Video 8 How to beat juggle for the new turntabalist

0:00 Of these particular set of videos has got nothing to do with turntabli

Alright folks, this is video number 8 in the art of turntablism but this time we're actually going to call this lesson not only turntablism but beat juggling. Now a lot of people have actually said the first 1, 2 and 3, 4 and 5 etc. of these particular set of videos has got nothing to do with turntablism. Well, it has. The reason being is because like I said, I think I said 1 or 2 prior to this one. And that is, if you want to be a turntablist, if you want to be a beat juggler, you've got to learn how to walk first before you can run. Now this is almost the running. The first few was almost the crawling, the walking. Get that sorted and this will become a lot easier. Now again, I'm not the world's best. In fact, I'm pretty crap. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to show you how it's done. That's what it's all about.

One thing as well, someone said, okay, when you do beat juggling, you have to use the same records. In other words, one on that side, one on that side, they're both exactly the same. You don't. You can use any records, it doesn't matter, alright? One thing that sort of does matter, they've got to be around about the same speed, okay, because it does help. But again, as you get better and more professional, then you can actually start to manipulate and use different speeds, different records, okay? It's all about... Practice, practice, practice. The more you practice, like anything in life, the better you'll get. Okay, now then, first things first. What we're going to do, I am going to get a pen and I'm going to make a mark at the beginning of the beat of this particular record. So we'll get it set up and have a listen. Isn't that powerful? Okay, just there. Right, it's black, the actual...

Record, but if I just do a mark there. Now what I'm doing that for, that is showing me, okay, that the beginning of that beat is about there. Hold on, let's, um, I wonder if the blue one will be a bit better. Of course, typical, isn't it? I've chosen blinking records that are black. Marvellous, I can't see anything there. Right, there you go, there's that one. Alright, now we'll just do the same with the other side, okay? And we'll bung that on there, wang it forward. We'll get it to about there. Okay.

2:28 Bring, listen, actual sound

About there, and we're going to make a mark in relation to the first beat that we can hear, okay? That's quite important. Right, what I'm going to do now, I'm going to actually show you, okay, or let you listen as well to the actual sound that the DJ can either hear through his headphones or the actual sound that will be happening while the volume normally is down. When the DJ's beat juggling. Now first of all, okay, what we're going to do, we're going to actually sample a tiny bit of that record and I'm going to spin it back, listening to the sound while the volume's up. Okay, so as you can see on the mix that the volume is all the way up, so check it out, have a listen. Like so. There you go, and I'm ready at that precise point where I want to bring it in again and have a listen. Back again.

4:47 On this side is actually when this side is playing, okay?

Right, now then, I'm going to stop there because the whole idea of beat juggling is to let the record play while the volume's up, then bring the volume down, bring the record back and try and catch the beat at exactly the same place as where it started off from, okay? Now then, listen to the difference though when I bring the volume down, when I bring the record back. Check it out. Now like I said, I'm not fantastic, but if you listen there, it was like... Thank you for watching. On this side is actually when this side is playing, okay? So what's going to be happening is while this one is silent, this one will automatically straight away take over the sound. And then we're going to do the opposite on this side. We're going to bring this one down and while that one's silent, this one will be taking over the sound. Now then, again, I'm not fantastic at this, I do apologise, but let's see if we can get the idea, okay?

6:51 One is you're turning this one back so you can't hear this one

Also, very quickly as well, I'm going to be utilising the crossfade here. I do apologise, I should have said that. If we look here, we'll go back two or three steps. When I first started doing this, the record was going forward, I was spinning it back while the volume was up. And then in the second example, I brought the volume down while I was actually spinning the record back. Now then, with regards to crossfade, when the crossfade is on the right-hand side, Everything I play on the right hand side can be heard. But you watch. Listen, when I go forward and if I move the crossfade to the left hand side, the actual sound of the record coming backwards isn't heard. We'll just try that once.

What the crossfade is doing, it's almost, well it's not almost, it is actually acting as a volume control. But instead of using the volume control up and down, what we're doing is using the crossfade Two things are happening. One is you're turning this one back so you can't hear this one. Number two is that you can hear this one because the volume, the crossfade, is on the left-hand side and then you just repeat the process the other way around. Right, we'll give it a go. Cross fingers. Okay, now then, I hope you get the general idea. Now, very quickly and breathe there as well. I spent, if you actually listen to the music, there was one, two, three, four. Okay?

Now then, a lot of good professional turntablists probably have made tea, drunk coffee, gone to the toilet, fish and chip shop, come back home, read a newspaper in the time it took me to do that. In other words, it's about...

Practice. A lot of turntablers can do so much in that amount of time, their hands are going all over the place. Like I said, I'm not fantastic, but I hope with this lesson it's given you a general idea. Now that, what I've done here is possibly the best way to start to practice. One tiny facet. Count one, two, three, four on one side and then spin that back. One, two, three, four on the other side. Now when you start to get to grips with that and you start to learn and you get better and the beats come in perfectly. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Then of course you can start to do one... Watch the likes of the top DJs because they're absolutely fantastic. Thank you for watching, practice and enjoy.

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