Learning to DJ (w/ the 3345 Team)
Starting to mix : beat matching
Now, hold the record stopped with one hand and start the
plate (by pressing start) with the other. The plate is spinning
and the record is not. Spin the record back and forwards with
your hand and find the start of the first beat. Now hold it
there. With one hand remove one of the ear-phones so that you
can hear the live mix on one ear. Count 4 beats on the live
mix and on the 5 th, release the record you’ve been holding.
Mostly likely, the beats are allover the place and you hear
a ‘galloping’ of the beats. Don’t worry,
we will fix this.
Apply breaking pressure to the outside rim of deck 1 (the
one you can hear on the phones) to slow it down and catch the
next beat. When you hear the beats align again, let the deck
run free of resistance.
Now pay attention to the beats in your phones and the beats
on the live mix. Try to hear and determine whether the beats
on deck 1 are faster or slower than deck 2. Hence, if you hear
the beats in your phones hitting before the ones on the live
mix, then deck 1 is clearly too fast. Going with this example,
if they are too fast, then use the pitch fader and slow down
deck 1. Start with a raw change of tempo, and then check the
speed by breaking deck 1, until the beats match up. Let the
record go and keep listening. You continue this way and make
finer adjustments to the pitch fader, till you find that your
beats once aligned, stay aligned for at least 30 seconds.
Lets recap what we have achieved so far:
- You have started with two similar records.
- You are familiar with the beat structure of both.
- You have beat-macthed deck 1 to deck 2.
- Your beats match for about 30s.
The truth about beat-matching, is that in practice it just
doesn’t exist. You can do fine adjustments on your pitch
fader all day long, but you will never get two different tracks
to play in sync for 10 minutes. Of-course, you never want to
do that either, because you are mixing after all, not mashing
up.
For now, make sure you get that 30 second beat-matched buffer
and determine what happens after. Is deck 1 faster or slower
than deck 2. Memorize this information, but do not continue
to adjust the pitch unless you want greater accuracy. Each
time you re-adjust the pitch fader, you must re-determine the
difference between deck1 and deck2. That is, which one is faster
and how long do they stay in approximate sync.
© 3345 Team
3345, the Vinyl Records Home.
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