Ok so before i jump in and spend tons of cash on equipment, I have been playing around with Traktor.

Just needed some advice.

What are some good tracks to start with, that are not too difficult to practice beat matching and transitions? This might be a dumb question, if it is..sorry.

When transitioning from one song to the next, when is a good time to start the next tune?

I just kinda need all the advice i can get, and all you guys really seem to know your shit.

Thanks in advance

When I had my CDJs, I learned to beatmatch very quickly by playing tunes FAR SLOWER than they were intended to be played, once I perfected beatmatching at that speed, I went up 1 bpm per minute and so on and so forth until I could beatmatch at proper tempos.

I'm not sure what genre of music you're into but I'm into house and I would say a lot of house tunes are played between 125-132ish, and I started out trying to beatmatch them at around 115-120.

Your tracks will sound extremely dumb, another trick I used is I went into Ableton and made 5 minutes of just kick drums and snares, burned two CDs of it and practiced beatmatching JUST the beat, without all the other stuff in the track to get in my way and distract me.

Some would probably say that's going too far though, but hey it worked for me.


At the beginning before you fully understand "Phrasing" practice counting beats and bars.

4 beats per bar, 8 bars per phrase.

1 and 2 and 3 and 4 x 8 = A phrase

4 phrases before the track SIGNIFICANTLY changes (In MOST cases with House music, always plenty of exceptions though)

So to start off with I'd suggest counting in 32 bars (4 beats per bar, 8 bars per phrase = 32)

And you'll slowly begin to know where you should start your next tune!

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House music with a loud a bass-kick as possible would be my advice. Also, the driving rythm should be simple.

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Sebastian Zander - Hotel Chaplin
Sebastian Zander - Set Two [Electro/Tech House and Trance of some sort]
Paulo Da Costa - AVGN [Prog. House](128kbps])

hook your mixer to your pc and record everything and listen in your car on the way to work or your ipod to school.

Slow tempo is good to start off so is getting 2 of the same records/cds.

Are you getting Turntables or cdjs or both?

And when do you mix it in? well thats up to you most people do it at the break at the end but thats up too you what ever sounds good.

I never counted beats to find out what record is 133 and which is 134bpm just get your 1st beat and think 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4 Release on 1 and start finding your pitch, I assume its the same for cdj.

Last edited by ThatsMagic on May-09-2007 at 00:53

Paul van Dyk tracks...nice kick to them.

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great advice guys! thanks....keep it coming..

after i get a hang of this, i am thinking of getting CDJs 200s most likely

A lot of people have said that matching with two copies of a tune is a good way to get practice. What I did was take two random records, try to match them, then keep trying to match them until they were right. At first this would take 30 minutes of mixing the same tunes back and forth before getting it right. Now it takes less than 2 minutes most of the time, but it took a lot of practice to get to that point.

When learning to beatmatch, I found that the toughest problem for me was the fact that my ears weren't trained to make sense of the two tracks that were playing in my headphones. Both of the records together sounded like mush, and I couldn't tell the beats apart. Training your ears is going to take time, but once you can start picking apart the beats of both tracks at once, beatmatching will get a lot easier.

As for specific records, very simple House tracks such as early Armand Van Helden tracks (or "Bonus Beats" tracks) will be great to learn with. Don't try mixing with anything that has an odd start or lots of layered percussion. Also don't try mixing on records with real drummers, as the speed may vary slightly over the course of the track.

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quote:

Originally posted by Alex When I had my CDJs, I learned to beatmatch very quickly by playing tunes FAR SLOWER than they were intended to be played, once I perfected beatmatching at that speed, I went up 1 bpm per minute and so on and so forth until I could beatmatch at proper tempos. I'm not sure what genre of music you're into but I'm into house and I would say a lot of house tunes are played between 125-132ish, and I started out trying to beatmatch them at around 115-120. Your tracks will sound extremely dumb, another trick I used is I went into Ableton and made 5 minutes of just kick drums and snares, burned two CDs of it and practiced beatmatching JUST the beat, without all the other stuff in the track to get in my way and distract me. Some would probably say that's going too far though, but hey it worked for me. At the beginning before you fully understand "Phrasing" practice counting beats and bars. 4 beats per bar, 8 bars per phrase. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 x 8 = A phrase 4 phrases before the track SIGNIFICANTLY changes (In MOST cases with House music, always plenty of exceptions though) So to start off with I'd suggest counting in 32 bars (4 beats per bar, 8 bars per phrase = 32) And you'll slowly begin to know where you should start your next tune!

I'm going to disagree.

Throw the track on both tables.

Grab one with your hand.

Get your hand moving over a down beat with the one your holding, and get your head nodding to the beat of the one playing in the speakers.

Let the thing go, it will go right out of beat.

Now futz around speeding up the track and slowing it down until you hear the unmistakable thump of the tracks rocking in time.

You're brain will learn for you the more you do this. Thats how I learned, just play around with it.

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Desperate Housenerd.

Also, you want to pick tracks without really long or frequent breakdowns, as its near enough impossible for beginners to beatmatch with constant interruptions by the beat on the track dissapearing

A lot of people also find it easier to mix between tracks by the same artist