Song Choice to Learn Beatmixing

I personally learned to beat match using commercial Pop & Dance music, which is quite commonly 128 beats per minute (BPM). The beauty of 128BPM music specifically is that a new instrument or vocal is usually introduced into the song every 15-secs EXACTLY, meaning that you can often predict when the next part of a track is coming in just by looking at your time counter. In the same way, extended mixes will lose instruments and vocals towards the end of the track, which makes it a great way of mixing the start of one track into the next as instruments and sounds are removed and added to the songs respectively.

Look out for any popular tracks by Calvin Harris (‘Let’s Go’, ‘Feels So Close’, ‘C.U.B.A’ etc), Martin Garrix (‘Animals, ‘Wizard’) David Guetta (‘Bad’, ‘Without You’) or even the Black Eyed Peas (‘The Time’, ‘Don’t Stop the Party’) – all of these tracks are exactly 128BPM and will overlap seemlessly if cued at the correct point.

Also, when buying/downloading these kind of tracks, always try and find a Club Mix or Extended Mix if possible. This will usually have a good 45-60 secs of intro AND outro without lyrics which will be better to practice with than the standard (and shorter) Radio Edits. One great example is the Extended Mix of ‘We Found Love (Feat. Rihanna)’ which is still an inclusion in many of my club sets and is really easy to mix in and out :o)

As your confidence in mixing 128BPM grows, try mixing in 127BPM tracks (by adding 0.8 to the track’s tempo) or 129BPM (by slowing the track down by 0.8). It gets harder with slower tracks like 125BPM, where 2.4 tempo change is needed to keep beat-matched with 128. It’s all about practice. My only suggestion is, try not to mix anything that differs in tempo dramatically. From early experience, nobody wants to hear their favourite House track sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks on speed.

Enjoy buddy.

It sounds like the OP indeed has SYNC on in his software/on his controller.

Turning that off should be step one. Step two should be covering up your laptop screen. Manual beatmatching is/should be ears only. If you are practicing with CDJ like gear, cover up those displays with a piece of cardboard.

Next you move the pitch fader of the playing track somewhere (don’t look!) and preferably cover this up too.

Step … mmm … three? … would be to cue the new track. Listen in your headphone for the first downbeat you want to start playback from. Use your jog wheel to find the exact place that beats start and make that your first cue point. Now when you hit play it will immediately play the first downbeat you have chosen.

Start counting and on any downbeat on the playing track (you can worry about the first when you have the speeds matched) hit play on the other deck. Listen carefully. Are the beats moving apart? And if so are the moving apart quickly or slowly?
And, assuming you don’t know the bpm of either track you don’t know if you have to correct faster or slower, right? Some people have such hearing that they can actually tell which track is the faster one and perhaps with (lots) of practice you can become such a person. There is, however, a simpler way.

When you hear the bpm drift apart, put your finger on the outer ring of the jog wheel (not the top part). You can use that to nudge a track faster (to the right) or slower (to the left) temporarily. As soon as you stop nudging the track will resume normal speed. A good place to start is with your finger is around the 11 o’clock mark. It’s a starting point, as you start practicing this more, you will find what works best for you. Now nudge about 1/3 to 1/2 faster and do it snappy. Do NOT REMOVE your finger. Listen carefully, did this make things worse (you moved faster but that was clearly the wrong way) or did it make things better (nudging it faster made it better so that is the right way)? If you hear it got worse, you can nudge back to where you started (as you didn’t move your finger) and then do a nudge the other way to confirm that, indeed, that is the better way. Now starts the process of moving the pitch fader. If the bpm drifts apart quickly you can make a somewhat bigger adjustment, otherwise make only small adjustments. You can either hit cue/play and start the track again from the beginning or, if you are still relatively far off, you can just repeat the nudge/listen thing a few times.

It is of course hard to explain this in writing, but trust me that hearing if it gets better or worse, once you have heard it a few times is pretty simple, even if the beats are nowhere near sync! That is one of the things I like about this method, you can do lots of adjustments before having to restart the track (which is useful when you get really close to being in sync).

Hope my two cents help a bit.

P.s. DO use identical tracks in the beginning, instrumental if you have. This will avoid any distraction and the absolute knowledge that it IS possible to get them totally in sync (after all they are identical).

My suggestion…find two tunes with SIMPLE RHYTHMS.

I don’t have any titles off the top of my head, but try tunes that have the simple kick drum and hi-hat rhythm…as opposed to some complex “busy” rhythm. Your goal is to just differentiate the two tunes playing and then keep them held together. Eventually you’ll grow into more complex tunes where you’ll decipher the kick drum from all the other sounds.