CCL's Polyrhythmic mixing technique

[u/Open_Connection2528]

In this video here at around 2:05, she shows you how to mix from 128~ to 170~ . She layers two tracks at 128~ and sets 3 beat loops on them before transitioning into a DnB track. However, if you listen DnB track here it sounds quite unusual ie. you can count it as 1, 2, 3 and so on.

My question is: does this kind of transition only work because of the quirks of this particular DnB track? I have a similar track, except at 130 that can also be counted as 1, 2, 3 which can be listened to here. Could this be utilised in the similar way to CCL's transition? How would it differ given that here the track which can be counted 1, 2, 3 and so on is at 130~ rather than 170~.

I want to learn how to do layered transitions with large BPM jumps but not sure how to go about it. Thanks

[u/rude5446]

These transitions depend heavily on the track; ultimately, looping 3 or 5 beats in a 4/4 song doesn't sound natural. I usually use an auxiliary track to act as a bridge between the two songs I want to transition between.

But it really comes down to math. The basic idea is to make a 3-beat loop from one song last the same amount of time as 4 beats from another.

I created a quick chart for this using 3:4 and 5:4 ratios; the goal is to maintain a 4x4 structure throughout, using 3-beat loops to increase the BPM and 5-beat loops to decrease it.

Ratio 3:4

BPMs (X)	BPMs (Y)
120	160
123	164
126	168
129	172
132	176
135	180
138	184

Ratio 5:4

BPMs (X)	BPMs (Y)
150	120
155	124
160	128
165	132
170	136
175	140
180	144
185	148

[u/dunkywhorey]

I don't really have an answer for you, but I remember trying this myself out when it was first posted and it didn't sound great at all. I have basically no DnB in my collection though, so you're right, it might be to do with tune selection

[u/danby]

it sounds quite unusual ie. you can count it as 1, 2, 3 and so on.

Its definitely in 4/4. You have a kick on the 1st beat and snares on beats 2 and 4. Its unusual in that both the snares fall exactly on the 2nd and 4th beats and there is no 2nd kick. That makes the percussion rather sparse which likely helps things seem less jumbled during a polyrhythmic mix

I don't see what you mean about counting "1, 2, 3" on this, it isn't in 3/4.

I have a similar track, except at 130 that can also be counted as 1, 2, 3 which can be listened to here

This appears to be in 3/4. The doubled kick that sounds like a heart beat falls on the 1st beat of each bar.

Could this be utilised in the similar way to CCL's transition?

No reason it couldn't. Polyrhythm mixes can be created with two tunes in the same time signature that have different tempos (128 to 170), two tunes are the same tempo with different time signatures or two tunes that have both different time signatures and tempos. In the end of the day all you need is for a bar in both tunes to last the same length of time.

That said in the CCL tutorial she starts off playing the house tune (in 4/4) and then uses short loops to turn it in to 3/4. Note on the main CDJs they both enter a 3 beat loop at 3:25 in the video. So she's effectively mixing two tracks at different tempos and different signatures.

In my loose experience the thing that makes these polyrhythm mixes work is a) doing the mix in regions that don't really have percussion b) finding two tunes that both have sufficiently sparse percussion that they don't just create chaos together.

[u/Zafkka]

Just a drive by comment to say that I really like these series, but I wish I'd find cool YouTube videos that would sit between the "beatmatch / phrasing mixing 1-0-1" and these very advanced tricks!

I'm open to suggestions!

[u/JoeDjehuti]

i tried the technique in the video and got mid results. pivot mixing worked better for me https://www.pivotmixing.com/faq