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Riotto
04-16-2012, 02:43 PM
Hello everyone,

So I've been DJ'ing for about 2.5 years now, and I'll admit i was always a sync button DJ. I'm starting to see the necessity of beatmatching, at the very least being able to beatmatch into a previous dj's last song so these past 2 weeks ive been working to try to teach myself how to do it. I feel like although im making alot of progress, i still need alot more practice. Most of all I want to learn to do this the right way; so some questions. First off the controller I'm using is a novation twitch ( picture http://www.djtechtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Novation-Twitch.jpg ). Theres alot of things I love about this controller, but its not the easiest to beatmatch on. Instead of a pitch slider it has a knob that seems to be acceleration sensitive ( the faster you spin the higher increments it adjusts, the slower you spin the finer the adjustment ) and theres also no percentage range. So when I try to beatmatch blindly ( turn away my laptop screen and rely just on my ears ) it can become frustrating and time consuming since an inadvertent faster turn of the knob can bring me from being close to beatmatched to far away.

Would it be a disservice to myself to hide the waveforms but look at the pitch/bpm reading in Serato, since I dont have the reference points of a pitch slider?

Also how close is close enough? Generally after I feel I have beatmatched I look at my screen to see the BPM readings, see how close I am. Usually I can get it anywhere from perfectly matched to .2 BPM off ( Id say my average is .1-.15 BPM off ). I would like to become more accurate, and im working hard to get more precise but I was wondering whats the general range to be considered beatmatched

DJ Sunshine
04-16-2012, 04:33 PM
First off, props to learning how to beatmatch without pitch faders or jog wheels. It was hard enough for me to learn on CDJs, I can only imagine what you're going through. In regards to "how close is close enough," it comes down to this question: Do they sound in sync? If you notice that they're definitely not, your audience will most likely notice as well. It's rare for me that I'll get my beatmatching right on the money, but it's so close that I'll have brought out the previous track by the time they start going out of sync.

Getting two tracks with the same BPM synced up is not the hard part of beatmatching, that's simply a couple nudges of the jog wheel or a few taps of the pitch bend. The true difficulty lies in matching up the BPMs by ear. Anyone can move the pitch fader until the BPM of the track is the same as the playing track and then nudge them into sync. The core ability is to train your ears to tell which track is too fast/too slow, and to adjust it accordingly. It's rare that I'll get it on the first adjustment, usually it takes a little bit of riding the pitch and some nudging of the jogwheels before I start keeping the tracks in sync.

I've never used the Twitch personally, but it sounds like it's making a difficult learning curve that much harder. If you have the option, see if you can borrow a friend's CDJs or turntables, take two house tracks with differing BPMs (128 and 130, for example) and see if you have any better luck. Can you learn to do it with your Twitch? I'd say yes. But I think it's gonna take a semi-lengthy learning process and lengthen it even further.

Riotto
04-16-2012, 07:04 PM
First off, props to learning how to beatmatch without pitch faders or jog wheels. It was hard enough for me to learn on CDJs, I can only imagine what you're going through. In regards to "how close is close enough," it comes down to this question: Do they sound in sync? If you notice that they're definitely not, your audience will most likely notice as well. It's rare for me that I'll get my beatmatching right on the money, but it's so close that I'll have brought out the previous track by the time they start going out of sync.

Getting two tracks with the same BPM synced up is not the hard part of beatmatching, that's simply a couple nudges of the jog wheel or a few taps of the pitch bend. The true difficulty lies in matching up the BPMs by ear. Anyone can move the pitch fader until the BPM of the track is the same as the playing track and then nudge them into sync. The core ability is to train your ears to tell which track is too fast/too slow, and to adjust it accordingly. It's rare that I'll get it on the first adjustment, usually it takes a little bit of riding the pitch and some nudging of the jogwheels before I start keeping the tracks in sync.

I've never used the Twitch personally, but it sounds like it's making a difficult learning curve that much harder. If you have the option, see if you can borrow a friend's CDJs or turntables, take two house tracks with differing BPMs (128 and 130, for example) and see if you have any better luck. Can you learn to do it with your Twitch? I'd say yes. But I think it's gonna take a semi-lengthy learning process and lengthen it even further.

Thanks for the reply sunshine! I am a fan of sync personally as a tool, but flat out it doesnt cover every situation. I wanna be able to walk into any club and feel prepared and I'm seeing beatmatching is a huge part of that!

As for sounding in sync, I can get that phasey kinda sound in the kick drums but they will drift ( so i pitch bend track to compensate ). I can nudge the tracks back in order, but i just wanted to know if i was getting on the right track as far as precision :)

Eventually, once my cash flow increases lol, I would like to get a pair of cdj's if anything just seeing those percent indicators on the side of the pitch fader would be a massive help! BTW great forum here, looking forward to becoming a regular