Connecting Two Tracks for the First Time

Before learning the detailed mechanics, let's first just watch a DJ mix once.

You still don't need to know

• when to bring a track in
• how to match the timing
• how to match the speed of the tracks
• where to look

and that's fine.

This time, you won't operate anything.

All you do is

play the demo once, then watch the screen and listen.

First,

get a feel for "so this is what happens when a DJ mixes two tracks."

That's the goal.

Play the demo

It automatically plays the transition from track A to track B, from start to finish.

The only button you press is play.

Without trying to understand the details, just watch

how the sound changes

and

how the bars on the screen move.

That is all you need to do.

The bars show the volume and the bass of track A and track B.

The higher the bar, the louder; the lower, the quieter.

Whatever is moving right now is identified by color and text.

What happened

At first, only track A is playing.

Only the volume bar for track A is high, and the bars for track B stay low.

Track B comes in

Track B comes in at bar 9 (beat 33) of track A.

It is at the drop (chorus) of track A, and it is the start of a phrase, a group of 8 bars.

From there, the volume bar for track B rises.

At this point,

it goes from hearing only track A to hearing track A and track B together.

That is what happens.

A DJ moves to the next track like this, overlapping the two tracks once.

The bass moves from A to B

Next, the bass bars swap places.

The bass of track A goes down, and the bass of track B goes up.

Bass is the foundation of the sound.

You don't need to remember the names or the mechanics yet.

We'll explain in detail later why you do this.

For now,

just getting the feeling that the bass is also being handed over from A to B

is enough.

Track A fades out

Finally, the volume bar for track A drops all the way down.

Track A can no longer be heard, and only track B remains.

At first, there was

only track A

playing.

From there, it changed

from A only → A and B → B only.

That is the whole change.

This is the basis of how a DJ mixes one track into another.

You don't need to learn how to do it yet

You don't need to memorize the steps so far.

What I want you to take from this page is that

a DJ is not simply stopping track A and then starting track B.

That is the point.

While overlapping the two tracks once,

they hand the lead role in the sound over from A to B.

If you understand that first, that's enough.

From here, you will learn, one step at a time:

• how to count music
• what kinds of divisions a track has
• what the speed of a track is
• how to match the timing of two tracks
• how to control volume and bass

in order.

You'll start using the simulator yourself partway through.

And at the end, you'll practice mixing two tracks yourself.