Using Roll to help with buildups / breakdowns

General Area Tips, Tricks, & Tutorials
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For some reason I really fell in love with the Roll feature and use it very often. I share tips on some ways to use it in various TikTok clips.

This one is with a loooong trance break down/ build up section and uses Censor/reverse at the end of the build up phrase.

Here we are doing stuff with a House track and 2 percussion layers.

Can even be done with various vocal loops.

Hope this stuff helps someone who may not have gotten exposure to Roll.

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Do you have that trance mix online dude so I can chill to it at the weekend?

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Sure thing:

Hereā€™s the Audio only version of the trance buildup clip above.

The videos have yet to be released, but I can share them beforehand:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

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Cheers bro, much appreciated.

I plan on lying down with an intravenous beer drip listening to these.

Many thanks :+1:

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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Legend

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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: dude :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

In all seriousness, any and all feedback is welcome. I tend to mix long and generally let most songs play through, which can get boring for some.

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Im personally the opposite, give me those ā€˜boringā€™ Long mixes all day :slight_smile:

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Yup, agree. Also kudos for the FX videos, those are always the most valuable :+1:

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Cheers! I post often on Tiktok but donā€™t want to spam this forum and seem like Iā€™m promoting myself.

Iā€™ll try to only choose the best of the best of the best and post here.

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Iā€™m a long mix/long blender kinda guy too. I always have been. Bring on the looooooooong, creative blends.

Definitely not when out in the clubs though. Their attention span is so low these days.

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Bro, this is the House I grew up loving and the mixing style I prefer. A little jealous of the 4 decks homie - just sayinā€™ - got a little multi-deck envy going on here. Quick question, why did you decide on 2 additional SC 6000ā€™s as opposed to the LCā€™s?

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I really appreciate the feedback bro. <3

A few reasons:

  • Wanted full vinyl emulation for all playing devices. I ā€œgrew upā€ on vinyl (still play it), and have run the gamut of various vinyl emulation, from the early (troubled!) denon digital ā€œspinning platterā€ players, to the SL-DZ1200s (they were SO promising), to even backing Phase when it was in the early days of its development.
  • Having touch screens for each device means each deck can exist in its own playlist, versus having to playlist hop. I can also use each deck full features w/out having to ā€œvirtual deck hopā€. Having owned the SC5000s and doing the "dual deckā€™ thing for both of them, having those separate touch screens were big for me.

Hope this answers your questions =).

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Iā€™ve recently played out (just a week ago today) and realized this. It can be great, but I definitely wonā€™t be one of those ā€œlet me see how many tracks i can play in 60 secondsā€ type of person. :rofl: I recently joined this guyā€™s twitch stream where he was applauding the fact that he played over 75 different songs in an hour and a half. I mean more power to him, and all who enjoy that, but I like to let the songs actually play through. I tend to practice & believe in the wave theory, and i canā€™t imagine not letting a song express its tension & release cycles.

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Totally with you on this, itā€™s that ā€˜drop drop drop drop dropā€™ culture and in my opinion itā€™s just ruining music in general. Hopefully itā€™s a phase that ends pretty soon.

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Yessir. Iā€™m with you 1000% on the spinning platters. Iā€™m not a turntablist but for some reason, Iā€™m more in tune with the music when I can see, feel and manipulate moving platters. I think Iā€™ll go your route on 4 decks. My only hesitance is the lack of stacked waveforms when mixing in my prefered standalone mode. For now, Iā€™ll have to rely on Serato for that. Thanks again man and great work!

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I hear you on the stacked waveforms.

if I may give you some unsolicited advice (something that DJ Rob swift reminded me of when I started to learn to scratch from his online courses): the screen is a tool, but also a crutch that will limit you. I the context of scratching, he reminded me to use the clock theory (developed by the great Grand Master Flash). ā€œRemember to watch the platters and memorize where the marker is (time wise) for whatever part you want to cut.ā€ I became too dependent on the waveform marker in Serato.

Expanding on what he taught me in the context of progressive mixing: The eyes locked onto the screen (stacked waveform) can and will limit you, and your ears can liberate you. If you study my mixing, youā€™ll see that my eyes are all over the place, even while doing things like correcting the tempo.

With DJing, you should use Sight, Sound and Touch to their fullest potential. :slight_smile:

Hope this helps and does not offend you, brother. :heart:

Btw; I used two CDJ-3000s recently and they have stacked waveforms. Thought it was neat, but didnā€™t depend on it.

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v10 mixer is a beast

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I think this is why DVS is the boss, even as a house/blending type DJ, having the vinyl experience with digital files is still perfection.

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Thank you for posting these examples! Some good ideas here. I am also a roll addict. I like to use it mostly to get quickly in and out of a mix. Bucking the general consensus a bit here, I have more of an ADHD mixing style. One of my main influences back in the day was Bad Boy Bill and his ridiculous perfectly synced 30-second mixes. All done on vinyl of course. I could never quite pull that off; beat matching always took me just a touch too long. But the goal of attaining a fast mixing style has stuck with me and roll is a perfect tool to help with that.

I use it these days in two primary ways:

  1. If Iā€™m mixing out of track ā€œAā€, and into track ā€œBā€ and I hit a long breakdown in ā€œAā€, Iā€™ll generally let that play for a few bars with the bass on track ā€œBā€ killed. At this point Iā€™ll kick in the 1 beat roll on ā€œBā€, slowly introduce just a bit of bass, then upgrade to 1/2 beat with a bit more bass, and finally graduate to 1/4 beat and fade in around 3/4 of the bass before finally stopping the roll and releasing the bass fully at the appropriate point. This basically creates an on-demand drumroll buildup.

  2. Mixing out of some track and I canā€™t find a reasonable exit point? Roll to the rescue yet again. It doesnā€™t work with all tracks in all scenarios, but quite often with the style I mainly mix (tech house), I can grab a vocal bit and start stuttering it with a few carefully placed 1/2 beat rolls. Eventually, again, moving to a 1/4 beat roll. Holding it while sweeping the lowpass filter creates an smooth outro sort of effect (usually concluding at a breakdown or vocal starting point in the track Iā€™m mixing into). The same basic thing can be accomplished with a loop, as quite often seen in sets by James Hype and others, but the roll does a good enough job in most cases, with no pre-work.

So many fun toys these days. Another thing Iā€™ve recently been playing with a lot recently is the new(-ish) Flex Gate effect, which is also a killer feature for transitions. Give it a go.

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I do not have tiktok or any other kind of social, did you post the tips on YouTube also. I would love to give that a try :ok_hand: the sets sound great btw, reminds me of the old days, IT Amsterdam, Escape, Lexion, Markanti. The good old days.

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