DJ Tutorial on Beat Matching. Information on Swiss DJ Academy

0:01 A bit of a mixing tutorial for you here, beatmatching tutorial

Alright guys, a bit of a mixing tutorial for you here, beatmatching tutorial. Now a lot of people out there find it very difficult to distinguish the track, the track that's going say faster than the other or the track that's going slower than the other because of course if they go offbeat slightly then one is going to be going faster and the other one is going to be going slower. So I'm going to give you one idea how you can start to train your ears. That's the important bit, training your ears. Also at the latter part of this video, I'll be explaining about how you can get some DJ lessons in Switzerland. So if you are anywhere around Europe, follow the link under there and there will be information on how you can get some advice on DJing through weekends. And the weekends are coming up very shortly as well. By the way, at the moment we're now in September 2012. Don't forget, October, BPM show NEC.

Visit bpm.co.uk, go and check it out. Two tracks I'm using here is Braxton Holmes and Jubilee. Now what I'm going to do as well is I'm going to cover the BPM readout, alright? Because I don't want anyone to think that, oh well it's all set up and he knows what he's doing. We're going to cross fingers and hopefully get this right. So, again, this is another way of how you can learn how to beatmatch. There are many. This is one. Two tunes, Braxton Holmes featuring... Braxton Holmes and Dewberry, sorry. And then the other one is Kashmir featuring Deja. It's day by day and it's the Green Velvet mix. Now, again, what I've done here, I've got a track that's got a bit of a melody and a lot going on and the other one is just a beat. What I'm going to do first of all is I'm going to press play here.

2:30 ...that it needed to go slower

Now, I'm going to now press play on here, count of one in a bar. I'll give a demonstration first, then I'll explain what I did for the first part of this demonstration. Right, what I did, started that one, brought this one in, brought this one in at the count of one. The first thing I did, when I heard the beats going off, I spun that forward. And you should be able to hear that instead of it going ga-dunk, ga-dunk, ga-dunk, it went ga-dunk, ga-dunk. There was more of a gap. Now by spinning that forward and there being more of a gap, that's telling me that it was going too fast. And by me spinning it forward clockwise, I was making it go even faster, which meant the beats were moving further apart, not getting closer, which tells me...

...that it needed to go slower. So, what I'll do now, I'll do exactly the same thing, but instead of moving it clockwise, I'll move it anti-clockwise. Now that's the first thing I need to think about. Of course, that's where you have to use your ears. You have to distinguish those beats. If they were together closer, in other words, they're like 1-2, 1-2, 1-2, and then it was closer together... And I moved it forward when they got closer together, that would mean I'm going in the right direction because I'm getting the beats closer together. If on the other hand, which is what happened here, it was... That means I was moving the platter the wrong way because I was making the beats get further apart. So of course the next time I need to do this anti-clockwise. We'll do exactly the same thing but this time anti-clockwise. By the way...

If you like the t-shirt, here you go. This is one of them that you can get from the BPM show and it has got its own little DJ Tutor logos. And on there, it's got practice and enjoy. These are all limited edition of one. Right, so we'll try it again. One, two, four, one, two, keeping in beat. If I stop, it's going off. This is sort of the first part of it because I've now realised that By spinning it forward, it goes further apart. The beats go further apart. By moving it anti-clockwise, it's now roughly staying in beat. Now I could carry on doing that all day, just moving it backwards, backwards or anti-clockwise, anti-clockwise and if I do it correctly at the right time, it will always stay in beat. But I'm going to have to do that all the time. I don't want to do that. I want to like go away and dig potatoes or something. Make a cup of tea or do an effect. So what do I need to do?

5:13 Play it again one two three

I need to move the pitch because of course by moving the platter all that will do it will just carry on making it slower and slower and slower but as soon as you stop moving the platter it will speed up again i don't want to do that what i want to do i want the actual track to slow down all the time so what i have to do then is this this is the third part play it again one two three four pitch down a bit have a listen still going off Now I already know from the first part, I already know from the first part of this video that the pitch has got to go slower. It's got to go slower because when I put the platter clockwise, I've got to remember all this stuff, when I moved the platter clockwise it went further off. So I know that that pitch is only going to go one direction. If it was the other way around from the beginning, if I moved it forward and it...

6:50 Bearing in mind as well, I've got a dangly bit there

Kept in beat, then I know the pitch has got to go forward, it's got to speed up. But because this one here was going too fast, I had to move it anticlockwise. I've got to remember this, otherwise I'll confuse you. So I know that whatever I do now, I've got to move that pitch down. That way is slower, that way is faster. Now I'm going to keep on doing this process until it matches. Now, bearing in mind as well, I've got a dangly bit there. Right, anyway, I'm a bloke. Anyway, right, so I'm going to carry on doing this, but again, right, pitch. A lot of people are like... All over the place. Gentle, tiny little movements. Also, I'm not going to look there, I'm going to look at that bit there. Plus and minus ten. For anyone who wants to do some good quality... Oh, that's bright.

Good quality mixing, try and keep it plus or minus 10, plus or minus 6. If you go to plus or minus 16, that's really when you want to start mixing some tracks that have got quite a different sort of variety of BPMs. If you want to go plus or minus 100, that really should just be used for effects because it's not impossible to mix but it's very difficult. And if you want to perfect your mixing skills, try plus or minus 100. I challenge you. Right, so let's do it again. 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. Right, see what I can do now. Notice as well, no headphones. What I'm going to do now, take the camera off the stand and we'll have a look at the speeds and we'll see how close we are. Alright, if I just, I'll do that now. Just take that off. Also as well, don't forget BPM Show NEC 2012. It's going to be an absolute blast. Please go and check it out. If you are a DJ...

9:35 There's two weekends and they're coming up very soon

You need to be there. If you're not there, your head will explode and you'll die. In fact, if you don't go there, you might as well not live, really. It's going to be very good fun. Also, don't forget, as well in Switzerland, if you are in or around Europe, in other words, do you live in Europe? Do you actually... Wait, do you live in Europe? Well, if you do, and you're into wanting some one-to-one lessons, I think this is normally five or six people in each group. But it's over a weekend. There's two weekends and they're coming up very soon. Check out the details under there. Then also follow the link and you can get information on how you can get lessons in Switzerland on learning how to become a DJ. Right, so let's have a look at this. Alright, 122.8 and... My God, it's gone. It's not there! It's gone! It's left!

Why isn't it there? Oh, I know. Right. 122.8, 123.4. Oh my God, we're well out. But there you go. 122.8, will it change? I don't believe that. Oh, well, there you go. I'm going to leave that in. I don't care. Let's try it one more time. Here we go. 123 then. Ah, the wonders of technology. 123.4, then it went to 123.2, then it went to 22. Honest!

Okay, it can only be down to one thing. Dodgy file. I hope you like my new hat. This is a new trend here in England and thank you for watching. Practice, have fun and enjoy. See you at the BPM. Good show.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.