DJing with Mixxx
Mixxx was designed to be easy to learn for both novice and experienced DJs.
The user interface mimics a hardware DJ mixer, but also includes several extra elements to gives DJs a better user experience, such as the parallel waveform displays.
Loading tracks
Songs can be loaded into a player in several ways:
• Right-click the library track table: Right-clicking on a track in the table will present the options “Load in Player 1” and “Load in Player 2”, among others.
Making either selection will load a track into a player.
• Drag-and-drop from library track table: Dragging-and-dropping a song from the track table onto a waveform display will load a track into a player.
• Drag-and-drop from external file browser: Dragging-and-dropping a song from an external file browser directly onto a waveform display in Mixxx will load that song. This function is also known to work on some platforms with other applications. For example, on OS X, dragging-and-dropping a track from iTunes onto one of Mixxx's waveform displays will load that song into a player.
Waveform displays
There are two main waveform displays in Mixxx that are used to display the waveform of the songs you are mixing. These are useful because they allow you to see features in a song (like a breakdown) before you hear them. The waveform displays are aligned parallel to each other in order to make beat matching easier, as it is possible to beatmatch visually by aligning the beats that appear in each waveform.
Clicking and dragging on a waveform allows you to seek through a song in both directions. The waveform display is updated in realtime upon seeking. There are two smaller waveform summary displays located adjacent to the main waveform displays. These smaller displays show the waveform envelope of the entire song, and are useful because they allow DJs to see breakdowns far in advance. Vinyl DJs will find this familiar because quiet sections of songs can be visually distinguished when looking at a vinyl record, and this is a useful tool when planning your mixes on-the-fly.
Beatmatching and Mixing
Beatmatching is the process of adjusting the playback rate of a song so that it matches the tempo of another song. Beatmatching also involves adjusting the phase of the beats in a song so that they are aligned with the beats in the other song. Matching the tempo and aligning the beats are the two things a DJ must do to beatmatch.
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In Mixxx, you can match the tempo of two songs by adjusting the playback rate sliders on left and right side of the user interface. You can adjust the
phase of the beats by clicking-and-dragging on either waveform display to temporarily slow down one of the songs until the beats are aligned. The temporary pitch bend buttons can also be used to momentarily adjust the playback rate, allowing you to “shuffle” the beats in a song forwards or backwards, so they can be aligned with another song.
Once the tempos are matched and the beats aligned between two songs, they are said to be beatmatched. A “perfect” beatmatch is near impossible - there will always be some tiny difference in the playback rates. A keen DJ will keep his or her ears open and listen for the beats drifting out of alignment. This has a distinct “double bass kick” sound which is often preceded by the kick weakening in intensity (as the two kicks drift out of phase). When this happens, the beats can be realigned by simply tapping one of the temporary pitch bend buttons a few times in the appropriate direction. Now get out there and make
Tiesto jealous!
Headphone Cueing
Headphone cueing is a technique DJs use to listen to the next track they want to play in their headphones before playing it out the main speakers. Mixxx allows a DJ to route audio from either player to their headphones by toggling either of the “HEADPHONE” buttons located on the far left/right sides of Mixxx's interface. Headphone cueing is useful because it allows a DJ to beatmatch the next song in their headphones before bringing it into their mix by sliding the crossfader.
Recording your mix
You can record Mixxx's master output in real time to an uncompressed linear
PCM WAV (RIFF) sound file by doing the following:
1. On the menu bar, click “Options”
2. Click “Record Mix”
3. Choose where to save it and what to call it then click OK
4. Mixxx will then wait until you start playing some music before it begins recording. The recording will begin about two seconds after that. (If you want it to get your first sounds, just press Play then Cue (or Pause) to start it, then begin mixing two seconds later. You can remove the initial silence with an audio editing program like Audacity after you finish mixing.)
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