I got a pair of 1200M3D's and a cheap mixer and about a dozen records and it was soooo hard to beatmatch... I know it takes 2 weeks to many months to be able to do this, but I was shocked how hard it was. I have a new respect for DJs that do this all the time and look so calm and collected doing it.

Part of the reason it was hard was I was using cheap walkman headphones (can't hear the bass well), I'm have a pair of sony mdr-v6's that are alright for djing that I have to find in my moving boxes.

couple questions:

1) how do you count the beats? ideally you should be counting 32 beats at a time right? do you count 1.2.3...32? or 1.2.3...16.1.2.3...16?

or do you just "know" when the beginning of the 8 measures are.

I count 1.2.3...8 4 times.

2) my monitor speakers suck (computer speakers) so I listen to both channels at once in my headphones, (channel A in left ear, channel B in right ear)... do most people do it that way? or do they listen to channel B in one ear and use the monitor speaker to listen to the channel A?

To answer your questions...

1) I count beats like:
1-234, 2-234, 3-234, 4-234, 5-234, 6-234, 7-234, 8-234
Usually a new sound will always start up (twards the begining of the song) or be taken away (twards the end of a song) on the #1 in the above sequence. After a while or when you get used to particualr songs, you wont have to count the beats, you will just be able to tell when a new measure starts.

2)I believe most DJs mix with headphone on the left ear, and booth monitor or speaker in the right ear. I dont know of any DJs who use channel B in one ear and channel A in the other, and use strictly headphones. Although...I heard it was pretty good to at least know how to do it that way, incase a monitor speaker blows...or you eventually get a gig, and for some reason they dont even have a booth speaker.

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Naturally its tough at first but after you get a hang of it, you'll forget why you ever thought it was so hard to match beats...most big DJs can do it like nothing now.

Oh yeah, and DEFFINETLY get your self a better pair of headphones. ThHey really do make all the difference, especially if you are using walkman headphones. That should be your first task!!!

Hope that answers your questions. Feel free to ask more if needed, everyone here is pretty eager to help others out.

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Almost all modern dance music has four beats in the bar, such as the thump...thump...thump...thump, house kick drum pattern. If you count this rhythm over alsmost any dance track, you will be able to identify the same basic 1,2,3,4 pulse. These fours, or 'bars' themselves fall into regular patterns or 'phrases'. And you can have 4,8, or 16 bar phrases. If you look at trance or house music new elements will be introduced or droped out every 8 or 16 bars.

When beat-mixing not only must you synchronise the tempo of the two records, but you must also make sure that they make musical sense when playing together. This means that the beats of the new track should correspond exactly with those of the track playing in terms of phrasing.

Record 1
Bar 1 Bar2 Bar3 Bar4 Bar5 Bar6 Bar7 Bar8
1234 2234 3234 4234 5234 6234 7234 8234

Record 2
Bar 1 Bar2 Bar3 Bar4 Bar5 Bar6 Bar7 Bar8
1234 2234 3234 4234 5234 6234 7234 8234

Once you begin to feel cofident that your tempos are matching up, practice on making the phrases move naturally. Normally it is difficult to do a smooth mix of fewer than 8 bars. Practice holding two records in the mix for 8, then 16, then 32 bars, and when you bring a new record into the mix do it at the beginning of the phrase.

yah definatly find those headphones. hearing the bass makes a huge difference.

I personally do alternate between headphones and speakers. If you ever decide to go live it may be a good idea to be able to match with all headphones because I've heard of there being slight delays in the audio systems. In which case you could match the record to whats coming out of the system perfectly, then move the fader over, and find that the song isnt matched correctly.

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Never really did the counting thing....I've always went by feel. I guess this doesn't work for everybody, though.
A good pair of headphones and monitors makes all the difference in the world.

If you don't have good monitors you will be forced to use pre-fade or split cue.

You have to do the counting, even if you go by feel its all based on counting. I know what you mean by feel, like you know when it will happen. But if there's a track thats really repetitive its always best to count to avoid messing up.

Beat matching... Been spinning for nearly 8 months now...
I've got it pretty well worked out...
Practise more and you'll get it...

Here are the basics...
Chan 1 is playing
Cue up Chan 2 and release when the bars are inline...
IE.
|1|2|3|4|2|2|3|4|3|2|3|4|4|2|3|4 - Chan 1
|1 |2 |3 |4 |2 |2 |3 |4 |3 |2 |3 |4 |4 |2 |3 |4 - Chan 2

In this case, Chan 2 is slower than Chan 1... So push the record forward and increase the pitch... Therefore...
|1|2|3|4|2|2|3|4|3|2|3|4|4|2|3|4 - Chan 1
|1|2|3|4|2|2|3|4|3|2|3|4|4|2|3|4 - Chan 2

And then cue back to the first beat, or the beat you want to release off...
And count the bars... Once it hits "1" release it and either push or slow down the platter depending if you got it correctly. Once you got it x-fade out. Make it smooth by not just cutting in... Set EQ's... Usually the gain...

wtf exactly is "monitors" ???
i have a shit basic mixer, vestax 3 pro

so i just use split cue (mini crossfader), that's all i really know, except when i was using another vestax and there was an actual switch you could flip, chaninging the record you were cueing and a "balance" rotary switch.

can someone fill me in on what im missing, i dont know anything about using "smaller speakers" or anything

is it necessary for the future?

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U ever notice how DJs have Large speakers aimed @ their heads about 3 feet away(ie on the ends of the tables where decks/mixer is) Those are monitors.

Is it neccesary..well no, but is it nice..hell yeah. For playing by yourself in the basement, u dont need em @ all. They are prolly as big as your system(ie mine comes out of the Aux of my mini system for the time being) For a gig, u would wanna be used to Monitors prolly

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A Monitor is just a speaker. In the case of at a club the dj's use monitor speakers that are in the dj booth as apposed to listening to the ones all the way across the club.

At home it isnt as necessary to have a seperate speaker just as a Monitor, because the other speakers should do just fine. The room usually isnt as a big as a club, and your speakers usually are not too far away to where there would be a delay.

Sounds like you are using just headphones to listen to your two records??? Normally you would listen to the one you are about to bring in through the headphones...and just listen to the one playing through your regular speakers...(they should be a decent pair, with pretty clear bass)

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umm, why exactly are you counting the beats? it isnt really clear to me... the way i would beatmatch is by feel like someone mentioned... when youre counting, are you listenin to how long the gaps between the bars are?! someone please clear this up for me? thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by D-Syde A Monitor is just a speaker. In the case of at a club the dj's use monitor speakers that are in the dj booth as apposed to listening to the ones all the way across the club. At home it isnt as necessary to have a seperate speaker just as a Monitor, because the other speakers should do just fine. The room usually isnt as a big as a club, and your speakers usually are not too far away to where there would be a delay. Sounds like you are using just headphones to listen to your two records??? Normally you would listen to the one you are about to bring in through the headphones...and just listen to the one playing through your regular speakers...(they should be a decent pair, with pretty clear bass)

thanks, i knew they were speakers, i just didnt realize the relevance. hehe. yeah and if my room was as big as a club, i would just hold parties for everyone. lol. but i do both, listen in the headphones (right ear) and to the big ass 3 ft speakers in my room (left ear), actually at night when i record i turn off the speakers so theres basically no output, just recording input
and use the split cue. i get my best results USUALLY like that, but its less fun and hard to check the levels (only the meters on the tape deck) - and the mixer is weird with the split crossfader.
so yah i have average, decent sony headphones

i guess ive used monitor speakers before, just not monitor speakers AND headphones AND big ass club speakers. duh.

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