Beat Matching in a Digital Age

Hi Jshster!

with all this little helpers you’re always tempted to catch a glimpse at them 😉

So, like you said, put a paper in front of your screen, disable the bpm-infos in your traktor settings or try to beatmatch to a “live” audio source, like a track playing on a cd off your stereo.
You can buy a turntable and some records, “cheating” is impossible 😉 But i don’t think this will be a solution for you.

Besides the Turntable every other solution requires a quite a bit of discipline.

you can do it, i’m sure 🙂

Another Numark Mixtrack Pro/Traktor Pro user over here. I have to admit that I too use the phase meters a bit too often. I find it very hard to beatmatch when you are mixing in a song that’s still in the intro. I can’t imagine how many times I’d have to start over again if I had to beatmatch every song by ear. Also, I’m a perfectionist so I like my beatmatches to be absolutely spot on. I bet it would demand years of practise if I’d have to do it manually. Still, I’m in the same boat as Jshster. And should I decide to step over to CDJ’s at one point in time, I guess it’s best to refrain from counting on all that visual info asap.

Hey peeps 🙂

I completely agree with D-Jam here (great post on the homework btw), however if you want to learn, here are some pointers i feel might help…

So I came from experience with vinyl (before cdj’s & not a pro in any way) – the majority of of my dj ‘career’ (which i am finally taking seriously- whoop whoop 😀 ) – I had 1 x turntable and usually a cd player of some sort without pitch control and mostly messed around with that. Cost and accessibilty was usually a factor (coming from South Africa) vinyls are not so easily accessible – still not today.

I missed out cdj’s completely and decided a while ago that I need something to make dj’ing completely accessible to me and digital was the answer. Cdj’s are also expensive. Controller is an affordable all in 1 solution with recording as well ^^

Now my experience in beat matching (and the differences) between vinyl and digital using a controller:
(I have a mixtrack pro and a 1x gemini turntable setup – direct drive but not a lot of torque, and external mixer).

Using vinyl you still have a visual representation – based on the speed of the platter, you can change the turntable to 33 or 45 rpm, and usually when for me when playing a 45 and the platter is spinning quicker – i have to slow the pitch down, as 45’s are generally quicker bpm than 33’s for eg.
Also feel of the platter is a big factor. Before you hear your track – you have a feel for the tempo of your tracks )with experience) based on this visual representation, so u already have a feel if you need to slow down or speed up…

On digital – on a mixtrack at least what makes things more difficult is the jog wheel does not move so you cant make any relation to bpm visually (without looking at the screen – and no feel of the rotation of the platter).

After thinking abt this, i think the best way (not sure if it is possible in traktor but would be to be able to hide the bpm info on the track that is currently playing, not the one u want to mix in (even if you have to cover half your screen with a folded piece of paper of the playing track) so that you still have the ‘visual’ aspect to work with of the track you want to play (ideally here moving platters would be best)- as on vinyl there still is this visual aspect – albeit an analogue one.

– Don’t be scared to move the pitch (move it man :p ), then drop your tune in to the track playing (as close to on beat as you can) then decide if its going faster or slower.
– Then move the pitch up or down and cue your drop and do it again, this time decide if its sounding better (more in sync) and if it is, you changed the pitch correctly. Then nudge or slow the jog wheel more depending if its faster or slower, and adjust the pitch accordingly… and repeat until things sound in sync as much as possible….

(The trick on a mixtrack is: when you are about to drop u need the ‘scratch’ button on to hold your cue, as soon as you drop switch ‘scratch’ off to be able to nudge or slow the jog wheel (on the side of the jog wheel). You can also cue up your drop and hit play at the correct time on beat & phase, but personally manually dropping works for me.

The biggest thing here is to never use sync when practicing at home – on turntables i dont think dj’s were rarely ever able to get tunes in 100% in sync – i would guess usually within say 99% (point something or even 98%) to about 100% but usually not 100%.

– When you hear the tunes are as close to sync as you can get them, (even if you got as close as you can by looking at the tempo on screen, but still not hitting sync)
– Cue again and drop your track on beat in phase, listen how close you dropped them and nudge or slow as you need to and then when you hear they are playing together – start to bring in your mix.
– You will probably hear it ‘drifting’ (going out) at some point, important again (don’t hit sync) but nudge the jog wheel or slow it in the middle of your ‘live’ mix, and adjust tempo slightly again on the pitch control to compensate – now things should be even more in sync (but manually).
I think this was an important part to beat matching and dj’ing in the past – being able to fix the tempo in a ‘live’ mix without people noticing – all dj’s had to do it, and was just how it had to be done.
I think this is the best way to learn, with time you will be beat matching quicker and get used to the pitch controls and tempos and in no time beat matching by ear and doing it quickly as well 😀

If you really really want to learn:
In the US and Europe you can get a decent entry level turntable for quite cheap – even a 2nd hand one. (If have a bit of spare cash), get yourself one and a few vinyls to mix between vinyl and your controller.

Its the best way to learn as with vinyl ‘cheating’ is impossible as there is not even a beat counter as on cdjs 🙂
However for this you will need a controller with phono in (ideally) or another external mixer to plug your turntable into and your controller. (mixtrack unfortunately does not have phono in)

Hope this helped and was not too long winded :p

Peace & Greetings Sunjalo!