That thead everybody's seen – Beatmatching for beginners.

Up front, I’ll tell you the only time I mess with pitch is A) if something’s wrong with the pitchlock or B) if I’m screwing and/or chopping. When I do shows, I generally leave the pitchlock on. Mixing in key is something I’ve yet to explore.

If you haven’t already, get into the habit of listening for phrases. They’re usually 4 (at minimum, often hip-hop and rock songs will only have a 4 bar chorus or break, for example) or 8 bars/beats/counts. Training yourself to listen to music in 4/4 time is a big part of understanding phrasing, breaks, and how they all fit together to blend two or more songs. Most music anyone would ever mess with is in 4/4 time unless it’s not. (Shuffle beat is cool, but even that shakes out to a multiple of 4/4 time – it’s harder to mess with but once you figure out how what you’re using plays out, it’s easy.) 4/4 is the basic time signature, that’s the easiest way to learn how to beatmatch/blend/segue from one song to another. Each turntable is an instrument like in a band, and you can interact both with varying degrees the more you practice.

Most of the time, I find it easiest to zero in on some sound that repeats often enough (snares/bass/kick drum) and figure out where what I’m bringing in fits with what I’m playing on a 4 or 8 bar interval. Some songs have weird spots where they either change the time signature or

First things first, you want to calibrate your pitch arms. I’d assume this is even more important if you’re mixing in key, but it also comes up in screwing/chopping because it’ll mess up your chops/blends if you’re not paying attention. My players have never been perfect precise, but I have wheels and my ears to fix that. When I set both sides of my CD player or mass-media player to -25%, it isn’t always a perfect 25% even if the beat-counter says it is. The difference isn’t always something you notice with your ears, but when you’re trying to keep one faster at a consistent interval it’s an issue for which you’ll either adjust or it will become evident at some point. The easiest way to find it out is to set them both at an arbitrary nonzero speed, press play at the same time, then wait 8 measures to see if they start falling out of synch. With practice, you can make up for it by adjusting with your wheels/mouse/whatever.

One basic goal is to find a part of one song where somebody’s not talking and match it with part of the other song where someone is. In person, the easiest way I’ve found to demonstrate this is bringing Pimp C’s “I’m Free” in during the last chorus of its source sample, Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'”. If you speed Petty up about 1% and start Pimp on the first beat of the first chorus, the sampled hook lines up with the original hook. When Petty hits that guitar bridge, Pimp C starts his first verse and you can now ride the rest of Petty out, treating him like your own sample since they’re repeating “free fallin now I’m free fallin” over and over until the song ends. If you get it set up fast enough, you can sort of sneak the Pimp C chorus during the Petty choruses to prime your listener and make them wonder why this song sounds like a rap remix before you commit to the shift. You can also cut out of the Petty early during the quick break after the 2nd chorus.

Sometimes, you can put rapping or talking with singing. Sometimes you can have people talking to one another because they’re running on different cadences. Things like The Cult’s “Fire Woman” and Megadeth’s “Symphony Of Destruction” will sort of talk to eachother in the breaks.

My personal rig contains two CD players and one mass-media player (Numark’s DDS, same as the old Director), but at work I use PCs just as often. The only computer programs I’ve had much experience with are PCDJ, a few nights with some Mac software they had at a Midnight Rodeo, and we’ve recently Numark’s Cue software (which uses Virtual DJ). I do not like working with a mouse because it cuts down on what I can do on the fly. That said, PCDJ and Cue aren’t terrible and I’ve figured out tricks to beatmatch with some success. It’s also easier since my crowds are just as often drunks who may not even give a rip about what I’m playing and would rather be singing their sad sack country jam or grinding to the newest butt-to-crotch rap single. The biggest problem with mouse DJing is it takes something that’s inherently easier with two hands (manipulating two decks) and forces you to control both with one mouse.

Pitch lock is vital for plain beatmatching on a computer. What I usually do is figure out what percentage I need to move whatever’s not playing to meet up with whatever is playing. A good program will let you set at least one cue point (PCDJ allows for four, Cue has 3 I believe), I’ll set at least one on the first beat I’m going to bring in and then find whatever the cue-play button (because sometimes they’re different, it is on PCDJ) and use it. PCDJ will eat up processor speed and crash itself if I keep using the cue and play buttons instead of its reloop button. Cue only does on the rare occasion, and these issues may well clear up with better processors. We also run karaoke off the same rigs (and at the same time) so that may be another thing you don’t have to worry about.

So you’ve got the songs lined up as well as you can. I’ve noticed PC programs are more precise about both players staying on speed, so once you figure out how the percent-to-BPM ratio works for songs, make a mental note of some landmarks. 85bpm is magic. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Big Poppa, and NIN Closer all hover around 85, and you can put those together with rap, country, rock, whatever. (I’m not even sure if it’s different anymore or if they’ve decided to be uniform, some CD players were weird about that.) When you start mixing, your software may have better toys than mine – PCDJ is like winamp with a log and a few DJ perks but not many. If I notice it’s falling out of synch, if it’s not too bad I can usually adjust the percentages on both sides enough to line it back up. Sometimes one song will crap on itself, sometimes the player will do the same, and it falls out in a hurry. In those instances, I kinda shotgun it, dropping or speeding up the one I can keep up with the easiest by larger percentages than I need (meaning if A is 4% off, but I didn’t line it up right, I can speed/slow it by 5% one way or the other until I get it at least close enough.)

And if it falls apart, you can always abort by fading one out. It’s better to fade out before someone notices you messed up than to spend a minute in arrears and only get the last 8 bars lined up. Make sure you’re fading into the one you’re playing next, though.

Using a PC to DJ isn’t impossible, but it’s often really aggravating for me. Then again, I get shuffle and playlist options that allow me to take a bathroom break, get food, fix technical issues or flirt. Gotta have wheels, though.