WHAT IS A MASHUP?

Put simply, a mashup is the blending of two or more sections of music to create something new. This can be as simple as a vocal from one song placed over the instrumental version of another; or it can be as complex as a five-song mashup complete with a vocal from one song, the beats and bass-line from another song, an extra hook melody from another, with a vocal chant from yet another. Bear in mind, the latter idea may sound terrible and be too much for the listener to take in, but we’ll get to that. The important concept here is that if a DJ has picked the right sections of music to blend, it will sound as if they were made to exist together, creating a whole new piece of music that is unique to you.

Mashups unofficially entered existence in the 1970s and 80s as musical performances or recordings where artists would blend melodies or vocals from one song with another. Rather than using recordings, they would actually be performed this way, usually only included as novelty performances or bonus tracks on albums.

It took on a more familiar form once record labels started releasing dance music records with an acapella version (vocal-only version) included on the vinyl. DJs would play the acapellas over other songs as part of their DJ set, similar to what we hear today in pre-recorded mashups. Soon, producers began using these acapellas in their productions to create unofficial remixes, or ‘bootlegs’.

As computers and compact discs came along, DJs discovered that they could prepare their ideas and bring them along to gigs the very same night. By studying the arrangement of their elements and editing them to coincide at the right times, they could be much more creative and craft much better moments; almost new pieces of music. By working on dedicated mashup projects in the studio, they found they could get better results than simply playing things over the top of each other live and hoping for the best. They began playing them in their sets, and even distributing them online, often illegally.

As mashup culture started to take off in the United Kingdom and then spread to Europe and the United States, it gained a lot of exposure in 2004 when American DJ/Producer Danger Mouse released his experimental mashup album ‘The Grey Album’, sampling from only two sources: The Beatles’ ‘White Album’ and vocals from Jay-Z’s ‘The Black Album’.

In more recent times, DJs usually employ the art of mashups to present an audience with the newest club music as well as their own music (if they have released any). However, some electronic music acts that just play their own songs incorporate the idea of ‘mashing up’ their music to create a unique take on their repertoire, and give the fans an experience they could not recreate at home.

These days, mashups have pretty much become standard to have in your DJ set. If you are not producing your own tracks, they can be your ticket to playing a DJ set that stands out.

I remember when I was just starting out, hearing a DJ run the vocal of ‘Dub Be Good To Me—Beats International’ over the b-side dub of Wreckx-N-Effect ‘Rump Shaker’, and then dropping to just the a-cappella and bringing in another 3rd song, and I was like ‘Wow … that’s impressive!’ Everything worked together perfectly as the keys complemented nicely and the DJ’s performance was very tight.

(Kam Denny, Veteran Australian DJ/Producer)

WHY WOULD YOU USE ONE?

There are many reasons to use mashups. Here are a few.

IS IT DIFFICULT TO PUT A MASHUP TOGETHER?

Most DJs who initially have difficulties with mashups struggle with picking the right elements to go together. When it comes to rhythm, they usually have some kind of instinctive feel, which is why they are DJs in the first place, and what enables them to beat-mix and play music in an order that makes sense. Key, however, is much harder to wrap your head around, particularly if, like many DJs, you come into DJing because of a love of the scene rather than because you are a producer or musician. Once you understand key, you’ll be in a much better place.

The rest is just practice. Once you have the techniques down and have the muscle memory to whip around Ableton Live without thinking, you’ll be able to craft mashups in no time. In the beginning, it seems like a very confusing process, but most of the techniques I talk about in this book are just little tricks, and although there are many, most of them are working to achieve the same thing; a sense of unity that helps keep the listener engaged with the music.

So, read on. Once you have created a few, I promise it will become very quick and easy.

AN IMPORTANT CONCEPT ABOUT THE DANCE MUSIC AUDIENCE

Before we go on, there is an important concept I want you to start thinking about that affects almost every technique in this book. You’ll notice that I keep coming back to it. It’s a concept that my long-time production partner Kam Denny really drilled into me when we first started producing music together. It’s all about giving elements space and directing the listener’s attention.

When you are in the middle of producing, whether it is a full track or a mashup, you tend to get lost in the creation of it and forget to ‘hear the music’ as a person on the dance floor will hear it. Often, they are hearing a lot of the music for the first time, particularly during a DJ set where playing brand new tracks is important.

The human ear (or really, the brain) can only pay attention to a certain amount of musical elements happening at once. It can also only pay attention to one or two new sounds starting at the same time. After that, the mind needs a moment to ‘settle into’ these elements, to get a feel for how they sound and what kind of pattern they make. Even if you have an amazing combination of elements to craft into a mashup, putting too many elements together at once will only create confusion for the listener, and confusion is the fastest way to empty your dance floor.

If you have a very important element that requires a lot of listener attention (such as a vocal), it needs to be given the space it deserves so that you can be 100 percent sure that everyone’s ears will be focused on it when it arrives. It is important to also remember that any fully produced track you use may only look like one clip on your screen, but it is already made up of many sounds, each one already fighting for the listener’s ear.

As we go through this book, you will see that almost every technique is designed to help guide the listener through the music without confusion and clumsiness. This is what great mashups all have in common. You may also notice that many of the mistakes new mashup artists make relate to this concept of space.

Guiding the listener with pace and control is especially important for club music because the musical journey in a nightclub doesn’t just go for two or three minutes, it goes all night.

Related to this is another concept I like to think of as ‘the illusion of music’. A big part of what makes music work is the way that it sticks to certain rules and patterns. Yes, that’s right, even the music genres with the most rebellious personalities stick to some rules.

The human brain loves patterns. When it hears patterns in rhythm, harmony and arrangement, it locks onto them and gets hooked trying to guess what comes next. A few seconds of music is all it takes to create an illusion of music and plunge your imagination right into it (not to mention your body). The greatest thing about dance music is the way it keeps this illusion going all night. The rhythmic rules in particular are continuous between songs, passing the illusion from track to track. The illusion is subtly changed throughout the night, according to the tracks the DJ selects.

Destroying this illusion by breaking these rules is the fastest way to evaporate your dance floor. You may recognise the feeling from a time you’ve done a badly beat-mixed transition during a set (yep—we’ve all done them). The beats from one track are splattered all over the other, and suddenly everyone is pulled out of the music, blinking and looking around the dance floor, unsure of where the beat is, and how to dance to it. That’s usually their cue to go to the bar.

When we talk about rhythm and key, you’ll develop an understanding of how you can follow these rules, and make sure our different musical elements follow the same rules. This way, you can learn to keep the illusion of music going, as the original artists of each song intended.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

It is my hope that this book will help you to not only understand the principles behind how, why and when to use mashups, but also to learn a set of techniques that can guide you through almost any technical problem that presents itself to you. As you read, I encourage you to have Ableton Live open and to try each technique as you learn it. There is also a companion website with a ton of videos to help you understand the techniques, see them being done and hear why they work (visit ‘makegreatmusicmashups.com’). As a DJ, you’re likely to learn best by hearing examples in action, so each time you see a reference to a video, go ahead and open it. Other than that, the book is ordered in sequence so that it is easy for you to come back to at any time—from necessary equipment and software, preparation through to execution and house-keeping.

In the next chapter we’ll look at the components of a mashup.