Really stupid questions - help appreciated

[chris661]

Hi all,

Complete beginner here.
I've been practicing with my Numark N4 (running Serato Intro) and it feels like I'm slowly getting to grips with what I need to be doing behind the decks to put on a great set.

That said, I do have some questions that you guys will probably find really simple. I'm just struggling to work them out for myself.

1 - What if I need to change tempo? From what I've learnt so far, the next track should match the current track to keep the groove. It seems to me that means the first track you play (say, 127BPM) will set the tempo for the entire set, unless you find a way of changing the tempo. Is it okay to very slowly (like 1BPM per bar) change the tempo of the current track? Is there a better way to do it?

2 - Is there any way of getting Serato Intro to display the BPM of each track near the track name? - That'd be really helpful guidance for picking the next track.

3 - Beat matching by ear - I've been using recordings of drum machines playing a simple beat (kick, hat, snare, hat) set to different tempos and then taking those into Serato to practice. Is that a good way of doing it? I'm completely new to beat-matching, but I want to be able to do it properly on anything. I know drum machines aren't the same as real music, but it makes the beat very obvious, which I've found quite useful.

4 - Does working from an external hard-drive work okay? - My laptop is a little limited on space, but I have a 7200rpm 750GB USB3.0 hard-drive sitting around here that I could put a lot of music on.

Thanks in advance for any help - it'd be much appreciated.

Chris

[pete]

1/ There are no rules. But generally speaking you are correct. The BPm should stay steady throughout a set, unless you particularly want to do a set with BPM changes. Changes between dramatically different BPMs within a set in a way that sounds good is a whole other skill to learn. Either way, Serato makes things easy, you can keep an eye of the BPMs with the display on screen, rather than doing it all by ear.

2/ As far as I know Serato is a very non-customizable interface (I don't have Serato...).

3/ Yes a very good way to practice. Another good way when you are a total beginner is to get the same track loaded on each deck then turn the laptop away and try to match the tracks together, without looking at the pitch sliders. When you have it matched up check how close you are by turning the laptop around. Either way, being able to beatmatch tracks you have never heard before in less than 10 seconds, by ear, is something all good DJs are able to do. You can never practice this too much.

4/ Yes, using the external is fine. We were all doing this on USB2.0 back in the day. Bandwidth aint an issue with your equipment, you are well set.

[Achmiel]

2. You should be able to right click in the columns and choose what you want displayed. I'm not sure if you can move columns left or right

[chris661]

Pete,

Thanks for your detailed reply.

With regards to #1, I'm hoping to play local events with pop/chart music, with a few classics thrown in. The BPM is all over the place, from 150 to 60. Looks like I'm going to learn how to make not-beat-matching sound good. Thanks for the tip!
I did find when I loaded up a dubstep album (Truth - Puppets), everything I tried was 70BPM, which made it really nice and easy to move between tracks.

3 - It currently takes me about a minute with the drum tracks, just moving the speed sliders. I'll keep practicing.

4 - Great to hear.


Achmiel, you're right!
I hadn't thought of that, and I'm usually pretty good at these things. I've noticed the BPM only shows up on tracks I've loaded on to the decks, and a quick search online has revealed there is, in fact an "Analyse Files" button that only appears with the controller disconnected. As a result, my laptop is currently screaming along at 100% CPU usage, solidly, doing all of those. CPU temperature is sitting happily around 85C, and I'm keeping my drink warm with the heat from the fan. It's in for a long night - 13,000 files to analyse.

Chris