Hey Julia, I’m sure there’s some great tutorials on manual beatmatching but here’s what I’d suggest for a first-timer’s training plan:
1. Start with songs that have a fixed beat-grid first.
– Its hard to manually beat-match, you have to develop an expert ear to hear subtle beat-drift.
– Learn to hear the difference between two ‘fixed’ track’s tempo first
– Yes, this will probably take you away from disco, but there may be some early synth pop that could work.
2. Start practicing with two copies of the same “locked” song.
– Throw one off of Zero pitch and try to match the other song to to the tempo.
– Do this ‘blind’ – don’t look at the wave forms, tempo read-outs or even the pitch slider This forces your ears to hear the drift.
– Learn to recognize when a song is beat-matched but in the wrong phrase or slowly falling out of sync over time. Cue them from the same starting point and really, really listen for the drift.
– Try to keep the song going on as long a possible and mix it in useful phrases.
3. Then move to practicing beatmatching with two different “locked” songs.
4. When you’re comfortable with 1-3 and feel like you can ‘ride’ the faders manually, try some old-school disco with tempo drift.
– You’ll notice that bands will get excited as they head towards the emotional highs of the song and they’ll be a subtle speeding happening. A good example of this is the intro of the Bee Gees You Should Be Dancing.
– I remember Chic classics had really tight tempo
Hope this helps. Good luck.
.
