Is three or four really better than two? Some DJs love having the extra decks, but what exactly are the creative advantages? We explore the four main approaches.
Listen to this article, written by Bridge editor Ryan Keeling
For a drummer to support a song and maintain a steady groove they generally don’t need advanced techniques like ghost notes, metric modulation, or four-way coordination. But over time, as they deepen their craft, learning these skills can help them to become more distinctive and expressive musicians.
We can think about mixing on three or four decks in a similar way. A DJ could happily go their whole life without trying this technique. If the simple, effective A-to-B transition isn’t broken, why fix it? But others will feel a creative itch to try more. Like harmonic mixing, finger drumming, and scratching, multi-deck mixing is a great way for a DJ to inject some unique character into their performances.
Multi-deck mixing can mean lots of different things. It’s a technique that’s more wide-ranging and nuanced than simply playing three or four tracks at the same time (although that’s definitely part of it). We decided to write this guide because we believe there are at least four main ways you might approach multi-deck mixing. This is admittedly an arbitrary number of categories—we could have broken it down into as many as 10.
Consider, for instance, the difference between keeping three slabs of vinyl in time versus layering synched musical parts together—drums, bass, synths—with a controller and laptop. Both could be described as multi-deck mixing. But the differences in execution and the musical and cultural lineages behind them are vast.
Before we get started, let’s address a big question connected to multi-deck mixing: why bother? Some DJs take great personal pleasure in deepening their craft. But what if your audience doesn’t know or care what you’re doing back there?
It’s true that the crowd may not know that they’re dancing harder because of the percussion loop you layered into the mix. They may not realize the vocal they’re singing along to is an acapella you spontaneously deployed at the perfect moment. But they’ll certainly feel these things.
Plus, if you’re more engaged and energised by what you’re doing, odds are the dance floor will feel it, too. Transmitting enthusiasm from the booth to the floor is one of the more underrated DJ skills.
That in mind, maybe the best reason to try multi-deck mixing is because it might be really fun for you, the DJ. The satisfaction you get from a particularly nice two-track mix can reach new heights, as multiple parts come together to create something that has almost certainly never existed before.
One of the most famous and influential early examples of multi-deck mixing comes from the 1980s in Detroit and a young DJ named The Wizard, AKA modern techno royalty Jeff Mills. On his radio shows he’d use three turntables to mix, scratch, and cut through all kinds of futurist dance, hip-hop, and electronic music, a mashup style that would earn him legendary status in Detroit and beyond.
Mills’ shows reached the ears of DJs like Carl Cox, who was inspired to play three-deck sets to unsuspecting crowds at UK raves. According to Cox, DJs like Derrick Carter, Donald Glaude, and Ben Sims were fellow early adopters of three-deck mixing.
These DJs represent the beginnings of the simplest and longest-running version of multi-deck mixing, which is most frequently expressed through techno and similarly minimalistic styles. The aim of the game here is fast, instinctual mixing and selection, with at least two tracks playing over the speakers more often than not.
As a technique that leans into the raw power of playing three (or more) tracks simultaneously, the type of music you’re playing here matters. Lean, loop-driven techno tracks can gel together in the mix in a way that most song-orientated house cuts simply can’t.
This brings us to one of the biggest challenges and most important principles in multi-deck mixing: balance.
In many cases, two synched tracks playing together at full volume with no EQ adjustments is too much for both the soundsystem and listeners. Once a third enters the mix, the need for careful EQ and volume adjustments becomes crucial. “It’s about balancing the mix and making sure that the blend sounds right, that’s it not overcooked,” said Sunil Sharpe, one of the finest multi-deck techno DJs, in a video demonstration of playing on four turntables.
Most DJs can appreciate the energy and technical proficiency Jeff Mills famously showcased on the Exhibisionist video—but far fewer will actually want to DJ like this themselves.
If you enjoy being on the front foot, with fast mixing and track selection, and play music on the minimalist end of the club spectrum, working with three or four decks could be a game-changer. It’s a raw, highly improvisational way of playing that doesn’t allow time for over-thinking. “There were a lot of cuts and a lot of fast, instinctual decisions,” Carl Cox remembered about when he got started on three decks. “And whatever wow moments happened, happened in real time. It was pure improvisation.”
In other words, you need to be comfortable with not knowing in advance what creative decisions you’ll make once the faders have been pushed up. You might choose to emphasise the percussion of one track, the bass-end of another and the vocal loop of a third without consciously having thought about it. As you might have guessed, getting into this kind of flow state takes practice.
This mode of playing was, of course, traditionally done on turntables, but many DJs bring the same kind of spirit and technique to CDJs. Using loops and Hot Cues can help keep mixes under control, while BPM and key info can also be used to your advantage. However, there is a danger here that you lose the essence of what makes this type of DJing so appealing. Using Sync could help create a precise blend of four tracks, but you’d also lose the high-wire balancing act of trying to keep multiple tracks locked in. Mistakes (if we can call them that) are part of the deal.
If a DJ’s answer to the question “what do you do with multiple decks?” has ever felt vague, it might be because there isn’t a single way that they use the extra decks. In addition to mixing multiple tracks (or parts of tracks), you’ll see things like loops, acapellas and sound FX mentioned, without necessarily knowing how all of it works in practice.
The interesting point to mention upfront is that it’s actually uncommon these days to find a DJ just mixing three tracks together without using loop functions or drawing from discrete musical parts like acapellas or percussion loops. As we explored above, techno DJs playing vinyl had no choice but to work with the music as it was recorded—but they were playing tracks that were so stripped-back and loop-orientated that it sounded like they were being looped on a CDJ or software.
A simple modern approach might be to loop an outgoing track but rather than eventually fade it out, you leave it in the mix while you cue up and then introduce a third track. The second and third tracks might be looped themselves. Or they might not be. Like so much of multi-deck mixing, it will depend on the context and your intuition at that moment.
Using loops is often preferred in multi-deck mixing for the control they offer. In the example above, imagine if, without anticipating it, your second and third track both dropped into their beatless breakdown or their lead musical elements arrived. It’s very possible this would sound unexpectedly empty or too busy.
Let’s explore another example that involves using DJ tools. Decks 1 and 2 are your standard full-track mixing channels. They represent the workflow that you’re already familiar with, so no change there.
Then we add deck 3, which will be used exclusively for percussion and drum loops. These could include everything from simple open hi-hat patterns to complex hand-drum performances.
Deck 4 will be for acapellas, or vocals without any instrumental accompaniment, and sound FX. (For reference, both acapellas and percussion loops are widely stocked in DJ download stores.)
Even with this relatively simple application of multi-deck mixing, your creative options have just increased exponentially. Consider how different your sets would sound if you played with different rhythmic accents through percussion loops, while you could grab the crowd’s attention by judiciously dropping vocals they know.
These additions mean that you have more fine-grained methods for responding to a room. A two-deck DJ can address a sagging dance floor by changing tracks or by using FX; their multi-deck counterparts have a broader and more nuanced range of tools at their disposal. It might be, for example, that a hi-hat loop is all that’s needed in any given moment. Or that the tease of a lively vocal is the energy injection that’s needed.
And to flip this example on its head, rather than extra ways to problem solve, multi-deck mixing offers more ways to express yourself.
We’d generally recommend taking a simplified approach, along the lines we’ve outlined here, when you’re starting out with multi-deck mixing. Confusion and creative overwhelm are your main obstacles at the beginning (and are probably the reasons that people don’t get started with the technique to begin with).
Simplifying things even further, it could be that a third deck is used for tracks that you’re planning to play at some point and want ready to go. In this example, you may never have three tracks playing simultaneously. But the way you think about sequencing music has changed.
Or tweaking the approach a bit, you could use rekordbox to pre-program loops you like in your tracks and have fun punching in these loops from the third deck when you feel the time is right.
You can see now why multi-deck mixing is such a creatively exciting but potentially confusing area. It’s possible that no two DJs have the exact same workflow. As we’ll cover again in later sections, there is a vast scale of multi-deck mixing with totally pre-planned and controlled at one end, and pure improvisation at the other end.
It’s no surprise that techno has been at the forefront of multi-deck mixing techniques. The genre has always evoked futurist ideals of continual innovation. But the real reason is likely more practical than cultural: of all the dance genres, the musical sparsity of techno is most suited to layering multiple tracks.
In the early 2000s, DJs like Richie Hawtin used the emerging digital tools like controllers, digital vinyl systems (DVS) and software to form a new approach to DJing. Although the term didn’t necessarily stick, “molecular mixing” best captures what these DJs were doing—breaking down tracks into loops and fragments and putting them back together in a way that resembled a live performance.
It’s an approach to DJing that requires an appetite for exploration. Whether it’s Rebekah’s intense techno sessions, Richie Hawtin’s intricate layering, or Steve Angello’s recombinations of his own music, you’ll notice that DJs in this lane are mostly running some kind of custom setup. It’s definitely possible to play in this “molecular” spirit using standard CDJs and a mixer. But it seems that as DJs move towards live performance and drop beat-matching, the desire to use additional tools like controllers and sequencers only increases.
It’s an approach that also requires plenty of practice and comfort with improvisation. DJing in this style means learning a setup so intimately that your actions and decisions almost feel automated by another part of your brain. Put another way, this isn’t about sitting back and letting your tracks unfold. The molecular style requires your full absorption as you respond to the dance floor moment by moment, as you layer together four—or even more—loops or parts.
The heavy use of FX is a common theme among this breed of DJ. It’s one thing to combine four short loops to make a unique composition, but in doing so you lose the peaks and valleys of playing tracks in their entirety. You can use FX to shape your own breakdowns, builds and drops, with filtering, reverb, delays, and noise among the main tools for achieving this.
With all of this in mind, you don’t find molecular mixing in widespread use. Although playing in this way offers DJs a satisfyingly unique performance style, the time and dedication required means that it’s usually reserved for a certain type of professional. We mention this not to put you off adopting a molecular approach but more to reflect the current reality. In truth, an up-and-coming techno DJ is more likely to stand out if they’ve shown the skill and dedication needed to cut their own DJing path.
There’s no simple definition for these types of DJs, but you definitely know one when you see one. These are the multi-deck DJs who feel like they’re performing. The audience won’t think “ah multiple decks!” but they will see the DJ actively shaping the music in a way that we’d usually associate with scratch DJs.
Each of the DJs we’ll look out here have carved out their own unique lane—not exactly replicable but something to be inspired by.
James Hype has become the most visible example of a multi-deck performance DJ. In recent years, the UK artist has gained a reputation for pushing forwards the possibilities of club DJing. James is particularly fond of acapella manipulation, Hot Cue finger drumming, and tone play, which he executes via and third or fourth deck as other tracks combine in the mix. When you also consider his elaborate use of FX and the incorporation of the DJS-1000, a sampler and sequencer, it’s clear that two channels wouldn’t be nearly enough to contain what he does as a DJ.
The UK garage legend DJ EZ is another in this rarified category. Like Hype, EZ loves to manipulate vocals with the cue buttons. (And also like Hype, EZ apparently doesn’t practice in advance.) Watching over EZ’s performance video he recorded with us a few years ago, you’ll notice at the start of his set all four channels on the mixer are fully open. Channel 1 is dedicated to his famous ident; on channel 2 he plays Hot Cues like a piano; channel 3 is used for finger drumming; and channel 4 is his first “proper track.” You may not be personally aspiring to this level of technical complexity, but both EZ and James show that DJing is as open-ended as we can imagine it to be.
Speaking of which: four decks is alright, but how about eight? Neffa-T has been consistently pushing the envelope in recent years when it comes to complex multi-channel mixes, which culminated recently with his “8 Deck Technical Mix.” We’re definitely not suggesting that pilling on additional channels is the way forward for most DJs, but there’s still plenty of food for thought in seeing Neffa-T’s techniques and mixing decisions—like, for example, the way he chops in loops that are drenched in FX.
Djrum uses a similar technique but to different musical ends. Across three turntables, the UK DJ blends genres and tempos with one-of-a-kind transitions that include scratching and creative uses of FX. In a demonstration video for RA, he showed how an ambient track on a third deck can be used as a transitional sound bed for big switches between tempos. Along with his beguiling recorded music, these kinds of novel DJing strategies have marked him as one of underground club music’s more singular acts.
The US artist Juliana Huxtable offers another compelling example in which DJing feels more akin to playing an instrument. It’s difficult to summarise how exactly Huxtable plays, but she’s drawn to bringing divergent sounds from different worlds together, a process that’s made possible by digital DJ tools. “I like DJing on four decks—it’s like meta DJing,” she said. “This allows you to take elements of different tracks, and when processing them, you can create a completely new track that just isn’t possible with two turntables. I really like to [DJ] as if it’s a continuous live edit or remix. In order to do that, most of the work happens before I get to the booth.”
The scratch and open-format worlds have long been at the forefront of technical innovations in the DJ booth, but for the most part, this scene’s leading DJs have been able to express themselves through two-channel mixers. There have been notable exceptions, however, with DJ Woody, Kid Koala, and DJ Tigerstyle all building performances around three-deck routines. There are also techniques that utilise sampling features of DJ software to introduce a third sound source, even if the DJ is working with a two-channel mixer.
Then you’ve got the likes of Andy C and A.M.C, who have used three decks to bring an almost impossible level of intensity to their drum & bass sets. The technique of “double-dropping” tunes—i.e. matching two tracks so they both build and drop simultaneously—had already upped the ante in drum & bass DJing. But adding a third deck has taken the sonic overload ever further.
Andy C in particular has had an interesting journey through three-deck mixing. Long known as a master of three turntables, in recent years he’s switched to using synced CDJs. Not everyone in the drum & bass community has welcomed this development, but it’s interesting that one of the most technically gifted DJs of all-time has seen multi-deck mixing as the way to continually push his craft forwards.
If any of this sparked your interest there’s pretty much nothing stopping you from getting started. Even DJs on a two-channel setup can hop onto the free version of rekordbox and throw a few tracks and loops around to see how it feels. Rather than serving up a step-by-step walkthrough here, we wanted to tell you how the pros do multi-deck mixing, get your creative juices flowing, and then encourage you to just start mixing. You’d be joining a lineage of DJs that now stretches back around 40 years and includes some of the most innovative and technically talented DJs to ever do it.
Text: Ryan Keeling
