DJ question regarding counting bars

[hylianvampire]

Does anyone do this aloud? Or use their fingers? As it is very easy for me to get lost, I sometimes have to resort to said uncool methods. Any way to get better at just counting in your head?

Tips and advice appreciated.

[electronomist]

Practise doing it in your head, but nod your head to the beat as you do it. Eventually you wont even be consciously counting! Like all parts of djing just takes lots of practise

[hylianvampire]

hey man thanks for the advice. listened to a lot of your hard house mixes btw! top class stuff!

will probably have more questions in the future so good to know someones actually reading this stuff. by the way, mind telling me what gear you use to mix?

[Transient Motion]

I normally just count in my head, the major loops in trance are usually 4 or 8 bars each, and if you count the bars in pairs then you can mentally keep track a little easier. i normally use that to judge when to drop the next track in. I do sometimes end up tapping along as well or bouncing to the groove as it helps me keep track of the patterns! lol

I use an AKAI APC 40 and ableton live 8 for my mixing, only got 1 record deck and majority of my tunes are mp3s (got a box full of classic trance vinyl tho!). I can mix vinyl, although a little out of practice, and its easier to carry round my APC and my netbook than a box of records.

[electronomist]

Originally Posted by hylianvampire

hey man thanks for the advice. listened to a lot of your hard house mixes btw! top class stuff!

will probably have more questions in the future so good to know someones actually reading this stuff. by the way, mind telling me what gear you use to mix?

Happy to help.
I have two Numark Record Decks, a shitty Numark CD deck, a denon CD deck, Numark mixer. Well want to upgrade these tho (well cd's and mixer anyway).
I also use ableton, and an M-audio x-session pro controller.

[hylianvampire]

thanks for the replies.

when mixing live, what made you guys opt for controllers instead of decks?

[Transient Motion]

I've tried cd decks a few times, but just didn't like using them as much as vinyl. I couldn't afford to buy loads of records each month, and as I already use ableton for production, it seemed the best option. I use the apc when writing tracks as I can use it to jam with loops and effects! Lol

[electronomist]

And i use both! Depends what mood i'm in, and whether i have enough blank cds (don't really buy vinyl anymore but have got loads of it)! using the controller means i dont have to burn any cds, but decks are more fun!