How to make 8 Bar DJ Intro Edits PDF: Free Download
Introduction
If you want a Comprehensive PDF that breaks everything Down Step by step, with illustrations, additional tips, and links to other free ESSENTIAL DJ resources, click the link above!
Hello and welcome to DJs in Reno where we cover all things DJ related.
My name is DJ Jon, and today I’m going to teach you how to make your own custom 8-bar DJ intro edits for free.
This video is based on the DJ intro edit maker PDF that I offer is a free download on my website.
It visually organizes all of the information I’m going to share with you today into 5 simple steps and it’s a great free resource to have on your computer whenever you want to make DJ intro edits in the future.
I can’t believe I’m giving it away for free, but I am.
Go check it out!
And, Make sure you read this article until the end for a CRITICAL bonus tip!
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Detect BPM
For this tutorial I’m going to be using rekordbox and Ableton, but you can use any digital audio workstation for this.
Rekordbox has a free version, and Ableton also has a free trial, I will leave a link in the description.
The first thing we need is an audio file that we’re going to use to make our intro edit.
In this case, I’m going to be using a real world example which is the song A Milli by Lil Wayne, released in 2008.
I think this is a great example to use for this video because essentially everyone knows this song, it’s recently increased in popularity and despite looking online, I could not find a good high quality eight bar DJ intro edit of this song.
So, let’s make our own!
First we are going to load this MP3 into rekordbox.
And here we can see that the BPM is 76.0.
Now we are going to load the MP3 into Ableton, and set the project tempo to 76.0.
Now let’s just listen to this MP3, and hear what happens when.
So there’s a couple things that I notice right off the bat.
Step 2: Trim Intro
The first is that he’s got that little piano piece and vocal in the intro, and we don’t really want that so let’s go ahead and get rid of that.
This is a very important tip in this video because the one place that you generally never want vocals in a track is in the intro.
Especially when you’re DJing hip hop and pop songs because you’re usually playing the intro of track b over the chorus of track a which will have vocals.
So if you play the vocals of both tracks at the same time, you’re probably going to experience vocal clashing which sounds bad and is quite confusing.
The next thing I notice is that the 808 is not aligned.
So we need to align that To ableton’s beat grid, by removing the empty space at the beginning of the track.
Now luckily in this song, Lil Wayne gives us a few bars of intro that have some heavy 808 bass, and some drums, that will be perfect for the intro.
Transitions sound way better when you have sub bass in the introduction.
It’s a fantastic way to hand off the loudest and often most important part of the track to the next track.
It alerts the dance floor that a chain is coming, and if it’s a popular song like a Milli, people will often be able to tell what the next song is as soon as the transition starts.
When you align everything correctly, in the transition begins and ends over eight bars, it flows seamlessly, carrying energy from the last track into the next track, and building excitement, tension, and energy on the dance floor.
Step 3: Split Clip and rearange
We just have to arrange those bars into an introduction.
To do this, I’m going to find right where the verse starts which is right here.
I’m going to use Ctrl + E to split the track.
Then I’m simply going to drag the start of the verse to bar 9.
Everything before this point will be intro, and the first verse (meaning vocal) will start right on the 9th bar.
Step 4: Copy and Paste
Now, highlight the 1st Bar you want to copy, and press CTRL + B.
This will “paint’ that bar until the next audio input.
In our case, this will paint the 1st bar until the verse, or bar 9.
Step 5: Clean Up
However, There is a litlte pop that we can hear during the transition between each bar.
This is because the transient from where we painted isn’t quite lined up.
Simply drag and drop the transient shaper bar to the left, and paint the corrected bar until the verse.
This is going to smooth out the transient between the two bars.
It’s going to make the transition from the first bar to the second bar perfect.
This will remove that annoying little pop that we were hearing earlier.
Make sure you play the first and the second bars back to listen to them to make sure that they sound correct.
Then it’s a matter of selecting the first bar again, and pressing Ctrl b.
On the keyboard.
This will paint the first bar up until the intro, on bar 9.
Next, listen to what we have done so far to make sure that everything sounds correct and everything lines up.
We are almost done!
The very last step is going to be to export the file.
Step 6: Export
Press control shift r on your keyboard.
This will bring up ableton’s export menu.
Make sure that normalize is set to off on the export menu.
This is a critical tip and it’s something that took me a lot of time to figure out when I was first getting started.
The reason that we want normalize set to off is because we are editing a track that is already mastered.
If we normalize a mastered track, it’s going to reduce the amplitude of the track.
This is not good because we want everything to be as loud as possible when we’re playing it for a crowd, on a big system!
Keep in mind that this is an easy example.
Not all songs are going to give you a bar right in the intro that you can copy and paste into a quick and easy eight bar intro.
Certain songs you might have to look through the entire song to find that bar, or you might have to piece it together.
Summary, and additional Info.
Now that I’ve taught you how to make your own custom 8 bar DJ intro edits, let’s talk about why you would want to.
The songs that you hear on the radio are radio edits.
The songs that you hear in the club are club edits.
Intro edits are special versions of tracks. They generally have a dedicated 8-bar intro at the beginning of the track.
This is the perfect length for a DJ to mix in with.
In an 8-bar introduction, you want sub bass, percussion, instruments, but no vocals.
This will allow you to tease in elements of the new track during the transition.
Why don’t you want vocals in the introduction? Because you play the introduction over the chorus of track a, where there will be vocals.
When you have two vocals at the same time, it is very confusing and disorienting to the listener.
They don’t know who to listen to, it’s just like in real life.
We don’t listen to two people talking at the same time, because it’s difficult and confusing.
We listen to one person talking at one time.
Having an eight bar transition makes it easy to have perfect transitions 10 out of 10 times when you are DJing.
This is true whether you are DJing in a club, at a festival, at a wedding, or any other gig.
Do you want to start DJing for fun, or are you interested in DJ lessons? check out the five first skills that I teach my students in this article.
There are plenty of online record pools that offer DJ intro edits.
What’s a record pool? A record pool is a website that sells access to a huge variety of different songs, and versions of those songs.
They are especially useful for DJs.
But they might not have a high quality version of the song that you want to play, with a good eight bar DJ intro edit.
And this is a good example of why you would want to make your own.
Not only does it make you more self-reliant, but it will also give you tools that no other DJ has access to.
That alone will set you a step above the other DJs in your area.
The reason that I chose Milli by Lil Wayne for this example is because I could not find a good DJ intro edit for this song.
There are plenty of them on the internet, but they were all low quality.
Meaning the bit rate of the MP3 file was lacking, and you could hear it in the mix.
You always want to play the highest quality audio that you have access to.
Spek is a fantastic free spectral analysis program! It analyzes the quality of your audio files.
I’ve linked it at the top of my intro edit maker PDF, be sure to go check that out!
I use it all the time whenever I download a new song to assess its quality.
You’d be very surprised at how many songs appear to be high quality but are actually very low quality audio.
Spek Is a fantastic way to take the guesswork out of your library! By ensuring that you have only the highest quality MP3 files.
I may do a dedicated video on Spek, because it is such a helpful free Resource.
Earlier this year, I received DJ and production training in Ibiza Spain. I realized that I could make my own intro edits that were Superior to the ones sold on record pools.
I also realized that this was a great opportunity to make a helpful video on this topic. I also thought that a free PDF would be beneficial to new and up-and-coming DJs who are getting started.
This is some of the most useful, practical advice that I have, and I can’t believe I’m giving it away for free. But I am!
I definitely wish that I had access to this knowledge when I was getting started.
My DJ intro edit maker PDF is above as a free download.
It’s an incredible free resource! It includes illustrations. It includes every step in this article. And links to other free resources that you won’t find anywhere else.
Another reason that I chose the song A Milli by Lil Wayne is because it was popular in 2008.
It was the song that propelled Lil Wayne to stardom. It was his first big hit.
As a DJ, especially for mainstream events, you want to stick to songs that people know.
This is a song that everyone will start singing as soon as you play it.
I remember when I DJ’d for Penta building group in 2023, this is exactly what happened.
It’s one of those songs that you need to have on your playlist whether you are a wedding DJ, a club DJ, or even a bedroom DJ!
It is and it always will be Lil Wayne’s biggest hit!
People will definitely remember this song! Even the younger generation seems to know it!
One aspect of DJing that is as important as having the correct intro is harmonic mixing.
What is Harmonic mixing? It is the concept of understanding and utilizing the relationship between harmonic keys. On the circle of fifths while DJing.
It’s the union between music theory and DJing.
And let me tell you, it’s critical.
When you get better at harmonic mixing, it’s going to be a game changer for you.
Your mixes are going to sound at least a hundred times better.
Mixed in key is the software that I use To help me with harmonic mixing.
I would recommend it.
You can read my deep dive on harmonic mixing here, in the article the ultimate harmonic mixing tier list.
I also offer a free pdf download on that page as well.
That download will get you my ultimate harmonic mixing cheat sheet PDF. This PDF took me months to develop! I’m giving it away for free.
It includes a cheat sheet that you can use for all 20 harmonic mixes.
I’m not going to do a deep dive into harmonic mixing in this article.
But it’s definitely worth researching and checking out!
That’s another amazing free resource that I wish I had when I was getting started.
Even if you can harmonic mix like a pro.
And even if you can produce your own custom 8-bar DJ intro edits.
Neither of those are going to help you unless you understand the fundamental skills of DJing.
And those skills would be beat matching and phrase matching.
I offer a free video series called the basics of beat matching on YouTube.
The first two videos cover these topics.
Conclusion
Thank you so much for checking out my website, and for downloading my PDF.
It took me a long time to learn these skills.
And it took me even longer to compile them into a free PDF, a website article, and a video on YouTube.
I hope that it helps you and I hope that you find the information in this post helpful.
Do you want to learn more about DJing?
Are you interested in DJ lessons?
Please reach out through my contact form!