Tweek the Technics SL1200MK2 for Fine Tuning DJ

0:00 Tunes I've got here from DJ Sneak

Okay, tunes I've got here from DJ Sneak. Tracks from the Double 12 from back in the day on Casual Records. I believe it's Casual 240, that's the number. Rice and Beans Please on the right-hand side we've got a track entitled High. Left-hand side we have a track entitled Freak Me, Feel Me. Now, quite difficult to bring the high track in because it does not come in on the count of one. It actually comes in the count of and in between one and two. Now, I've always said that practically every single track bar, this one and a few others, always start on the one. Even if it's a melody or something, the producers tend to help the DJs out because quite often producers are DJs themselves and they want to make it easy for the DJ to be able to...

...start the track on the one, even if it's just a melody or some kind of sound. And then so long as you start that sound on the one and you have the track in time, then the beat when that starts should of course start on the one as well. This one starts on the and in between one and two. So I'll just start it off first. And this really is a slightly more advanced way of learning how to beat mix with... ...end tracks with using the deck once you've sort of got it in time or roughly in time. So this is to show you they're off beat, definitely off beat. And again if we listen to the beginning of high I can demonstrate by counting. So if I count incorrectly, in other words as soon as I hear the first sound I start counting one, you'll hear that indeed it's off beat.

2:12 I can't even count incorrectly it's on the and so I'll count correctly

So one, two, three. Three, four, one. It's difficult to actually count incorrectly. One, two, three. Now I can't even count incorrectly it's on the and so I'll count correctly. You get to the stage where your mind is just so in tune with counting correctly you can't count incorrectly. Listen. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. So let that one carry on playing. Three, four. Three, four. A mishmash of bass lines there, never mind. So they're close now. So what I'm going to do is use the spindle. If I want to speed this one up slightly I'm just going to tweak it with the spindle.

4:27 You can hear that very slightly

Tweaking it. That's going a bit too fast. So I'm going to give a bit of pressure, almost press, squeeze the spindle. Now I'm going to slow it down a bit. Too much. Other way. Right. Let's bring that down. All right. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to give a bit of pressure on the spindle and let's see if I can make it slow down. There. You can hear that very slightly. Now I'm going to speed it up. And I can demonstrate that even better if I take the camera off the stand. If you pay attention now to the red dots, as I spin the spindle forward you should be able to see the dots, the red dots sort of shudder slightly. It's almost like they're moving erratically. And again same when I add pressure on the center spindle.

Of course we can do the same here. Now trouble is when you touch the side of the deck, you can only slow it down. You can't really speed it up because you just can't. I mean no. That's not the sort of thing. I don't think I've ever seen any DJs do that. Definitely this but never that. That's silly. All right? Just a bit of a tip for you. Hope that's been a help. Practice and enjoy. Thanks.

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