I can almost beatmatch by ear, but I'm not feeling great about it. I need a few tips.

Practice.
dont alter the playing track unless you really have to, cue up in you phones and set tempo/ pitch on new tune until it holds as you are doing now. Tempo / pitch is now set so dont touch that slider!
Now stop the new track (If you want – sometimes you strike lucky) and cue up the new track to the beat you want to start the mix on.. hit play, when you are at the right point on the old track, bring in, nudge if its out of phase – simples!

I commend you for putting the time in to learn in these days of sync buttons and such.

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, ad infinitum. And if you get a chance to try your hands on vinyl, take it.

I’m the other way round dude, i’ll Synch 99% of the time and only go manual if its obviously out… Synch is a tool, its provided so ill use it.
But i will say most of the time ill arrange a set in advance and ill notice if a bpm is out when organising the tunes, and then ill tap em out.
This method is naturally gonna fall down when i do a set on the fly…
Keep us updated on your progress, i dont doubt you’ll crack it in under a day!

I’m admittedly a not-so-great beatmatcher. It’s something I’ve always struggled with. Before the advent of the sync button, I did lots of drops and only beatmatched tunes with a very similar structure. I LOVE the sync button. I would marry it if I wasn’t already married, and have children with it if it was physically possible. With properly gridded music and sync, I can do much more than I used to and focus on other important aspects of playing. I am a better DJ because of it, which is one way of saying my music and mixes sound immensely better and are more successful.

So yes, keep practicing. It’s a great skill to have. I wish I was better, and I still occasionally work on it. But the sync button is your friend, too—don’t discount it as the lazy person’s way of avoiding manual beatmatching.

I can see that it is splitt feelengs about the sync button.
My personal oppinion is that that freekin button should be forbidden.
In my eyes a DJ tha’t can’t or doesn’t beatmatch by ear is something else but not a DJ! (A bottonpusher maybee?)
I do know that big star DJ’s use it, but I can’t help thinking it is cheating big time.
It is also IMO the main reason digital DJ’s is not accepted by some CD/vinylists DJ’s (including myself)
and in some clubs get laught at.
It is anyway a major handicap to not be able to beatmatch properly.
All music is not alwais in sync so you have to do it manualy (Almoust all music before 1990)
OK you can run it throgh Ableton Live and get a constant BPM but then again some music has tempochanges in it.

And the only way to learn how to beatmatch is to try mixing thax together that you has no idea about what BPM they are
not looking at the BPM meater (it is cheating as well)

I stared out with 2 beltdrive TTS and a homebuilt mixer, beatmatching reggae from LPs in the 80’s*
That was rather frustrating the first week or two because the BPM drifted on both trax all the time…..
Less than 6 month later I had my first gigg (not reaggae) and it went well.

//DJ Hessler

*LOL* to you then BP Michael M;)

//DJ Hessler

?? When is it not optimal to beatmatch manually??:confused:
I can agree it is not always optimal to beatmatch att all, there are other ways to put two tunes together and
beatmatch for hours is not the way to keep a crowd allert;)

Appart from that I totally agree with you Benny!:D

//DJ Hessler