im about to give u what will be the most repeated piece of advice in this forum. PRACTISE! seriously practise makes perfect and rarely does it ring more true then with dj'ing. make sure u use the jog dial and the pitch fader to make adjustments. the jog dial may be easier coz it allows you to bend the pitch and it will go back to the same speed as u had it on before the bend.

For those longer mixes I find it's important to learn how to really ride the pitch fader.

If you're able to constantly make minor adjustments to keep it in sync then you can keep tracks together indefinitely. And you're much quicker at mixing because the tracks don't have to be perfectly matched when you start out, you can just adjust them on the fly.

That's what I try to do when I mix. (which hasn't been for a while now )

>Married life got you too busy?
yeh... I'm guessing the new/old ball and chain isn't all that.

life life got me too busy.

One word, cheat. =) (not on your wife, while mixing). I've got a N*****k b****keeper that works for me.

I can sort of mix by ear only, but I can only carry a mix for around 30 seconds to a minute before I lose it. But when I cheat I can carry mixes as long as I want.

But like I said, it's cheating.

A concept that some that start out don't seem to realize is, beat matching is not a precise process, it's a fluid one. Many get the misconception that you can set the pitch fader to a certain pitch and leave it there. Not true. You may get it very close, but you HAVE to keep adjusting on the fly. That's the only way to maintain a match over several seconds/minutes. That's where the practice definitely comes in. Remember, fluidity.

And shame on you if you cheat.

Well I hope you don't rely on the beatkeeper to tell you pitch changes. What happens when you get into a situation where you can't use the keeper? Basically you're going to be screwed. Get rid of the crutch and you'll be much better off. I guarantee it. (Just like those Men's Warehouse commercials: You're going to like the way you mix... I guarantee it!

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Dave

DJ Saint Bernard,
You could also loop one of the tracks. Loop the bass line and this will make everything simple. Should make it easier to find the bpms.
- DJ Wicho

as said: PRACTICE! (esp caressing the jog dial subtly to bend slightly pitch)

or as not said: buy a CDJ1000, upto 0.02% pitch resolution

I find that when i hit play and the tracks sound all messed up because i didn't press it at the right time i can adjust it pretty easily with the jog wheel. I'm getting the hang of it now that i've been practising.

Also, this is very important! If you do the above and after the tracks are matched but the train wreck starts again it's because the tracks aren't matched right to begin with. The pitch/speed i mean. If that happens try adjusting the speed with the Pitch Fader now.

Try recording a beat( a cdr five mins loop beats) then use your cue buttons (u can use it as a sampler by pressing it as long as you want to sync with the other song then press play, )if your beat sounds like loosing the tempo u can adjust your jog dial(no efx on)and practisee.

Well, I'm decent enough by ear that I can pull a mix without the beatkeeper, but it definetly helped me learn what it sounds like as the tracks are comming together. And no, you can't use is blindly. You will run into songs and stuff that just don't sound right, or the thing will be wrong all together.

The thing I like about it as opposed to mixing by ear, is if the tracks are just slightly off it will tell me. It's not perceptable to the ear (not mine anyway) but it helps avoid the beats being so off that the audience can hear it.

The thing that sucks about it is I can't do fast cuts and scratches with it. If you've ever listened to the B96 Djs in chicago, there's no way I can pull that crap with the beatkeeper. That's all practice and knowing your songs...oh yea, and something I don't have....Talent.

Practice helps a ton! This doesn't seem to be stressed enough! After awhile you'll start to get it.

I agree though using a BPM counter will help you initially getting the right tempos together, but just don't rely on one. After all, in the heat of the moment, especially if you're mixing multiple genres, it helps to know the track's initial bpm. You might want to mix a 125 bpm track into a 136 bpm, which may or may not work. Getting a readout as to which track is slower can help you learn, but at some point, you'll start knowing which track is faster or slow by ear. And if you mess up and actually speed up incoming track (for example) that's ahead of the other track, that's fixable and vice versa.

Another piece of advice: basically I'll take one track and go with it. I'll usually try and mess with the track that has the least amount of musicality in it and slow and speed that one up which is usually the track you're bringing in, more often than not. (Of course there are some circumstances where riding the fader on both helps... if you can hear harmonically the track is clashing a bit, pitching it up or slowing either of them down helps.)

If you really want to fine-tune your skills, go dig up some 70s disco or older rock stuff and try beat-matching that where the drummers never kept as accurate time as the songs now which are tightened up with Pro Tools or are synced on the computer.

Mixing in key can't be stressed enough either. Putting any old 2 tracks together isn't going to give you the perfect mix and a lot of people are tone deaf. They can't tell when something does sound wrong. Maybe I'm lucky because I've played piano by ear for the last 10 years or so (and had Suzuki when I was like 8), but it's not too late to try and pick up key matching. There's nothing like nailing a track (or a chick!) that's correctly keyed.

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Dave

Sorry to say, but BPM counters are for sissies. (don't ban my IP for that, but it looks really lame - JUST COUNT TO FOUR (or 15 seconds as you wish, and you'll understand a lot more about DJ'ing)

Chakan, the B96 DJs do all the edits in the studio or on a computer. 30 tracks in 5 minutes? C'mon!

Naw, I could see doing a B96 sytle mix live. On 4 tables, and having every record marked for samples. Granted you'd have to be fast as hell, but it could be done. (Most of it...=) ).

Shamus Wrote--
Sorry to say, but BPM counters are for sissies

I don't disagree. I suck...

>I'm trying to match a 5/4 and a 4/4 tune so they hit every 20 bars
That's gotta take some balls! Almost as bad as trying to mix a waltz...

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Dave

You are right on the money EON!

However, adjustments by HAND via the jog dial on the CDJ works a tad better if you set the Master Tempo On. This helps keep the frequencies of the tracks constant.

On turntables, if you make minute adjustments by speeding up or slowing down the record, you can hear the pitch shift depending on how much adjustments you make. I know some people make adjustments via the slider, there is still a slight change in frequency when the slider is adjusted dependant again on how much adjustment.

Thumbs up to Pioneer for their Master Tempo feature!

However with Vinyl you have wow and flutter to deal with.

That's why I recommend learning how to ride the fader. Then you can mix for as long as you want.