Track structure
Outro
The outro is the stretch at the end of a track built for mixing out — the arrangement thinned back towards drums so the next record can come up underneath it without two vocals or two basslines colliding.
In practice
Count an outro in bars, never in seconds — 32 bars is a fixed amount of music and a shrinking number of seconds as the set speeds up.
That is the whole reason DJs count the way they do. A DJ counts bars, not seconds, because a bar holds the same amount of music at any tempo while a second does not — so a thirty-two-bar outro is a fixed musical length and a shrinking one on the clock as the set speeds up.
60.0 s
32 bars at 128 BPM
30.0 s
16 bars at 128
54.9 s
32 bars at 140
44.1 s
32 bars at 174
| Bars | 124 BPM | 128 BPM | 132 BPM | 140 BPM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 bars | 15.5 s | 15.0 s | 14.5 s | 13.7 s |
| 16 bars | 31.0 s | 30.0 s | 29.1 s | 27.4 s |
| 32 bars | 61.9 s | 60.0 s | 58.2 s | 54.9 s |
| 64 bars | 123.9 s | 120.0 s | 116.4 s | 109.7 s |
Where these come from: Arithmetic from the 4/4 phrase grid, not counts from our catalog. Our analysis reads whole tracks rather than sections — one value per dimension for the entire file — so we cannot tell you where this section begins in a given track or how long it runs. For what we can measure, see the one structural figure we can measure.
Why it matters
An outro is the other half of a transition, and it is the half you are standing in while it happens. Whatever the incoming record offers at its front, the mix is bounded by how much room the outgoing one leaves at its back.
It is also why a track can be excellent and still difficult to play out. A record that ends cold, or holds its vocal to the last bar, forces every transition out of it to be a cut rather than a blend.
Frequently asked
How long is a DJ outro?+
Typically sixteen or thirty-two bars — at 128 BPM, 30.0 or 60.0 seconds. We measure whole tracks rather than sections, so that is the convention rather than a figure from our catalog.
What is the difference between an intro and an outro?+
Position and purpose. The intro is drum-led working room at the front for mixing in; the outro is the same idea at the back, thinned out so the next record can be raised underneath it.
Why do some tracks have no outro?+
Because they were arranged to be listened to rather than played out. Radio edits and album cuts often end on the hook, which leaves a DJ nothing to mix over and forces a cut instead of a blend.
Related terms
Intro
The intro is the stretch at the start of a track built for mixing — usually drums and little else, running a fixed number of bars so an incoming record can be beatmatched and blended before anything melodic arrives.
Phrase
A phrase is a block of bars a track is built from, usually 8, 16 or 32. Electronic music changes at phrase boundaries, so a mix that starts on one keeps both tracks structurally in step.
Extended mix
An extended mix is the DJ cut of a release — a longer intro and outro with more bars of beats at each end, so there is room to mix in and out. It is the version that belongs in a set.
Echo out
An echo out ends a record by feeding its last bars into a delay and pulling the channel down, so the track dissolves into repeats instead of stopping.
Explore: Beats-to-time calculator · Mixing guides · Intro · All DJ terms