BLANCAh on mixing long-form melodic techno on Traktor

Brazilian DJ, composer, and live performer BLANCAh has built a sound world that’s equal parts immersive and introspective. Her new single “The Garden of Morning Calm” teases the upcoming third album Music for When the World Is Silent, which is a release that blends her melodic techno roots with orchestral textures and drum-heavy impact.

Accompanied by a tasteful remix from the legends Hernán Cattaneo & Mercurio, the release is another step in her journey as an artist who leads with creative intent.

That clarity carries over into her DJ sets, where Traktor remains her platform of choice. With nearly 15 years on the system, BLANCAh uses its looping tools, remix decks, and deck view customizations to maintain control over long-form transitions. Whether performing at Warung Beach Club or Thuishaven, she mixes patiently and with purpose, and often works across four decks at once to slowly evolve the energy without giving in to trends or crowd reaction.

In this interview, BLANCAh shares how she organizes her playlists, builds energy using remix decks, and why her sets follow a narrative arc rather than reacting to the room.

Jump to these sections:

• How BLANCah masters extended transitions
• The importance of organizing the Traktor library and playlists
• How she leverages remix decks and samples
• The cues BLANCah looks for when reading the room a set
• The nuances of audience expectation in melodic techno
• Her thoughts on Traktor’s unique advantages for DJs

Here’s how BLANCAh stays fully in control and without compromise.

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Melodic techno can be subtle and long-form. What features in Traktor help you stay in control of those extended transitions?

Songs with a more melodic appeal require more careful mixing.

I learned this early on because I have always been connected to progressive house and more harmonically elaborate songs. In Traktor, I always play with four open channels and use the loop tool to support my mixes, doing the work in a very subtle way.

Pro tip from BLANCAh: Create themed playlists, and take advantage of the Smart Playlists feature to quickly find the right track at the right moment. Your library is the brain of your set – the more refined it is, the faster and more focused your performance will be.

How do you set up your library and playlists in Traktor to keep things fluid during a set without overthinking it?

I usually prepare a lot before my gigs. I like to be aware of how the set is going to evolve, and this requires me to know the songs I’m going to play and ensure they work together. I prepare a playlist for each party and organize the songs in ascending order.

What is essential for me is that they are harmoniously balanced, so I always analyze the key of each track to avoid dissonances and unpleasant sensations to the ears.

Pro tip from BLANCAh: Run a BPM and Key Analysis as soon as you import your tracks. This will help keep your mixes smooth and harmoniously aligned.

Are you using Traktor’s Remix Decks or Stems features, or do you prefer to keep things clean and simple?

Definitely yes. I often use the remix deck with my F1 controller.

I’m addicted to mixing using samples. I usually replace the base of a song with another when I need more energy, for example. I make a pre-selection of bases that I find powerful, in different tones, and when I feel I need to bring energy to a more mellow song, I replace the base. I’ve even done a two-hour set using the same base sample, the result was very interesting.

Pro tip from BLANCAh: Explore the effects creatively. Traktor includes a solid set of built-in effects – like reverb, delay, flanger, beatmasher, and more. I enjoy combining different effects across channels using Group Mode for added flexibility and creating unique transitions that showcase my style.

I personally always work with delay, beat delay and filter. The filter is my main mixing tool. The key is subtlety and intent. It’s not about piling on effects, but knowing when and why to use them.

How do you read a room during a melodic techno set? What cues are you watching for that tell you to shift direction?

What I’m about to tell you may seem strange, but I don’t change the direction of my sets based on the dance floor’s response.

Honestly, I don’t think the dance floor should guide me, but rather the opposite. In this sense, I position myself much more as an artist than as a DJ. I prepare my sets based on the story I want to tell, the songs I want to present to people, and I usually stick to my selections.

I’ve been in the business for over 20 years, which has given me extensive experience and confidence to trust my choices.

Do you think melodic techno requires a more patient crowd, or can it hit just as hard in high-energy environments?

True melodic techno does.

It requires a more musically mature audience, more open to subtle sounds. But current melodic techno has become incredibly mainstream, using resources and subterfuges from EDM for instance. Current producers are more concerned with creating tension, explosive buildups, noises, cathartic drops… but none of this represents real melodic techno to me.

I feel that the current generation, both producers and audiences, is experiencing musical immaturity, and we will need time to educate them again.

What’s one thing Traktor lets you do that you don’t think would feel the same on any other platform?

I’ve been using Traktor for almost 15 years.

I’m so addicted to it and have already developed my own method of mixing with it, that I’ve never even considered trying other platforms. I like having my entire vast repertoire, tons of gigabytes of music at my fingertips because Traktor’s search system is very accurate.

I like all the tools that help us find and put songs together by Key. Playing with four decks open on Traktor is easier because I have my eyes focused on all four at the same time on my laptop screen, which becomes a slightly more difficult task when I need to jump from CDJ to CDJ to see the progress of each song.

Pro tip from BLANCAh: Traktor allows us to fully personalize the layout of the interface: decks, mixer, FX units, waveform display. Everything can be arranged to suit our workflow. This matters more than we might think. A clean and intuitive setup helps us stay focused and avoid mistakes during live sets.

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Thanks to BLANCAh for showing how thoughtful preparation and subtle control can transform a DJ set into something closer to a live composition. In a world that often rewards instant feedback, she’s holding space for deeper listening and Traktor gives her the tools to stay focused, flexible, and fully in command.

Whether she’s playing sunrise at Warung or building worlds in her studio, it’s clear that every decision she makes starts with the story she wants to tell.

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