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Because people don't know how to use the search button...
Here is an old post of mine:
How to beatmatch
For this example I’m going to be very precise on how to beatmatch with your specific equipment. You have two CDJ-100s and a DJM-300 mixer, which is a good investment in equipment that you will be happy with-once you learn how to use it!
First, I shall explain the way I have things set up (I have two CDJ-100s and a DJM-600 and also a TTX1, but I won’t talk about beatmatching with vinyl specifically.). I’ll call deck one the deck to the left of my mixer and deck two the deck to the right of my mixer, with my mixer being in the middle of them of course. My headphones are plugged into my mixer and I usually mix with the phones over both of my ears.
So where do you start? I usually start playing the first track on deck one, then transition over to deck two and then back and forth etc. I put the CD in deck one and then will adjust the pitch so that the BPM is about 140, +/- 5BPM depending on what type of set I am spinning. (138 or so for a progressive set, 140 for a trance set, and 145 or so for an NRG set.) This gives me a starting point that will determine how the rest of my set goes.
Now there is one thing that I must mention, and that is the difference between pitch and tempo. First let me start off by defining what pitch and tempo are. Pitch is the property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration. Tempo is the speed at which music is or ought to be played, often indicated on written compositions by a descriptive or metronomic direction to the performer. What does this mean in English? This means that when you change the tempo, you automatically change the pitch because when you change the tempo, you change the speed of the music, which innately changes the frequency also. In other words, changing the pitch changes the octave of the track. I know that you are now thinking, Hey, I have a master tempo button, which will lock the pitch when I adjust the tempo! This is right:
You have the ability with the CDJ-100 to set the pitch while you change the tempo with the master tempo button. This works via electronic compression, so that if you speed up the track, then it must eliminate some of the track at equal intervals so that you can play the track at the same pitch in the same amount of time. (Otherwise you would increase the pitch to compensate.) And on the other side, if you slow things down while locking the pitch, then the compression must extend a certain chunk of the track in order to play the track in a longer extent of time. (Otherwise you would decrease the pitch to compensate.) So what does this mean? This means that when you run in pitch-lock mode, that you will hear compression artifacts. The more you adjust the tempo away from 0, the more audible the compression artifacts (which you can hear as digital blips at a constant interval) become and the louder you play your music like this, the better you can hear it too.
So, while this is a neat feature, I would not use it when you spin because it degrades the quality of your tracks and especially not when you are recording. I would only use this function when you have to adjust a specific track’s pitch so that vocals etc don’t sound funny-though I think that there are very few times that this is the case.
But back to beatmatching… So, to make this easier to start out, I’ll use the BPM counter because I use it as a guide to help me locate the correct BPM quicker. Basically, when I stick track two in deck two, I first set the cue point at the first beat of the track along with the gain volume. This way, I know for sure that I will be able to accurately phrasematch the two tracks.
Phrasematching is the alignment of the two tracks so that they are in phrase (ie if a track has a beat architecture of 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. (like most trance does) then Phrasematching is aligning beat one of track two with beat one of track one. So how do you tell were beat one is? All I can say is to start counting from the beginning of the track, (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) then listen to how the music repeats after 4, 8 16, 32 and 64 beats and listen to where changes occur. Oftentimes changes will occur on beat one of a four count and certain instruments will sound on certain or between certain beats consistently throughout the entire (or most of the) track. This is just as important (though less noticeable if you screw up) as beatmatching.
So you have the second track cued up on the first beat. Count 1, 2, 3, 4 etc using the bass of track one. Start track two so that it is in phrase (press play on beat one of track one). When you do this you should notice that most of the time, the two tracks will fade off beat fairly quickly. Look at the BPM counter and if there is a huge gap, then adjust accordingly. Now when you do this keep in mind two things: First, the direction you were coming from (ie coming from slow to fast or fast to slow) and second that the BPM counter will only give you a coarse estimate of the exact BPM that you are playing at. So now that you have the two tracks +/- one BPM, reset your cue point and press play again (and always in phrase from now on). Spin your jog wheel so that the two tracks are beatmatched and then let it play out for 30-60 seconds. You’ll notice that either they are perfectly beatmatched, in which case you’re done, or you’ll notice that track two is slightly faster or slower than track one.
How do you tell if it is faster or slower? Remember point one from the BPM counter. If you had to speed up, then chances are it is still a bit too slow and vise versa-if you had to slow it down, then chances are it is still too fast. One point to note-I have found that it is harder to distinguish if a beat is too fast rather than two slow. So if you are having problems, then try slowing it down a touch first, because you will be able to hear if that is better or worse more than you can if you speed it up.
The faster the two tracks become unaligned, the more you will have to adjust the tempo to correct for it. If the two tracks become unaligned in the first 10-15 seconds, you’ll probably want to adjust two notches (0.2%) and then restart the cue point and repeat until you fine tune it to perfection. I know that this sounds like a very lengthy process, and you only have about 5 minutes to beatmatch, but with practice, you should be able to cue, adjust the gain volume and beatmatch two tracks in a minute and a half or so. Remember, this time includes letting the track play out for 15-30 seconds a couple of times.
When this is done, I usually let it play out for over a minute. This does three things: it assures me that the two tracks are beatmatched properly; if my tracks do start to unalign, it tells me if the cue track is faster or slower (and so which way to properly adjust the track during the transition); and it lets me listen to the first 30-90 seconds of the track so that I can get a good idea of the time which I want to mix in. Usually there are two or three points in a track that are good to mix into, and conversely, there are usually a couple key points to mix out of a track too. These points usually are around 30 seconds, 57 seconds and the third one is variable, depending on the track. It should be noted that these times correspond to 140BPM +/-. The times to mix out are usually around the last 57 and 30 seconds of the track (since you can change the time mode on the CDJ, this is relatively easy to figure out).
From here you still haven’t made the transition. It is beatmatched, you know how to phrasematch, so from here you have to be good at beatcounting. Phrasematching is more than just counting 1,2,3,4 repeat. You have to be able to count the whole 32 beat phrase and this is when you release the cue track-on beat one of the 32 beat phrase. For example, if you know that you want your transition into the second track to end at 57 seconds into track one, then obviously you’ll have to start playing the cue track about a minute before you’re ready to mix out. This is where beatcounting comes in handy. During the last chorus that you want to play on track one, count beats from the beginning of the chorus. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8… all the way to 32, then I usually start the cue track 8 beats after that 32nd beat. Why 8 beats? Because it gives the track a few more seconds to unwind its energy and the transition will sound less cluttered as a result.
Not done yet! Another important point is volume control and transition timing. First off, make sure that your volumes are adjusted properly so that the VU meters hit approximately the same level. Also know that a deep thumping bass beat will hit harder on the VU meter than will a softer lighter bass beat. Because of this, it is important that you listen to the transition in the monitors so that you can stop increasing the volume on the cue track when it reaches the same volume as the live track during the transition. This is why I do not use the crossfader-because you cannot do this unless you use the channel volume faders. The other point-transition timing-is summarized by another post that I made several weeks ago:
“So many people leave the final card out of learning the art of the transition. If you listen to a professionally mixed cd, then the transition will usually be short and it will always be in-phrase. By in-phase, not only do I mean that the two tracks are in-phrase with respect to each other, but that you bring in the volume in such a way that the end result is the second track is in-phrase for the audience. I'll try to explain a little bit more about what I mean. When you press play or pause etc on your cue deck when the volume level is zero, the crowd doesn't hear it. When it is up, then they will hear it. But when you slide the volume bar up, or the crossfader over, then you have to do it so that the audience hears the first beat of the incoming track on beat 1 of the measure of the live track. You can do this by short burst movements instead of sliding the fader gradually.”
To make “short bursts of movement” more clear, push the volume slider up on beat one and only beat one (technically right before beat one, so that the increase in volume is more transparent).
Anyway, I know that there is a lot more to the art of mixing, but I think that this summarized the beginning aspects of it. The rest you can pick up after you learn these things first.
I hope this helped, and I would be happy if there is any other way I can help!
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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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