2:21
Finding a slight variation in BPM
On YouTube this video is called Complete Beginner DJ Lessons Video 21 Finding a Slight Variation in BPM Beats per Minuit
What this lesson teaches
A one-change experiment, and the change is tiny on purpose.
What he alters
Tempo reset off, and one pitch fader moved down very slightly. The readouts show 126.0 BPM on the left and 125.9 on the right.
A tenth of a beat per minute. Nothing.
What you hear
Start both together and you get the phasing from the previous lesson - but it does not stay still. It changes, slowly, and then opens into an echo. Then more of an echo.
Back to the hands: in the last lesson they sat exactly on top of each other and stayed there. Now one is sliding, very slowly, and more of the hand underneath appears with every second.
Why it is slow
Because the difference is a tenth of a BPM. The two tracks are separating at a rate of a tenth of a beat every minute - so for the first thirty seconds they sound close to right, and then the gap becomes audible, and then obvious.
That is worth understanding properly, because it explains the single most frustrating experience in early DJing: a mix that sounded perfect and had fallen apart by the time you looked up. It was never matched. It was close enough that the error had not yet accumulated into something you could hear.
The distinction being built
Two lessons, two sounds:
- Phasing that stays the same - the tempos match, the positions are close.
- Phasing that changes - the tempos do not match.
That is the diagnostic the whole of beatmatching rests on, and the next lesson is about what to do with it.
Contents of the video
Video 21, ladies and gentlemen. The track I'm using is by Mr Lenny Fontana, a track entitled True House Stories, and it's on Karmic Power Records. Now, in video 20, we had the same track, we had Pitches Dead Center and so on. In this video now, we're going to do a slight alteration and we're going to listen to the difference between video number 20 and video number 21. So what I'm going to do now, I have disengaged tempo reset and I'm now going to move one of my pitches just down slightly. I'm going to move it so it's a little bit slower. Not much, just a little bit. Repeat the process as with video 20. I'm now going to press play on both of the decks and let's hear the difference. Now, I don't know if you can hear, but we had to begin with that sort of facing sound, but it seemed to change frequency.
And now we're getting into an echo and now more of an echo. OK, so what's happening? All right, let's get back to my hands. They're over on. On top of each other in video 20, as we played the track, they stayed indeed like that. Video 21 now what's happening is very slowly they're starting to move, so we're starting to see my other hand underneath. Now, of course, it's happening very slowly because the difference between the BPM, BPMs of each side is only very slight. The software is telling me on the left-hand side 126. BPM on the right-hand side is telling me 125.9 BPM, so there's only a very slight variation right now in the next video I'll show you how we can counteract that and we can get it back in beat practice and enjoy thank you.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
