Free Creative Mixing DJ Tutorials

Ready to take your DJ sets to the next level? Whether you’re just getting started or looking to add flair to your mixes, learning creative DJ techniques is the key to standing out from the crowd.

In this guide, we’ve handpicked four free DJ lessons that cover some pretty unique mixing techniques that will help you stand out from the crowd. You’ll also get five pro tips that explore advanced creative concepts. Each of these tutorials is designed to help you develop a new skill that you can throw into your new set to easily add some creative flair to your mixes.

Let’s dive in and get creative!

Lesson 1 – Finger Drumming With Hot Cues

• Young Thug – The London
• Drake – One Dance (Eighty-M Acap Intro)

• Hot Cues

The tutorial below is taken directly from our Complete DJ Package, where you can find hundreds more tutorials, mix breakdowns, tech hacks and more!

Lesson 2 – Polyrhythmic Looping

• Sub Focus – Solar System
• Eli Brown – Desire (C3T Edit)

• Manual looping
• Crossfader cutting (optional extra)
• Effects such as reverb can help clean up the transition

The tutorial below is taken directly from our Complete DJ Package, where you can find hundreds more tutorials, mix breakdowns, tech hacks and more!

Lesson 3 – Double Drop Tutorial

• Dub Phizix – Buffalo Charge
• Vacuum – Tornado VIP
• Chase & Status – No Problem
• Sub Focus – Solar System
• The Prodigy – Fire Starter
• Buraka Som Sistema – Hangover (BaBaBa) (Casper Remix)

The tutorial below is taken directly from our Complete DJ Package, where you can find hundreds more tutorials, mix breakdowns, tech hacks and more!

Lesson 4 – Using Echo

Tip 1 – Sampling

You’d be surprised just how many songs contain samples from other tracks. Hip Hop pretty much became a genre because of sampling, by looping breaks from the funk era and rapping over the top. House music has re sampled and remixed songs from previous decades as well as many other genres. DJs can explore the world of sampling and showcase where certain samples originate from. It’s a fun way to catch the attention of your crowd or audience.

Where to get ideas…

WhoSampled.com is an amazing community run resource that highlights where in songs samples are used and what the original sample is from. You can type in an artist or song title and whosampled will tell you where in that particular song a sample has been used. It also shows the original track that contains the sample too.

Tip 2 – Wordplay

Used throughout DMC or Red Bull Thre3style routines, wordplay is a way of combining tracks together using the same word or phrase from two different songs. Off the top of your head now just think how many songs have the word ‘love’ or ‘baby’ in. Even phrases to do with ‘putting your hands up’ for example. The possibilities are endless…

Start listening out for these key words or phrases then try to combine different tracks, getting clever with loops, cutting or scratching between the two.

Tip 3 – Tone Play

This is another technique that has become way more popular with the digital advancements in DJing. It’s is a much more advanced technique calling for a musical ear to figure out. How it works…

Well there are a handful of keys that songs can be produced in. A key is a combination of notes on a piano scale. If two tracks are produced using the same key then it’s likely their melodies may have very similar notes. If you start searching through your music library for songs in the same key and they listen for any part of that song where the melody is isolated by itself. By setting hot cues a DJ can then replay them in a different order to replicate the melody of another track.

This one takes a bit more planning & much more practice to perform, but the outcome can be really cool.

Tip 4 – Mixing instrumentals and acappellas

Why not totally remix a song using its acapella with another instrumental? You need to make sure both tracks are in the same key for this effect to work best. Don’t always rely on the visuals or bpm display to mix acapellas. 90% of the time they’re usually analysed wrong.

Tip 5 – Live Performance

This one requires a bit more technology to perform however most DJ softwares now have samplers built in.

On higher end controllers you can access the sampler pad mode. This allows the DJ to set off loops and one shots underneath the mix or current playing track. This means the DJ can either finger drum a new beat in live or layer loops in the mix.

Depending on which DJ software you’re using you may need to either set up some hot cues or loops prior to loading the tracks into the sampler.

Video tutorial breaking down these 5 creative mixing techniques

Want to learn more DJ skills?

If you’re serious about becoming a better DJ, we’ve got the perfect next step.

At Crossfader, we offer a wide range of DJ courses for all skill levels, music styles, and DJ software — from Rekordbox and Serato to Denon, Traktor, and more. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to master advanced techniques, our structured lessons, expert tutors, and hands-on approach will help you level up fast.

Sign up for Crossfader for free today and you can take our quick quiz to get a customised learning path tailored to your goals, experience, and setup. Once you’ve done that, you’ll unlock loads more free lessons as well as a clear roadmap to help you meet your DJ goals.