Beat Matching

b. CD players with Pitch Fader controls. An alternative to using Turntables, though most dj's don't like them, becuase a push button jockey, has a lot less control, than just grabbing ahold of that record, and making the songs match.

II. Pitch Fader? Huh?

III. How To Beat Match.

2. Before you start, you first need to pick out your material. The BEST records to start with is a record where the song is relatively simple, and has a well defined bass drum. Not a lot of noise or acid sounds. Keep it simple to start.

A. If you have the means to do so, GET TWO OF THE SAME RECORDS!! You'd be amazed how this can help you!! Having the same song, and trying the beat match the two, sounds pretty redundant considering that they both have the same pitch. This is true, having the pitch at 0% on both sides should (I say should, because if your table isn't correctly tuned, they might not be! But that is a whole different tutorial altogether :-) yield a perfect beat match. But remember, as a novice there is more to beat matching than just matching beats! There is the physical motor movements of your hand over the record that needs mastering, in order to quickly align the beats... essentially what I am getting at is this: If you were to start one record, and drop the needle on a random spot on the seccond record, chances are, the two records will not be hitting at the same time. In this event you must learn how to speed up or slow down a record accordingly, without adjusting the pitch of the record. (known as pushing or braking the record). The obvious advantage here is... you can practice the (seamingly simple) skills of pushing and braking without getting confused by it because the records are totally misaligned, and have wreaked havoc with your ear drums. More on pushing and braking later... The other advantage to having two of the same records is to train your ear. It is easier to hear two beat alignments when they are the same beat, rhythm, and instruments. Again, you can say ... but the pitch is the same. Well true, but you must be honest with yourself.. just how bad do you want to learn? Close your eyes, grab the first pitch fader, and wiggle it up and down until you are sure you don't know where the hell it is (hint, don't max it out going up and down, that gives your brain enough knowledge to figure out the position, if you let your senses know the max boundries on either side of the pitch fader, as well as knowing where the center is (because of the little click it gives when the pitch is centered) you can know really easily where the pitch is going to end up) Now that you have done that... don't look at that pitch fader again! Not until you have the other beats matched. This brings up another obvious advantage. Using this method, gives you a sort of "answer sheet". Sometimes you may think the pitch is on, but after about 4 or 5 measures, it goes offline again. When something like this happens, you can physically see it (very small differences in the location of both pitch faders)

B. If you don't have the means to obtaining two of the same records, then just skip onto the next section (3.), and read very carefully, the steps required for beat matching, you'll need to know this.

3. Let's Get to it!

a. Start the first record spinning, ensuring that the crossfader on you mixer, and all the appropriate volume levels are set prior to playing the first record.

b. With a pair of headphones, that should be already attached to your mixer, listen to the record that is not being heard through the amplifier (known herein as "the second record") Of course, in order for this to happen, you must set the cue on the mixer to whatever channel the 2nd record is playing on.

c. Put the needle on the record, and listen for a bass drum, or something that you can use to synchronize the record with the 1st record. If you don't hear a beat move the needle further into the record until you DO hear the beat. (sometimes all that is required is a manual winding of the record forward until a beat is heard... Do this by spinning the record faster than the platter is spinning the record. (see, told ya slip mattz were a necessity)

d. Once you have found the beats of the song, you must then move the record in a scratching motion, so where the beat of the 2nd record hits at the same time that the beat of the playing record hits. Keep doing this, until you feel comfortable that when you release the 2nd record, that it will be hitting it's bass drum at the same time that the other records bass drum hits. It is recommended that you forget all of your inhibitions, and touch the record. Those grooves of the record will not be ruined by fingerprints, to get your fingers on the record to do this. The closer your fingers are to the spindle in the center of the record, the more likely it is that will not get a match when you release the record.

e. Ok, we have released it. In this stage (that being the begginning stages), you probably didn't release it ontime, but if you did, then great. Either way, whether you have done it successfully, or not, I want you to keep practicing this technique. It is this technique that will help you a great deal in the future of your mixing. When you think you are fairly comfortable with the steps that go into this procedure, then proceed to the next block of instruction.

f. Good. Now we are ready to learn about corrections. Corrections are by far, the most important skill in obtaining a perfect beat match. Without being able to master these minor adjustments in the RPM of the record, you would not be able to ascertain a good beat match. The one thing you have to remember, is that the a record (all though it doesn't look like it) is moving very fast. Think about the RPM of the record, in comparison to those miniscule grooves in the record that you find hard to see with the naked eye. Does this help to sum it up for you? Basically, the point that is being made here is, be gentle with corrections, take them very lightly. Oh, did I forget to mention what is a correction? Let me skim through this paragraph.... ahh, ok. I didn't. So, what is a correction anyways? A correction is an "on the fly" adjustment that you make to the records RPM's, whether it be to "brake" the record or to "push" the record (slowing down and speeding up, respectively) without modifying the pitch fader. But why wouldn't we want to modify the pitch fader? Wouldn't we want the correction that we make to stay? Yes, we do. But no we don't. See, this is all part of the trial and error that goes into beat matching. The only time that you would ever want to touch that pitch control, is when you have no doubt in your mind that the record is either too slow or too fast. NEVER GUESS! ALWAYS KNOW! WAX-ON WAX-OFF! Ya know the deal. So, enough of that, how do we go about doing this corrections? Easy (in theory)... There are several ways of breaking the record, and several way of pushing it. When pushing the record you can grab the spindle in the center and twist it clockwise (used mainly for REALLY minor corrections), you can physically push the record forward (requires much practice, as you can easily push it too hard), in pushing the record, location is important, the more in the center you push it, the lighter the correction, and the opposite holds true for the edges of the record (unless of course you push lighter). To break the record, you can again use the center spindle, or physically touch the record. Again, grabbing the spindle is best used for minor corrections, and the touching of the record, again, is easy to mess up on, as it requires a light touch, and sometimes you wind up breaking the record too much. In conclusion, you must practices these techniques and be comfortable with them before proceeding further. The correction phase is important because it is what is used to determine which record is going fast than another by way of trial and error.

g. Try-try again. Well, we learned the importance of corrections, now that we know and understand that. Let's apply what we have learned in the whole grand scheme of trings. (NOTE: If you have been practicing the previous techniques with two of the same records, it is at this point that you would want to mess up the pitch settings of the two records (or get two different records)) Now, we have the one record playing, and have the 2nd record cued in our headphones. You have found the beat of the the 2nd record, and you are scratching the record back and forth so that the start of the beat on the 2nd record hits on the start of the beat of the playing record. Now release. Once you have released, you will have either ....

1. Released it on time, and the beats hit at the same time: Good proceed to step "h".

2. Released it so that the music is not hitting at the same time: Still, you are ok to proceed. But first you must correct the record. Use your best judgement and your newly trained ear, to make a guess. Do you think the record was released too soon or too late? If you think you have released too late, then of course your first approach is to brake the record. And of course, if you feel that you released it to soon, then you need to push the record. Whatever the case may be, perform the correction. NOW, if you performed the correction lightly and didn't move the record too fast, then you will be able to determine if your guess was correct. You determine this by listening.. Did the two beats come back online? Or at a minimum, are they hitting closer together now? Or did my correction make the records sounds even more messy? Answering these question is your first step into resolving the trial and error process. If your correction made more of a mess than you had before, then only you have done one of two things... Either your correction was too hard (in which case, start this process over again from the top...) or your guess was wrong, in which case just reverse the process... If you were braking the record, then push it instead, otherwise, if you were pushing, then start braking the record. Keep performing the necessary corrections until you have obtained a beat match (notice, I didn't say "perfect beat match, this will come later") Once you have gotten the beats to hit at the same time, then proceed with step "h".

h. Listen, and wait. Here is where you are going to just monitor the records, wait for the beats to become misaligned again (sometimes this can be 10 seconds, and sometimes 30 seconds, sometimes only 2 or 3) When they have become misaligned, is when you want to perform another correction. Perform the correction so that you may determine if the 2nd record is going too fast or too slow. Again, the answer lays in the correction you made to get the records back on track. And always remember, if you made the correction too hard, and reverse the correction process, then have not answered the question!!! YOUR CORRECTION MUST BE A FIRST TIME WINNER TO BE ABSOLUTELY SURE. Now this isn't to say that you cannot be too light on the correction. This happens as well, sometimes the correction you make is too light, in these cases though, you can tell that the music hasn't changed much. Just keep performing the correction. BUT BE AWARE of what you do, if you have pushed or braked a record too hard, and have to reverse the correction, then when you have the beats back online, perform the listen and wait process all over again until you have performed a flawless correction. Once you have performed a flawless correction, proceed to step "i".

i. Ok. You have solved the first problem, your determined whether or not the 2nd record is spinning too fast or too slow. Good, now we need to make modifications to the dreaded pitch control. This too, is a trial and error correction. You But this process, encapsulates the correction process. (in programming, it would be referred to as, "a nested loop" .... only when the criteria is met in the inner loop (corrections/beat match) can the criteria be tested and met in the outer loop (pitch adjustment/perfect beat alignment)) Now. With that said, if you have determined that the record is going too fast, then slide the pitch fader towards the -8%, and if the record was going too slow, then speed up the pitch by moving the pitch fader closer to the +8%. Now, here is why this act of the pitch fader adjustment is considered trial and error. Your pitch adjustment depends directly on how quickly the beats become misaligned again. There is no simple equation for this, other than to take the whole process slowly. Until you become more skilled as a dj, just take it slow, make a maximum correction of only a single tick mark (the markings on the graph provided next to the pitch control). When you become more experienced, you will be able to jump several tick marks, and sometimes even obtain a beat match in one or two times of making a pitch adjustment.

j. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Keep repeating this entire process, until you obtain beat alignments that can sustain themselve for at least 20 seconds. Once you have done so, you may then move in with the crossfader. But pay attention to your music, because at any given time, the beats can become misaligned, and you will REALLY need to do an "on the spot correction". This brings up a good point. It is often a good idea to wait out that 20 or 30 seconds to it takes for the beats to become misaligned (after you did your last correction to the pitch fader) just so you can do one final correction, that final correction can tell you one last time, which record is spinning faster. When you know this, then if/when you have to do a live correction (when you end up with the fader in middle, and all that you do in the way of corrections are heard by crowd)

IV. Recap.

D. Well, I hope that this document has served you well. Beat matching is the hardest thing for a new dj to do. So just practice as much as you can, practice. Things will get frustrating, but just keep practicing. Eventually, it will all
come natural to you.