Vinyl Beatmatching – how does it work?

Are you talking about ‘vinyl mode’ in a DVS system or using real vinyl?

Its pretty much exactly the same as you said.

“match tempos by ear, and get the beats perfectly lined up with nudging”

Its just that the nudging is a bit different. You can nudge the actual record, or you can touch the platter or you can apply pressure to the spindle, or ride the pitch.

What works best will be dependent on your system. How you choose to do it is really down to the physical the characteristics of the turntable and the the records that you’re using.

Hardly a Riot, post: 30186, member: 4223 wrote: More of the latter.
I’ve got a decent vinyl collection, and I like to run my turntable (basically a technics 1200 rip-off) through my controller’s aux in, and assign it to the right side of the crossfader.
I can just never get my mixes quite as tight as I can with software/cdjs.
Any suggestions on possibly approaching it differently?

With TT’s, it’s all about practice and plenty of it. The techniques above are the ones I use, also with a 33 track, you can temporarily speed up the slower record by holding 33 and tapping the 45 button momentarily (on Technics this is).

I started with a pair of Soundlab DLP1 (belt drive) TTs then bought a set of 1210s in the early 90’s, I reckon it took me probably many months to get to a reasonable standard of manual beatmatching, now when I hop on to the TTs, it’s like riding a bike and just don’t think about it, it becomes 2nd nature.

When I moved to digital I found CDJs/Controllers very easy to manually beatmatch as once the tempo is matched, both tracks will remain synced (unless the track BPM itself varies of course) however with vinyl you will require adjustment in the mix but the aim is for this to be as minimal as possible, vvv small tweaks of the pitch IMHO, so you avoid the audible adjustment. This is think is what people find difficult – the constant attention required alongside the usual eq and fader work required in the mix.

IMHO, no matter what people say, manual beatmatching with vinyl on turntables is a skill. Throw a 3rd deck in to the mix and it makes it even more interesting but very satisfying when you pull it off.

As someone that started with vinyl, I mostly rode the pitch to beatmatch, but nudging is better for pitch bending, when you know the tempos are virtually the same but one track is still a bit out of phase.

I personally think hiding the audible difference is the hardest part of beatmatching. Many DJ turntables have a master tempo/pitch lock but many others don’t (most notably Technics) so those nudges have to be very subtle in the mix or your audience will hear them. Thus, it’s just best to do these adjustments when still cued in your headphones.