these DJs care more about the music and just want to be able to fade from tune to tune. As such, an expensive, feature-laden mixer isn’t required for most party DJs. Multiple channels can be useful if you plan to use more than two CD players, MP3 players or turntables, but normally a simple setup requiring two or three input channels at most suffices.

Controlling the sound using EQs when mixing from tune to tune to make it seamless isn’t such an important feature for the party DJ compared with the seamless DJ. However, EQs can help remove some bass or add some high frequencies when you’re trying to overcome bad sound in different sizes of venue. A global EQ which affects the entire sound output is probably enough, but you may want to consider the option to change the sound for each tune played, in which case you’ll need EQs for each channel on the mixer.

EQ controls on the microphone are important to help to sharpen your voice as you talk over the music, enabling you to control the evening with clarity.

It goes without saying that the microphone you use should be a good quality one in the first place. One of the workhorse microphones that (in my opinion) you’ll never go wrong buying is the Shure SM58; it sounds great, is simple to connect and it’s almost indestructible (though please don’t try to prove me wrong).

Built-in beat counters are all but redundant, because rock and party set lists have wide-ranging beats per minute. From Tom Jones’s ‘Delilah’ at 64 bpm to Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ at 178 bpm, the variance is so large that it’s nearly impossible to beatmatch them! Check out Chapter 16 for a good trick on how you can manage this, though.

As to built-in effects, apart from using the reverb effect on your voice when speaking to the people on the dance floor, they won’t be of much use to a lot of these DJs. Although I’d love to hear a phaser effect running through ‘Build Me Up, Buttercup’ …

Servicing Your Mixer

Although your turntable or CD player is the piece of equipment with the most moving mechanical parts, the piece that’s most likely to suffer from problems first – if you don’t keep it clean and treat it well – is your mixer.

You need to look at two things in order to keep your mixer in proper working condition. Clean all the dust away from the rotary controls, and clean and lubricate the faders.

You need the following tools to clean your mixer properly:

• A can of compressed air
• Lubricant (I prefer a Teflon-based spray, which leaves a dirt-resistant film)
• A screwdriver

Follow these steps to clean your mixer:

1. If you can, pull the knobs off the rotary controls on the mixer.

   Take them all off at the same time, place them next to the mixer and lay them out in the order that they’ve come off, so that you can replace each knob back onto the control it came from.

2. Spray around each of the controls with the compressed air to blow away any dust that may be lodged in them.

   You may also want to wipe the mixer carefully with a lint-free cloth to remove any stubborn dust particles after spraying.

3. If you have a mixer that enables you to remove the channel faders and cross-fader, use a screwdriver to take them out one at a time (so you don’t mix up where to replace them).

   Dirt that may have worked its way in can cause crackles and sound bleeding (hearing the music quietly when it should be silent). To clean out dirt and dust, blow compressed air into every crevice in the fader. Then spray the fader with a lubricant and replace it in the mixer.

   However, sometimes your faders still make crackle noises, are too stiff and start to malfunction, in which case many mixers are designed to allow you to buy replacement faders from your preferred DJ store.

4. If your mixer doesn’t have removable channel faders and the channel faders sound crackly, try spraying compressed air and then cleaning lubricant into the slot in the mixer where the channel fader pokes through.

   However, you may be too late, and may not be able to reverse the damage to the channel faders yourself, meaning you’ll have to send the mixer to be repaired – or, more likely, buy a new mixer.

To keep this servicing to a minimum, keep your mixer clean and free of dirt, keep it covered when not in use, and give the faders a quick squirt of lubrication every couple of months.