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| quote: | Originally posted by Tiger777
No its not. I mean, what if someday, you get the chance to play in a club or something where they have a mixer that doesn't have a BPM counter... What are you gonna do then? You'll suck.
Besides, BPM counters make it VERY easy to DJ. Fire the DJ! Computers can do his work and match the songs. Wouldn't that be stupid?
And, BPM counters take away all the fun of DJ'ing.
(just my opinion) |
I disagree whole heartedly! BPM counters can NEVER teach you how to beatmatch. There are three cases at best. 1) The BPM counters beatmatch FOR you, and you never learn--but here you need something like a beat synchronizer like on the Pioneer CMX-3000 dual cd player. 2) You use the BPM counters to TRY to beatmatch and since you don't have a beat-synch tool, you fail miserably! 3) You use the BPM counters as tools to HELP you beatmatch and eventually your ears will train themselves to learn how to fine tune the beatmatching that the BPM counters helped you get CLOSE to synching.
I will repost one of my old threads here on BPM counters:
Personally, I don't know why everyone has a huge gripe about BPM counters. It doesn't make you any more or less of a Dj if you do or don't use one. The main point is that BPM counters are ment to do just that, count the beats per minute so that you can have a freakin clue to which track is faster or slower and by about how much.
BPM counters will help you beatmatch, they will NOT beatmatch for you, and by the semi-angry and frustrated tones of those above who hate and swear at them, they were the ones that were expecting the BPM counter to actually beatmatch their song for them!
A BPM counter is a tool, and as a Dj, if you don't know how to use the tools around you, or don't use the tools around you, you will be at a disadvantage to those that do have this knowledge. As I have already stated, a BPM counter is ment to give you an approximate idea of how fast your track is so that you can take 3 seconds of time to get the beats close to the same speed. You can do the same thing without a beat counter, but it takes many seconds longer to do the same thing. That is the purpose of this tool--reduction of time, because time is not on a Dj's side during a mix.
Think of it this way, I can ignore the beat counter and listen to the track and say, hey, that is way to slow (let's say the cue is at 120 and I'm spinning at 140). Then I will adjust the pitch accordingly until it becomes a bit faster etc. Then I've got to go back to my cue point, press play and start that over again until the two tracks are beatmatched. If the initial difference between the two tracks is 20 BPM, then it will take me longer than if the initial difference is between 1-2 BPM (about the accuracy range of a BPM). So instead of spending maybe 30-60 seconds trying to slide the pitch fader 20BPM, I'll look at the BPM counter and slide it up to that 1-2 BPM range and start there.
Beatmatching is being able to repeat the cycle of pressing play on the first beat, adjusting the jog wheel to synch the beat for one or two beats, adjusting the pitch accordingly to make the beats more in synch, then repeating the cycle until your tracks are beatmatched. It stands to reason that the fewer number of times that you have to do this, the quicker you can beatmatch two tracks. This is exactly what the BPM counter's function is--to let you reduce the number of the above cycles it takes for you to beatmatch two tracks. Again, let me state that it will not help you in any degree to actually have the ability to seamlessly beatmatch, it just gives you more time to try!
You will have to train your ears on what to listen for. Most of the time Djs will keep trying to listen to the bass beats to try to distinguish if the track is too fast or too slow. But as your brain quickly becomes frustrated that it is very difficult to do this, it will unconsciously search for another way to find this distinction. To cut to the chase, I will tell you what to listen for so that it will be a little easier for you to learn how to train your ear.
As I said, the bass beats are very hard to tell apart because most techno beats use very similar if not the same type of drum. So instead of listening to bass, try listening to the hi hat, or the other higher pitched instruments that are much easier to distinguish from track to track. And in doing this, try to use two tracks that have very different highs. Silverblue is a great artist with very distinct high pitch instruments. Try mixing in a Silverblue track with something else that is pretty simple compared to that. Most importantly, once you learn how to beatmatch two track, be aware that this will be only the first in many lessons to come. You will still have to learn about phrase matching and in-phrase transitioning, effects, timing, volumes, gain structure and many many other things. Djing is complicated and beatmatching is probably one of the first and most necessary lessons. Learn this well before you go onto other things, but don't ever forget that there ARE in fact lots of other things that you will need to learn after this!
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When you dance, the DJ takes you on a journey, but he or she is usually not the focus of your experience at a club or festival or wherever you hear the music. Dancing is. Music is.
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