We carry on our weekly DJ Skill Sessions with a dead short, dead simple trick that you can use to move between hugely different BPMs.
Many people know about using echo or delay to give you a “beat” to mix over, and some even work out that you can use the echo time controls on your software FX to increase or decrease the “speed” of the echo, thus “changing” the BPM of the echoed section to then mix a new tune over at the “new” BPM.
However one really simple way – which was used here – to achieve the same thing is simply to use the much underused “tap” function to “tap in” the BPM of the NEW tune to the effect you’re going to apply to the OLD tune. You set this up simply by listening to the new tune in your headphones at the desired BPM before doing the mix, then tapping along until the effects unit is programmed to echo at the NEW tempo.
Hit “echo” on the final beat of the old track, and you have a long echo for mixing the new track over the top of, not at the old track’s BPM, but at the BPM of the NEW one – no guesswork.
Dead simple – works every time!
Did you like this trick? What mixing techniques would you like to see us feature here? Let us know below.