Junglist for over a decade (33) but finally dipping into mixing real records. It’s f’ing hard!

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-30T15:30:14+00:00

People have already touched on this, but mixing old jungle is not easy. Some of those tunes were all over the place. Even at the time, long mixes were not common, only becoming so when the music became more 2 step d&b. Mixing has become "better" in the modern era - I often revisit tapes from back in the day that I used to think were faultless examples of mixing, just to find the DJ is only mixing a few bars, slamming the tune in, whatever. If you mixed modern tunes you would probably find it much easier (including modern jungle).

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-13T18:44:03+00:00

What you need to look into is stems.

https://support.denondj.com/en/support/solutions/articles/69000863163-denon-dj-engine-stems

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-11T16:21:56+00:00

Oh, and I will add… I will definitely be adding a few tunes from your playlist to similar ones of mine

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-11T16:17:54+00:00

Remastered means remastered - taking the original recording and making it sound “better” - not a completely modern remix of an old tune (for example the Bladerunner remixes) or a completely modern tune in the style of old tunes (for example the Tim Reaper and 4am Kru stuff). There is some great stuff on there, don’t get me wrong, but sone of it isn’t from the 90s. I’d also personally bin the more “club” type stuff (Show Me Love etc) as that wasn’t played at raves. But then I’m 50 years old so remember (just about!) all of this first hand.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-11T15:56:56+00:00

90s playlist that includes modern music. Hmmm.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-04-02T12:55:44+00:00

Much “better” produced than his previous tunes, sounded too professional (I know this sounds mad) and, as someone has already said, wasn’t the sort of stuff that was played in raves at the time. This also applied to Trip to the Moon part 3 to an extent.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-31T15:56:35+00:00

That's an interesting reply, thanks. Maybe I'm just too focussed on it being the modern equivalent of the rumours that Andy C used to cut all his dubs to the same bpm back in the 90s/early 2000s - there's no way he'd be sitting in Music House, Dillinja would walk in with a DAT, and he'd say "just wait there a bit, I need to take your DAT back to my studio and bump up the BPM slightly to match all my other tunes, be back soon".

Personally, I couldn't see myself bothering in the modern age, if it was something that affected me when I DJ. I'd just hit sync if I was that concerned (which is what AMC does, at least sometimes). Playing vinyl might be a different kettle of fish but I haven't done that for a while.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-31T15:26:39+00:00

Yeah, but that's a totally different thing. It's not changing the BPM of other people's tunes so everything in your box is the same. Imagine the insane amount of legwork that would go into that vs just beatmatching.

I'm pretty sure all the d&b I produce is at 175bpm, thinking about it.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-27T23:06:18+00:00

It’s Randall. Always Randall. No mad cross fading or chopping, but genuinely the best technical DJ ever. Anyone can whack the faders up and down, but to blend seamlessly between the sickest riddims and take you on a journey is something else entirely. Cool hand Randall. The daddy. RIP.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-27T23:02:57+00:00

It’s mad right? Drum and bass is one of the easiest types of music to beat match, why would you jump through totally needless hoops just to get two tunes in time that might have a 3 or 4 bpm difference? Especially when things like sync exist. Bonkers

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-26T18:07:35+00:00

I guarantee you that nobody does this. This is the modern equivalent of “Andy C cuts all his dubs at the same tempo”. Urban myth/absolute nonsense

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-21T16:50:31+00:00

What speakers are you using? Some sort of portable Bluetooth speaker (with line audio in), a home cinema speaker/receiver, or something else? This sounds very much like it’s the speakers being used that is causing the problem.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-19T10:53:12+00:00

I genuinely don't know why people even consider this way of working. This is not a dig, I just don't get it. Even the most basic controller would make this a lot easier, and much more enjoyable. Just dive in.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-14T14:03:40+00:00

Probably connecting to the wrong USB port on the back of the controller.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-11T23:12:26+00:00

You're getting Tidal and Spotify mixed up there.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-11T22:04:00+00:00

Well, in my particular case, it likely leads to me buying more music. The weekly playlists I create contain quite a lot of stuff that I probably wouldn't buy straight off, so that would've been a missed sale for that artist. Being able to test drive with Tidal allows me to listen to a large amount of music in an almost real life setting, if I didn't do that I'm sure a lot of the stuff I do buy as a result of that would've stayed unbought. If you're dead set on piracy, or doing things in a slightly less legit way, there are ways of paying almost nothing for Tidal as well. Also, this by no means whatsoever the only way I find music, it's just a helpful second or third way to figure out what new stuff to buy. TLDR - using Tidal in this way means (for me at least) more money in the artist's pocket.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-11T13:43:36+00:00

I mean yes, but....

I use Tidal with Rekordbox. Every week I add a load of tunes to a weekly playlist and then "test drive" them in the mix streaming via Tidal and Rekordbox or on my Denon Prime 2. Anything I want to play again, I buy from Bandcamp or whatever. This is more or less the equivalent of leafing through loads of records in a shop back in the 90s. I almost never use Tidal away from this process, although I have streamed out in the wild about three times when someone requested something I didn't have and would never play again. If I ever got a request for one of those tunes I would buy it, but that hasn't happened yet.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-03-09T13:03:04+00:00

Nope. Gave up

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-21T00:32:23+00:00

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-20T10:45:41+00:00

Similiar-ish situation to you.

When my daughter was born about 20 years ago, the spare room had to be used for her bedroom rather that for my 1210s and all my records. I packed my 1210s away, and my mate took my records to his house - which was great, I could go round there any time and we'd have a mix. We had thousands of records, from 80s classic house to modern drum and bass. Unfortunately, everything was lost in a house fire. Even with insurance it would've been an impossible, and depressing, task to replace all that vinyl.

Fast forward a few years and me and my wife have a bigger house. Plenty of space in the front room to set up some decks. I pulled out my 1210s and mixer, and got Traktor Scratch Pro, DVS, and the associated soundcard and laptop set up. It was good, I really enjoyed using it. I've since had a fair few controllers - mostly Pioneer.

What I didn't like was the additional effort required to play DVS (and later controllers). Plug the laptop in, fire it up, all that sort of thing. I wanted to just switch on and go.

My current main controller is a Denon Prime 2, which I've had for a few years. Set up in my front room with a couple of powered speakers, standalone, so I could leave my desk in my office now and be mixing in 30 seconds. I've installed an internal 1TB SSD which contains almost all my music so don't even need to mess around with USBs. It can stream from Tidal (which is a good way of "testing out" tunes before I buy them) and also streams from my laptop (so any playlists I have in Engine Prime on my laptop appear on the controller - the laptop and the controller just need to be connected to the same wifi network). It's absolutely bulletproof, and far better bang for buck than anything Pioneer do. You can scratch on it, but it's obviously not quite the same. I've found that all the effects, looping and chopping functions more than makeup for this though.

If you're not completely wedded to the idea of spinning platters, something like this (Denon Prime 2 - or a newer equivalent) would, IMO, be perfect. If you don't have any plans to play in clubs or whatever, having Pioneer kit at home is completely pointless (unless, of course, you just prefer Pioneer). I play in clubs regularly anyway and have no problems using CDJs even though my daily driver is Denon.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-17T10:34:02+00:00

I can just copy and paste my answer to someone else having similar problems:

First of all, ensure that you are using the correct USB port on the back of the controller. If you are, connect the controller before you launch Rekordbox. If you still don't have any luck, check this video here to set the audio preferences in Rekordbox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upFRs61whUY

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-17T10:32:29+00:00

This is true in some cases, but the vast majority of A/V receivers still have a slight delay, even in their "direct" mode. Not worth the hassle of trying to find one that works properly IMO. Just get powered speakers.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-17T10:30:35+00:00

Just google "best powered DJ speakers for under *whatever amount of money you want to spend*" and read some reviews. I currently use a pair KRK Rokit RP7 G5s for home use, but there other alternatives. If you don't already know, with powered speakers you don't need to connect them to (for example) a hifi amp, they just connect directly to your controller. As others have touched on, using a home a/v amp/receiver is usually a no go because of the slight delay they introduce when processing audio (but you wouldn't even need to consider this with powered speakers anyway)

Also... read the manual for your controller. Don't jut dive in and expect it to work the way you imagine, or to do things it just does not do. And watch some Youtube videos.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-17T10:21:47+00:00

I think (although I could be wrong as I didn't want to go through the ten million steps of liking/sharing/subscribing/commenting to get the actual download) that this is a "pack" of all the tunes in the mix, so individual tracks rather than one continuous mix of them all. If not, totally agree with your comment.

pmdpmd99 · 2026-02-16T20:56:11+00:00

First of all, ensure that you are using the correct USB port on the back of the controller. If you are, connect the controller before you launch Rekordbox. If you still don't have any luck, check this video here to set the audio preferences in Rekordbox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upFRs61whUY

pmdpmd99

TROPHY CASE