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View Full Version : How do change up your BPM's?



minute94
04-11-2012, 11:03 PM
Hi everyone. I'm still fairly new to DJ'ing, but i have been doing it long enough to create decent mixes. The only problem is that they're all somewhat in the same genre/ BPM range as the song that i start out with. So how would you guys go from, say, 80 BPM to 120 or 128? Would you just slowly pick songs that are a slightly higher BPM until you reach 120-128 or do you have a technique to quickly transition? Same question for 128 to 140 (house to dubstep).

EDIT: Just to be clear, i understand that you could just slowly increase the BPM until you reach your desired BPM, but do you use any techniques to quickly jump/ fall?

PONTUS.2
04-11-2012, 11:14 PM
with EDM that you are going to be doing long mixes on the way i did it (with dnb) is i would just slowly bring down the pitch, or up the pitch in small increments

Phi
04-12-2012, 02:56 AM
I'm just beginning to incorporate bpm variation into my mixing, but I will throw in my two cents.



If I wanted to drop bpm from 120 to 80 I might try a "powerdown" and when the 120 track slows down enough I would drop a beat at 80.

If I wanted to quickly transition between bpms then I would loop, sample, or create, an ambient outro/breakdown and mix in at a different bpm.

If you anticipate this bpm change then slowly move the pitch a little over the tracks directly before a quick transition technique, it will help "soften the blow˝

Drevo
05-02-2012, 10:19 PM
quick cutting of crossfader and use of acapellas and loops. i know a lot of people might give them grief but transition tracks are really your friend. either get them from record pools or make them in your daw (I use ableton) they aren't too difficult to make simple ones. when spinning open format at things like fraternity events transition tracks and acapella outs are life savers.

Molbster
05-03-2012, 05:04 PM
going from Dubstep to House/electro House is relatively easy if the songs respective bpm's are close to being halves of each other.

ie. 65bpm dubstep song can be mixed into a 130bpm house song relatively easy.


Also, I'm assuming your 140 bpm count for a dubstep song was incorrectly analyzed by your software and it's really only 70. in which you should just slow that down and play half or double of incoming song.

mrkleen
05-03-2012, 05:36 PM
This was discussed hundreds of times on the old DJF.....too bad, lots of good stuff lost.

My opinion is if you are programming your sets properly...the times you are making drastic BPM changes are few and far between.

If you find yourself going from 125 to 135 and back to 80 in 3 songs....you are not thinking very clearly about how to structure a set.

In general, you should be building sets in reasonable increments 120 - 123 - 125 - 127 etc.

If you want to drop to a different genre, reset with a full fade - turntable stop or some other trick. Mixing from 130 to 80 isnt helping anyone...as you are usually trying to reset and start the dancefloor with a totally different crowd.

In time you will find your own tricks and ways to do it.

DJArmani
05-04-2012, 09:47 PM
You could always use transition tracks... There more relevant in latin genres such as Salsa to House or House to Reggaeton.. You need to be in a dj pool for the most part to get tracks like this but a good example of a "transition track" you can use is Good Feeling - Flo Rida ft. Avicii. The end of the track has a dubstep little section you can loop and mix in dubstep..

Buszaj
05-05-2012, 02:06 PM
I play nights where there's a wide range of music. To fall down to a drastically slower BPM, I'll simply just brake the track, and then start the new genre. People can hear the long slow brake, so they know there's a change coming. If you want, you can loop or scratch in the start of a popular track, sort of build up the excitement for a few seconds. Another method I like is mixing in a song that is half the tempo. So I may be playing some faster dance or even trance, and I'll mix in a hip-hop track and let the fast kick of the dance track keep going for a phrase or two.

To speed up, I try my best to get creative and use loops and samples. If you have a quicker track that has an interesting melody at the start, pitch it all the way down to 70 or 80 or wherever you're at. When you start mixing it in, it will sound weird of course. But cut to it, and just start bringing up the pitch slowly to it's original. If you use a good track, the crowd will know what's coming and they'll love it.

3owls.ca
05-06-2012, 02:17 PM
I do it two ways...

1) In Traktor: You can sync both tracks to the current BPM and start slowly adjusting them together to the desired BPM.
2) When I use CDJ`s: I would mix in with the current BPM and quickly move the pitch slider to 0% after the last beat of the outgoing song.

sephi
05-07-2012, 03:25 AM
It's usually best to have a "big picture" idea of how you want to structure a set, and put tracks in a places that make sense for the mix as a whole.

My older mixes are all "next track is slightly faster", going from about 130 to about 175. Mix in the new track at a lowered BPM, then gently nudge it over time until it's playing full speed; repeat.

For drastic changes, there are a few options I take.

Fade/cut at a breakdown or other naturally quiet point without drums.
Drastically pitch shift a track upward as if it's supposed to build up to a frenetic pace. Trance becomes hardcore (which is just fast trance, seriously) and breaks become dnb. If a track already has a tempo change or otherwise changes substantially at a certain point, that's even better - makes it sound like the speedup is part of the track.
Mix in double or half time. 90-ish stuff can mix with 175-ish.
Scratch in the next track.
Power down and start over.

Celestial
05-07-2012, 09:38 AM
This was discussed hundreds of times on the old DJF.....too bad, lots of good stuff lost.

My opinion is if you are programming your sets properly...the times you are making drastic BPM changes are few and far between.

If you find yourself going from 125 to 135 and back to 80 in 3 songs....you are not thinking very clearly about how to structure a set.

In general, you should be building sets in reasonable increments 120 - 123 - 125 - 127 etc.

If you want to drop to a different genre, reset with a full fade - turntable stop or some other trick. Mixing from 130 to 80 isnt helping anyone...as you are usually trying to reset and start the dancefloor with a totally different crowd.

In time you will find your own tricks and ways to do it.

this^^

Luke Ryan
06-19-2012, 11:07 AM
If you can find a place in the track where there's no real instrumentation going on and its just a trail off, you can do a power down (timed correctly) and then drop the slower song at the end of the power down. OR, if you're using CDJ's or a software where you can use hot cue's or regular cue on the CDJ's, you can find a point in the slower song that sounds good when it's being cued up constantly at the same BPM and then you can put a nice effect on the track you're constantly cueing and build it up a little with en effect like echo or delay, and then when its done building, you drop the slower track after your last cue AND on the 1 beat. GREAT technique in my opinion but takes practice like everything. The echo effect could be your best friend when looking to switch BPM's drastically.

Heather Ambrose
06-21-2012, 01:16 AM
If I wanted to drop bpm from 120 to 80 I might try a "powerdown" and when the 120 track slows down enough I would drop a beat at 80.


One of the best powerdowns I've ever heard was completely unintentional. My friend's deck power cuts out in the middle of a song because his cables weren't taped down, he flipped the mic on, and grabbed a friend in the crowd who he knew freestyle MC'd at open mic nights shoving the mic in his hand and starts scratching. While the crowd is busy going nuts, he's trying to get the attention of the DJ who's up after him to grab something, anything, out of his crate and put it on the other deck.



Slowing down:

Powerdown Deck A
Brake Track/Deck A and drop Track B (preferably and actual drop or breakdown)
Mix in something that is half BPM of Track A
Brake Track A and scratch (have Track B looped, fade into it once what your scratching beat matches B)
Transition songs
Acapella Outros/Intros

borrow
06-21-2012, 04:15 AM
going from a 120 to a 80 is easy because 120/3*2=80 so if you take a part of the song where one song doesn't have much bass you can just loop it and wait for the drop on the other song and fade/crossfade the other song out instand. The same goes for 128 to 85ish songs 128/3*2= 85,3333334.

Also you could use the build-up from the house song and when the drop comes you change it with the drop of the drum n bass track. However the Drum n Bass drop need too be a hard one you don't want to disepoint people;)

MeowMix
06-21-2012, 09:34 AM
Breakdowns are the most intuitive place for drastic changes. You have to know your tracks well though because not every breakdown will allow you to just drop another beat at the end of it.
Going into a breakdown is probably the easiest place as you essentially swap same key breakdowns and it gives the crowd the time to adjust to the upcoming mood change.

As mrkleen said the other way is to have very good programming.

Julian
06-30-2012, 10:47 PM
going from a 120 to a 80 is easy because 120/3*2=80 so if you take a part of the song where one song doesn't have much bass you can just loop it and wait for the drop on the other song and fade/crossfade the other song out instand. The same goes for 128 to 85ish songs 128/3*2= 85,3333334.

Also you could use the build-up from the house song and when the drop comes you change it with the drop of the drum n bass track. However the Drum n Bass drop need too be a hard one you don't want to disepoint people;)

This makes no sense.

kyle133
09-03-2012, 02:52 PM
I have an example. Daft Punk- Aerodynamic has a grandfather clock chime sound right at the beginning of the track. I push my set from 115 to 135 BPM. At at point I use the fader start to start Aerodynamic and have the huge clock ringing sound for 32 bars. After the 32 bars, I use the fader start function again to punch in a track at a lower BPM.

Dave Daschofsky
09-17-2012, 02:03 AM
This makes no sense.

I don't get it either. Maybe if you were doing a 4 bar loop on one track and a 3 bar loop on the other. The first beat of the loops would line up but the rest would sound like shoes in the dryer.

Grifff
09-21-2012, 12:05 PM
Quick question: do most people change the tempo when DJing?

TheRabbitMonk
09-21-2012, 02:50 PM
or find a track with a vocal intro and just cut it at the end of a bar.. but don't do it to much in one mix.. maybe once or twice.

drop1
09-21-2012, 04:05 PM
Quick question: do most people change the tempo when DJing?

If they dont they should. Chugging along at the same bpm can get stale however if you choose the energy of your tracks correctly you can get away with maintaining the same bpm for a good while.

djromanj
10-03-2012, 03:59 AM
YOu should change the tempo when djing, adding a little variety to a set can help a lot.
Another way to transition to have a track have an acapella out track. Half way through the song or on the chorus, the beat is gone and the acapella just plays. Perfect time to drop another track and change the tempo.

DJhalf
10-05-2012, 08:28 PM
Everyone has great pointers. In all, just learn some tricks and or pickup some tools. Use your imagination and make them happen. You have to hear it in your head before performing. Thats how I do it. When you do it enough, you are able to do all kinds of transitions.

djslik
10-08-2012, 05:29 PM
looping and changing bpm works well. Also loop roll and scratching in works. Sometimes I'll hit the stop button on my table and then tap the platter to spin in reverse then perform a scratch intro to drop in the new song so it seems like a performance.