[Exclusive] Two Friends Reveal Their Secrets To Mixing Multiple Genres

While these Two Friends prepare to hit the road for their biggest tour to date alongside Matoma, we took the time to pick their brains.

These two have become true icons in the electronic dance music community with their Big Bootie Mix series becoming the ultimate party soundtrack over the years.

In this unique series, the duo manages to throw together an epic mix where no genre is off-limits while being driven flawless transitions throughout.

For instance, the latest edition of their beloved mix features Avicii, Deorro, Bowling for Soup, Queen, Marshmello, Hilary Duff, Illenium, and so much more!

While both fans and DJs have quite a difficult time trying to comprehend how it is even possible to stuff all the music in 60 minutes, Two Friends have decided to reveal their secrets.

These two have taken the time to share their DJ tips when it comes to mixing multiple genres during a set. Check them out below!

1. Listen to as much music as humanly possible. If a song comes on at the gym or on the radio or anywhere at all, we’re always thinking in the back of our minds, “could this song sound good in the next Big Bootie Mix?”. You want to give yourself a ton of material to work with– so always keep your ears open and make sure to jot down the song names if you’re not at your computer.

2. Trial and error. Now that you have boatloads of material to work with, the fun begins. We use the program Traktor to be able to easily and quickly try out rough mashup ideas before we actually have to polish them and put in more effort. But this way, we can keep track of all the potential ideas we have, and then start to plan out which ones are gonna make it into the real thing. Traktor also makes it very easy to manipulate the pitch (and tempo) of songs on-the-fly, which is essential so that you don’t box yourself in to only mixing songs that are originally in the same key.

3. Get weird. It might seem like there’s no way a rock song from the 1970’s, for example, would ever sound good over a progressive house instrumental, but you can’t knock it til you’ve tried it. In our experience, the most unexpected combinations are the ones that become the most memorable to our listeners. So while mashing up one EDM vocal with one EDM instrumental, or one hip-hop vocal one hip-hop instrumental, may sound nice and clean sonically, conceptually it’s not always the most exciting.

4. Don’t be afraid to ask. In the most recent Big Bootie Mix, we used over 200 samples from a vast array of genres and decades… but we’re not claiming we’re experts on those genres or those decades. In fact, we often ask our younger siblings or our parents to help us determine which songs resonate with people. And when we notice patterns of multiple people hitting us up and saying “you HAVE to use this song in the next mix, everyone will love it,” we usually end up trusting that.

5. Trial and error, again. We know this was already listed as Step #2, but we can’t emphasize enough how important this step us. Just to give an idea– Big Bootie Mix 16 features about 45 different mashups (with each mashup incorporating about 5 different samples within them). But before we decided on those 45, through trial and error we probably exported a folder of close to 200 different mashups. And then it becomes a lot easier to determine which ones stand out. We could reject 155 of those mashups, and still have the 45 we need to make the final mix. So then, when we go back and listen to all the possible candidates, it’s only going to make the final mix if it really stands out and feels amazing, not just adequate.