How to Start Mixing House Music

House music usually runs between 120 and 130 BPM in 4/4, with a heavy kick drum and a clap on the second and fourth beats, and tracks often open with a beat-driven intro made for DJs, per Native Instruments. Start by matching two tracks' tempo, bringing the new one in at a phrase change with its bass cut, and swapping the bass so only one bassline plays at a time.

What makes house mix the way it does

Native Instruments' House music 101 (May 2023) puts most house between 120 and 130 BPM, with deep house slower, at around 120. A track follows a flow such as intro, verse, build, drop and break, then a second verse, build and drop, and an outro, and its example track opens with "a simple, DJ-friendly beat-driven intro". That intro gives you a stretch of drums to mix in over.

House DJs tend to favour long blends over quick cuts. Native Instruments' guide to DJ transitions says techno and house DJs tend to prefer smooth transitions that blend one track into the next, where hip-hop and drum and bass DJs cut more, and the UK online DJ school Crossfader credits house with "mixing phrases rather than beats and bars" and "the classic long blend" in its lesson 3 Ways To Mix House Music (September 2022).

House 101 lists more than a dozen styles, from deep, Chicago and acid house to bass, electro and French house. Pick the style you want to play and learn its tracks. The blends below use a tech house pair as their example, and need only the EQ and channel faders.

What you need

Two decks and a mixer with a three-band EQ (high, mid and low) on each channel. A two-channel controller and DJ software are enough; see the best DJ controllers for beginners, the best DJ software and the best DJ headphones. Crossfader says its methods need only basic mixer functions such as the EQ and work on "almost any combination of DJ hardware and software".

These blends use the channel faders, not the crossfader. Leave it in the centre, or take the channels off it; the crossfader explainer shows how.

Prepare the tracks

1. Get the beatgrid right. Sync, loops and phrase markers all follow the grid, so check that the first downbeat sits on the start of the grid after analysis; see what a beatgrid is. In rekordbox 7, tick Phrase under Preferences > Analysis > Track Analysis > Track Analysis Setting to have rekordbox mark each track's sections, per the rekordbox 7 manual.
2. Set hot cues on section starts. Mark the first downbeat of the intro, the breakdown and any vocal you might drop in. Crossfader calls hot cues "an essential". The cue and hot cue explainer covers setting them.
3. Pick tracks close in tempo and key. Native Instruments suggests tracks within about five BPM of each other. Crossfader's example pair, Sonny Fodera and Biscits' Perfect and Truth X Lies and Cloverdale's Nothing Gonna Stop This, are both tech house at 127 BPM in B major, so they beatmatch and sit together in key. Match the tempo by ear or with sync, as in how to beatmatch, and check keys with how to mix in key.
4. Count the phrases. Start the incoming track on the first beat of a section, so both tracks change section together. The DJ transitions guide shows how to count bars and turn on phrase display in Traktor and rekordbox.

Blend 1: the long blend

Crossfader's first method is a slow swap of the EQ from the top down. It keeps the energy level, so it suits a warm-up or the end of a night.

1. Start late in the outgoing track. With a few phrases of the playing track left, about two-thirds of the way through, get ready to bring in the next one at one of its last phrase changes.
2. Set the incoming EQ. Kill the incoming track's LOW completely and turn its MID and HI down slightly.
3. Start it on the phrase change with its channel fader closed, on the first downbeat of its intro. Raise the fader until you can hear it, then all the way up.
4. Swap the highs over about four bars: the incoming HI back to the centre as the outgoing HI goes down.
5. Swap the mids over about four bars, the same way.
6. Swap the lows over 8 to 16 bars, or a full phrase. This change has the biggest effect, so take it slowest.
7. Fade the old track out with its channel fader once the EQ swap is done.

Blend 2: the quick EQ swap

The same start as the long blend, but each band changes at once instead of gradually. Crossfader suggests it for building a set towards its peak.

1. Start the incoming track as in blend 1, with its LOW killed and its MID and HI slightly down.
2. At the start of a four-bar section, swap the highs in one move.
3. At the next phrase change, kill the outgoing LOW and bring the incoming LOW to the centre at the same moment. The swap hits harder when the incoming bassline is the stronger of the two.
4. At the start of the next four-bar section, swap the mids.
5. Take the outgoing track out at the next phrase change.

Blend 3: drop in a vocal

Crossfader's third method layers a vocal section of the new track over an instrumental part of the old one, for a quicker change that sounds like a remix.

1. Set a hot cue on the incoming track where a vocal breakdown starts on a phrase change.
2. Kill only the incoming LOW, and leave its channel fader fully up, so the timing has to be exact.
3. When the playing track reaches an instrumental section on a phrase change, press the hot cue. Turn the playing track's MID down slightly to make room for the vocal.
4. At the next phrase change, swap the bass: kill the outgoing LOW and bring the incoming LOW back.
5. Lower the old track's channel fader by about a third, then take it out at the next phrase change.

Without a hot cue, you have to line the vocal up by hand to drop it on time.

Keep the low end clean

Two kick drums and basslines at full level sound muddy and can push the mixer into the red. Keep one track's LOW down while the other's is up, which is the bass swap in the transitions guide, and watch the channel and master meters; the clipping explainer covers gain staging.

Practise

Record your practice mixes and listen back; how to DJ shows how to record in rekordbox and Serato DJ Pro. How long each track plays depends on the slot, from full tracks in a warm-up to shorter runs at peak time; see how long a DJ should play a song for.

Where to get house music

House is sold as downloads on stores such as Beatport, Traxsource, Bandcamp and Juno Download, and Beatport's catalogue can also be streamed into DJ software through its subscription; see the Beatport LINK review. A DJ pool suits open-format DJs who play house alongside other genres, and free DJ music downloads covers legal free tracks.

How this page is made

The tempo, structure and styles of house come from Native Instruments' House music 101 by Tim Cant (May 2023), and the blending habits and five-BPM advice from its guide to DJ transitions by Sara Simms (February 2024). The three blends follow Crossfader's 3 Ways To Mix House Music, shortened. The phrase analysis setting is from AlphaTheta's rekordbox 7 manual. All were read on 14 October 2026. The earlier version of this page gave tempo ranges for house styles and a labelling system it called signifiers, which had no source; they are gone. The site's old deep house page now points here. The methodology explains how the site works.