How to mix an acapela that's at a diferent BPM to the tune playing

0:00 Look, look, the last time I

He said, I'm not doing it this time. No, no, I'm not. Look, look, the last time I... No way. No, excuse me. It's your turn. I'm not doing it. No, listen. The last time I did it, I got kicked. Right? No way. Look, look. You take the donkey to the dentist this time. Not me. Right? That's it. I'm having it. I'm... No. No, you're doing... Ha! Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just go. Ah, there you are.

Right. Tutorial here on mixing acapellas. Now, right. What is an acapella, first of all? Well, let's imagine you've got a complete track. You have music. And you have vocals. You have them together. Let's... All of a sudden, let's say, take away the vocals. What you're left with is what's known as the instrumental. But, what happens to the vocals? Like, have they disappeared? Sort of. But what's left there, if you just take the vocals... In other words, you have vocals and music. That's the track. You take away the vocals. You have the instrumentals. That's the instrumental. If you have the vocals by themselves on a separate track, quite often that is called the acapella.

Right. Now then, what's this particular tutorial all about? Well...

In music we have timing. We have BPM. We have key. We have lots of stuff. No donkeys. Hmm. What we do have though, very important, is timing. Now if you want to mix an acapella from another track, into, let's say, the instrumental version of another one...

They really... To be in time they have to be in time. In BPM. In other words, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4... The same BPM. As in... 120 BPM, 110 BPM etc., etc. In other words, if the instrumental is at 120 BPM, the acapella has to be at 120 BPM. If the instrumental is at 120 BPM, the acapella has to be at 120 BPM. is at 110bpm, the acapella has to be at 110bpm. Alternatively, sorry to confuse the issue, it could be double time as in 220 which is exceedingly fast on speed. Or very slow, half

Speed, in other words 55. But, but, but, but how on earth do we mix an acapella that

Is slightly, well not slightly, that is let's say for example quite a bit faster or quite a bit slower but not half speed. But we're trying to do it on vinyl, not on the likes of CDJ because of course as you know with CDJ you can increase or decrease the speed quite considerably. In other words if let's say for example if the CD player is sort of there for the first track and let's say for example that's at 110bpm, then the acapella at 120 for the particular tune, for the instrumental but you're trying to mix an acapella in that

Is considerably let's say for example faster, you'd have to slow it down quite a bit. Well of course you can do that on the likes of a CDJ. You've got the likes of Key Lock and you can go from plus or minus 8, 16 up to like a million, not really 100% which is like

Stop. Right, but how do you do it on vinyl? How do you when let's say for example one track is way, way, way too fast and the other one is way, way, way too slow. Now I've got a sort of an idea here. We have this tune here by Sagat entitled Fuck Dat. Now I'm allowed to say that on the web because the pronunciation here or the way it's spelled is F-U-C-K-A-T. It's not F-U-C-K. So I'm allowed to say Fuck Dat. It's a bit like that film The Fockers.

In fact, I think the only reason they were allowed to call that particular or they were allowed to bring that film out is because there was a family called The Fockers so they were allowed to do it. So I'm allowed to say Fuck Dat because I'm not going to do it again I promise. No, shh calm down. Right, so we've got Sagat and then we've got a little bit of F-U-C-K-A-T. That, which sounds like this. Actually thinking about it if I put the speed down there and put that up probably could do it but the trouble is again with, wrong place. I was going to stop it for this. Anyway, but of course the trouble is when, right here's a quick tip for you as well with the likes of vinyl turntables. When you start trying

To mix a track above or below let's say three percent you do start to lose the key so it may be in beat but you may start here or higher or lower. So what I've done is I've got this guy here which is the instrumental and I've got this one here which is possibly one of the world's best acapellas of all time. It's from 1982. My God, I was like this big then if you'd have watched, if looked at a picture of me from a great distance I was that big. Got to think about that one. Here we go. Was that a DJ saved my life? Right, so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to start this off on the count of one. Last night a D, last night a 1, 2, 3, 4. Same time I'm going to play that but I'm going to let them roll and I'm going to see how

7:08 Got a very pooly finger

Long they last before one or the other just starts going completely off beat as though it sounds like a train crash. Right, here we go. Let's put this one on here, like that. Let's put that one on there, put that one on there, put that one on there and put that one on there. Being silly now, aren't I really? Okay, here we go. Right, so we'll get... Why have you got headphones there? Put those there, stay there please, thank you. And that one there, right, here we go. Got a very pooly finger. Hi Yam! Right, let's cut in some wood. wood and there was a circular saw don't do this and I was trying to cut an angle and what I thought is that the guard there's like guard underneath the circular saw and I thought I'll lift that so I had my finger there and I

Think that's blood went like that it's a bit like chainsaw massacre don't go there right so I'm having to use my not pointy finger at the moment my other finger which is a bit difficult and this actually doesn't start on the one let's know I don't what all over the place now some people in fact you yes you you may be thinking he's going on and on and on and my god why does he go on and on and on let me tell you it's quite a few people out there that have not got the foggiest they don't know bow diddly squat in fact I don't even know bow diddly squat if you know bow diddly squat please let me know I'd like to go and say hello to them and chuck a pie in their face so the reason I try and explain things as well as I can is because I'm trying to explain things as well

9:57 Four sorry, three four

Widely and bigly and massively and huge mongers Lee as possible is so it's easily accessible to a lot of people hmm okay by the way I've had one beer hmm yes actually had two beers but there you go no I right so how do we do this how do we make a track that's faster or slower acapella wise mix into a tune that's faster or slower right stop right now really I should have a graph here in fact not a giraffe a graph bear with me just don't move talk amongst yourself I don't like editing no let's imagine okay that timing BPM you have beats but in between those beats you have gaps depending on the BPM the gaps could be bigger or smaller let's say for example the the tune the track was something like that there you

12:10 Count music, bars, start process

Go you can see that so that's the music there it is music right let's say no that the acapella is something like by the way this is the timing in a bar like one two three four ah sorry one two three four that's sorry big pun gonna move that away one two three four right sorry being silly there uh now let's say one two three four that's the acapella so eat at Joe's right that's the acapella now remember to start the music at the same time you'd see they'd go off beat wouldn't they all right so what do we do how do we do this how do we make it so they both work together this is where the fun bit starts now if I was to start the acapella at the same time as you can see eventually it would start going off beat and that's only after one bar imagine what it

Would be like after quite a few bars it would be all over the place but to the non-discerning ear if I was to stop after say one or two bars it would only be slightly off so if let's say in an acapella for example this one it says last night DJ saved my life then there's a gap if I was to stop at that Gap and then then off beat ok so here's the answer you set up your own free music only two bars which is now on radio so you have to set up each certeza and then you have a day or hour before telling people where the place is where it goes on a も've been I answered from my theory that two bars something better than eight or twenty four continuously on the state of work what is there where are these two bars added to lead to all the fact that if I start process am

14:18 In two ways one is by

Third time from the count of one on the count of one from the music and we start the process again so in other words last night DJ save my life at life it's starting to go off but what I do is I then take the acapella away let the music carry on playing find another point on the acapella bring it in on the count of one on the acapella wait till the count of one comes in on the music and then bring the acapella in again on the count of one in the music so in other words what I'm doing and I'm bringing this in and out in and out all the time now if you're clever and if you're cunning you can do this with virtually anything but you have to be quick it's chopping it it's moving it very quickly I will demonstrate in two ways one is by having them really

16:56 Maybe, time chop, someone

Really really fast but let's just I'll show you first of all so here we go all well and good talking and saying things but let's see what it's like in action right here we go last night DJ saved my life cause I was sitting there bored to death crossfade on this side no crossfade both tunes coming in in just one breath you try explaining this so what we're dealing with here is one track is too fast the other one is slightly slower or the other one is slightly faster doesn't really matter what you're doing is you're chopping up the acapella so the acapella yes is out of time but if you chop it up it starts in time but as the acapella moves on it slowly slowly goes out of time but because you're chopping it up to the discerning ear or not sorry forget that

Just someone who yeah all right doesn't matter to someone who maybe can't what am I looking for here someone who maybe maybe isn't fantastic with timing when the acapella this tiny bit you are playing when that has finished they're not intelligent enough or maybe they can't work out by this guy here that the acapella is slightly off with the music that's playing all right like I said earlier if you're gonna play the acapella all the way through after maybe even three or four seconds it's gonna go out of time quite considerably so even your grandma which would say it's out of time yes that's why you chop it up now I hope this has been a help what I'm going to do this time I'm gonna put right that's fast

19:06 Minutes gone, gone taken

There I'm gonna put this one even right if you can see this all right right but the the tune here is very fast and this one here is like just above the center point now if I make that one faster again so in other words this one here can't go any faster at all that's as fast as it can go now and that was even faster so theoretically if we start these both at the same time they're gonna be completely off but what I'm going to try and do is like I've explained make the acapella here work with this one here we go yeah and some people say my god what do you want speed hmm no I'm on I'm on me I'm just like me right here we go I hope that's been a help now you may watch this video and taking about one or two minutes and gone we may have taken three or four minutes and gone hmm well

You may have taken the whole damn thing and gone oh my god nutter why don't give them monkeys because it's about having fun enjoying yourself and practicing and enjoying because I do it all the time it's rather good fun and this guy seriously this one here is the original tune from in deep from 1982 and it's even got the sound of a toilet there we go I mean this is like ancient don't do that right upload this now and tomorrow morning I'm gonna have a laugh practice and enjoy thank you

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