jungle..... How the fuck do you mix it?!

dan88

dan88

Bluelighter
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Ok, so today I planned to burn all my old jungle tracks onto cds and have a mix with them... fuck its so much harder to mix than my usual house or drum and bass. Has anybody got any tips other than practice? I just cannot beat match this stuff to save my life
 
I'd imagine you could fudge it with quick cuts and lots of ambient tracks as a break. Even bass as a break works

https://soundcloud.com/aguycalledgerald/1-in-the-jungle-gerald-live-part-1

Id probably get lost trying to match kicks or the hats...you have to really know the records to beatmatch...im not even sure if jungle is tempo specific or if producers like to screw around and produce tracks at 170 bpm, 166, 172 etc.
 
i love mixing jungle, especially with the more fucked up drum/snare/hat patterns. no jungle isnt temp specific but its great to cut and mess around with, get heavy on the eq just go mad. thats in terms of anything with percussive intros outros, loads of stuff will have random vocals /pads etc, these are great to get creative with

also because it isnt just kick kick kick kick then yeah at times it can be slightly harder to beatmatch but as long as your within the range of say 0.2% you should be good to go. i used to hate some house records that you could tell were sampled loops because say for example every 9th and 10th kick would be slightly out of time so you would have to adjust this for every fucking phrase. its sloppy production in a way but it makes the dj work more
 
Cheers man, I've been practicing since Sat and I'm getting better, but its still bloody hard work. I thought seeing as I mix dnb I'd be able to mix jungle just as easily, but the drum patterns are just all over, at least with dnb you know the snares are usually gonna be on the 2nd and 4th beat. It doesn't help when half of the tunes have a beatless intro either!

Still its been a hell of a lot of fun and I know what you mean about cutting, its like the genre was invented to abuse that crossfader haha! This is one hell of a jungle mix, I'd never have imagined TEED being into jungle somehow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2mHWOcLviY
 
Not 100% if just watching and listening to this is gonna help you mate, but just incase it will, heres an example of an amazing jungle set!

 
For me jungle is all about cutting and scratching, not so much beat matching.
 
that has always been my feeling on the matter....just as a casual listener. :)
 
This is quite irrelevant but once you have successfully done so, could I take a listen? I've been indifferent to most jungle dub but I think the more organic stuff might be growing on me.
 
LuGoJ said:
For me jungle is all about cutting and scratching, not so much beat matching.
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I disagree. Beatmatching is essential to any genre. Well mixed and matched jungle equals well cut jungle.
All electronic music is mathematically created in a dj friendly formatted. You can count snares Which is usually easier.
Many shakers and clicks and shit are easier to match to the tempo to an u trained ear but your beat will start on a kick. Especially when ur trying to guage the tempo on intros or with tracks with funky spaced kicks and half time shit.

With kicks count four beats in a measure then after 4 measures is a break.
To keep your tunes matched wait for breaks to drop your track. Not just anywhere after a measure. Wait for a break. After 4 breaks will come a breakdown usually. Usually i think.
And to then to do double drops dont wait for any break. Drop your track after the first breakdown and if its on in measure it will double drop after the second breakdown.

There's more to it, and i count in 8s not 4 myself but basically train your ear whenever you're out or listening to electronic music to count beats and predict breaks and drops.
 
SineWaveSoldier said:
I disagree. Beatmatching is essential to any genre. Well mixed and matched jungle equals well cut jungle.
All electronic music is mathematically created in a dj friendly formatted. You can count snares Which is usually easier.
Many shakers and clicks and shit are easier to match to the tempo to an u trained ear but your beat will start on a kick. Especially when ur trying to guage the tempo on intros or with tracks with funky spaced kicks and half time shit.

With kicks count four beats in a measure then after 4 measures is a break.
To keep your tunes matched wait for breaks to drop your track. Not just anywhere after a measure. Wait for a break. After 4 breaks will come a breakdown usually. Usually i think.
And to then to do double drops dont wait for any break. Drop your track after the first breakdown and if its on in measure it will double drop after the second breakdown.

There's more to it, and i count in 8s not 4 myself but basically train your ear whenever you're out or listening to electronic music to count beats and predict breaks and drops.
Click to expand...

My apologies, i should have been more clear. I didn't mean keeping count in your head, that's something i assume is a given with any sort of music. When i said beat matching i meant more traditional mixing for other styles of music, overlaying tracks over the speakers for the audience rather than just in your headphones for mixing purposes.
 
LuGoJ said:
My apologies, i should have been more clear. I didn't mean keeping count in your head, that's something i assume is a given with any sort of music. When i said beat matching i meant more traditional mixing for other styles of music, overlaying tracks over the speakers for the audience rather than just in your headphones for mixing purposes.
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I just kinda broke it down as far as specifically how do you mix i guess.
Cause its not any different. I think its easier than say trance because properly mixed tranc. Or other progressive genres need to be phrased properly all the time. Yeah you can cut and fade drums and even intros and outros if you get into trouble. Some genres arent like that. I dunno i learned how to mix using jungle and listened to it for a decade before djing. Id have more trouble mixing dubstep or hip hop than anything else.
 
Just for reference... Back in the olden days I saw the Metal Headz crew when they came through the states. It was an "underground rave" and they were set up in the basement. Every single one of them (over a period of about 8 hours) would leave a split second pause before the next record. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jRTi8VtKM4 If you are going to talk about pioneers of jungle they are going to come up. In contrast I have seen LTJ Bukem (atmospheric DnB, live PA vocals) do a seamless set where everything was perfectly matched.
 
^^I keep forgetting the MC factor to the whole thing and how jungle and D&B is more about having a crew with a bunch of MCs, DJs- so at times you might not even mix tracks, the MCs would just fill in between tracks or have samples or back in the day have two of the same records for a longer mix, delay effect, whatever...
 
Old jungle had a lot of different tempos going on tho. Especially with source direct and shit like that didn't it? The old metalheads producers were a wide variety of styles. That's just guessing tho cause bailey and kemistry and storm and Goldie could all mix. As can photek and j majik...
I dunno I've been going out since 97 and dnb and jungle in america was always about proper mixing. Maybe that's because djing comes first over here and always has.
 
Nice Mixer!

With one of these!
images
 
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