Free Creative Mixing DJ Tutorials

Scratching Guide

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

Finger drumming is a fun technique used by many battle and routine DJs to introduce a new rhythm or switch up the mix’s vibe. Learn how to apply this technique and play along in time with the rhythm of another song. The critical thing to remember is practice makes perfect. The more you practice finger drumming, the more it will start to become muscle memory.
Simply set up a hot cue on a kick drum and clap or snare within the song’s intro as your base sounds to play like a drum pad.
Songs used in this tutorial:
  • Young Thug – The London
  • Drake – One Dance (Eighty-M Acap Intro)
Techniques or features needed for this tutorial:
  • 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

Polyrhythm is the technical term for a piece of music that uses two different rhythms simultaneously. In this tutorial, you will see that we can set up a three-beat loop on a drum and bass song or a house song and then switch to either genre using this mathematical trick.
The critical thing here is to divide the BPM of the song you’re playing by 1.5. For example, if we have a drum and bass song at 180bpm and set up a three-beat loop, it will play in time with a house song at 120bpm. This is because 180 divided by 1.5 is 120.
This is a cool trick, but you need to pick a part of the song without any drums to make this technique sound clean. Check out the examples below and find out how to master this technique!
Songs Used In This Lesson:
  • Sub Focus – Solar System
  • Eli Brown – Desire (C3T Edit)
 
Techniques And Features Needed For This Lesson:
  • 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

In this tutorial, you will learn how to double drop tracks together. This mixing technique is a great way to add something new to your sets and help you stand out as a DJ. The key features in this tutorial are using phrasing, mixing in key, and learning how to find the right tracks.
Tracklist:
  • 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

Effects are one of the most powerful ways to smooth out a transition and add a creative touch. This is a simple technique to use echo to help you create more exciting build-ups.

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.

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14 Comments
  1. Cross DJ Mugabe

    Loved 😘

    Thanks for the head-ups

    Reply
  2. Gian Cedeño

    Hola Gente de Croasfader,
    Muchas Gracias por todos estos recursos que nos brindan, siempre muy buena información y muy buenos Tips.

    Saludos,

    Reply
    • Jamie Hartley

      It’s our pleasure! Thanks for learning with us.

      Reply
  3. Prasanjit Das

    i love your mixing love from India

    Reply
  4. Amanda Hayes

    Hi crossfader,love all the video mixes of different music genre’s yous put out.Outstanding I’m a big fan of you’s.Just want to say a big thanks to all at crossfader.

    Reply
  5. Mark Anthony N Despi

    ITS REALLY LOVE CROSSFADET SINCE 2018 IVE A BIG UNITIL TODAY CROSSFADET NEVER GET FADE SINCE THE DAY THEY START

    Reply
    • Danis Ochieng

      I’ve watched all the video tutorials and I feel like I’m gonna be a beast of a dj😅in the coming days coz there’s no better online learning like the crossfader, I urge every upcoming dj to subscribe with them

      Reply
  6. Karl Vincent

    Hi crossfader I’m a big fan from the Philippines!

    Reply
  7. Eric

    awsome courses ive got decent with serato always can get better im producing now with albeton fl studio and searto studio love crossfader

    Reply
  8. Mohit Balmik

    Hi crossfader I’m big fan of you from India and love you 🤟🤟🤟🤟

    Reply
  9. Nathan Lo

    Hi Crossfader! I am a huge fan of your Youtube videos and came across this one:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hc8bmEaCqM&t=181s

    I tried to use the link to obtain the free files mentioned in the video, but it keeps taking me straight to this portion of the website. Is there a way for me to obtain the files so I could practice the mixing techniques demonstrated in the video? Thank you!

    Reply
    • Jamie Hartley

      Hey there, if you entered your email to get to this page then the download link for the music pack will be in your emails. If you can’t find it just drop me an email to jamie@wearecrossfader.co.uk and i’ll resend it.

      Thanks
      Jamie

      Reply

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