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Beat matching by ear

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  • June 24, 2013 at 6:59 pm #41564
    Dirty Hippie
    Member

    One way is to put the tempo of the track you are trying to mix in way up. That way you know you need to go down, at least until the fine tuning part. Then when you drop the track in, you can tell how quickly it goes out and make adjustments, drop it again, rinse and repeat. Some of the people how taught me have done it this way for decades to prevent having to go back and forth (i.e. up and down in speed). Hope this helps.

    June 24, 2013 at 7:08 pm #41566
    D-Jam
    Participant

    Just takes time and practice.

    I’d tell you to start by setting the tunes at the same BPM and then practice on keeping them together when they drift.

    June 24, 2013 at 8:58 pm #41568
    Stazbumpa
    Participant

    Seconded. Take your time and practice, it will come. Its a useful skill to have as beat grids don’t always tell the truth and sometimes fail completely.

    June 24, 2013 at 10:04 pm #41570
    D-Jam
    Participant

    I should have added this.

    When I started in 1992 on cheap belt drives, all I could do at the least was make the first and last beats of a 32-beat section match. The rest was a trainwreck. After time, I managed to keep 16 beats held, then here and there get a full 32 held.

    Then it went up to 64, 128, etc. Suddenly I’d hold things together for 2-5 minutes.

    THEN…it got easier to get things ready. Instead of spending 3-4 minutes trying to figure out the right pitch, it would take me 10-20 seconds.

    THEN…I moved into trying to use the EQs to do even more fluid blending of sounds.

    This took me from 1992 up until maybe 1998. Six years it took me to further perfect myself in manual blending (not just beatmatching). You have to be patient and dedicated. Recording mixes for me was how I kept growing. I’d listen, hear where I mess up, and learn from it…as well as keep trying.

    Not to mention it also take more practice/experience doing it outside of your bedroom. You can be fluid in the bedroom, but go to a club and end up being all thumbs.

    June 25, 2013 at 10:16 am #41585
    squeeam
    Participant

    “You can be fluid in the bedroom, but go to a club and end up being all thumbs.”

    Err, we’re still talking DJing here, right? 🙂

    June 25, 2013 at 11:36 am #41589
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    I hope so, being all thumbs seems rather more useful in the bedroom than in a busy club with people looking on.

    June 25, 2013 at 12:09 pm #41593
    Sunjalo
    Member

    Hi Steve ^^

    I suggest using 2 tracks of similar tempo – then when you are trying to “beatmatch” dont worry about anything except the actual beats – forget bars/phrases for now.

    Drop a beat on a beat and then wait and listen – this is where u decide if its faster or slower. (As mentioned previously this takes practice to hear straight away)

    When you hear things going out of sync, instead of adjusting the pitch slider – nudge your track faster or slower manually with your hand or with the pitch adjust buttons, if it sounds better you are going the correct way, if it sounds worse is you are going the wrong way, then only adjust the pitch slider if you are actually correcting the tempo, by speeding or slowing the track overall with the pich fader.

    With a little practice this will come naturally, deciding if the track is faster or slower 🙂

    Once you get this correct – you can start focusing dropping a 1 beat on a 1 beat and then naturally progess to dropping the 1st beat of a phrase on a 1st beat of one of the playing tracks phases

    😀

    June 25, 2013 at 12:26 pm #41594
    Steve Turner
    Member

    Thanks guys! Will continue to knuckle down, I will get there soon enough I hope 🙂

    June 25, 2013 at 1:36 pm #41595
    nick greek
    Member

    match bpm as long as the song quality is ok. find a beat after a break or see that every 8,16 or 32 something changes. then you could find the one.start counting to 4 and then start cueing the other track. this is however beat matching.after you have master that try to bar match or phrase match, the last one is the true holy grail of mixing

    June 25, 2013 at 5:57 pm #41606
    D-Jam
    Participant

    squeeam, post: 41742, member: 1129 wrote: “You can be fluid in the bedroom, but go to a club and end up being all thumbs.”

    Err, we’re still talking DJing here, right? 🙂

    Definitely! LOL

    I’ve had times when I’ll make amazing live mixes at home, no problems…then I go to a big club and I mix like a rank amateur. My ears were not used to a super-loud sound system, the turntables were on anti-shock platforms that made for a different feel…and I didn’t get any time to really get used to it.

    June 25, 2013 at 7:58 pm #41610
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    excuses … excuses … excuses …

    ROFLMAO

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