Three turntables is obviously not essential at all and often a luxury that can’t be afforded from a financial or indeed space point of view but there are some reasons I wanted to bring to your attention before dismissing the idea off hand.
- The obvious one first – being able to mix in three tunes at once (if you’ve got the skills and ear). This can work well used in conjunction with eq adjustments to ensure the three tracks playing simultaneously doesn’t over fill the frequency range. I’ve only seen a handfull of DJs pull this off to a point where it enhances the listening experience.
- I think this is the most important of all – when you’re in the mix at home or playing to an adoring audience its great to be able to prepare and preview two sources instead of one. You effectively double the chances of selecting the right tune that seamlessley blends with the current one playing. You can also tease the audience with small parts of a track without fully committing to that mix straight away maybe with a vocal snippet you can drop in and take 3 or 4 mixes to commit to that record. Lots of flexibility afforded by the extra turntable and the sky is the limit creatively speaking.
- Now this is the one I’d copyright if I could haha – to bring another dimension to a mix altogether and keeping in mind that a vast majority of mixes out there are listened to rather than danced to I have come up with this twist. To use the third turntable as a bridge between two tracks of music in some or all of the individual mixes across a DJ set. It really adds a new dimension. I find spoken word albums are great for this and provide a creative link from one track to another. Great for hip hop sets and even minimal house or dub techno sets where the link pieces from the third turntable could be nature sounds or something similar.
I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas on this. I will post some examples once I get a chance to record some between writing articles.
