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Thread: Question Regarding the Pitch Fader

  1. #1
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    Question Regarding the Pitch Fader

    I am quite new to DJing, but I would say I have most of the basics down. One thing that I am curious about involves the speed of the current track playing. Consider the following scenario:

    I am currently playing track A at 128 BPM and I am ready to mix in track B at 126 BPM. I beat match, mix in track B, fade out track A, so now track B is the only track playing. However, because of beat matching with track A, I adjusted track B to 128 BPM. My question is, do I return track B to 126 BPM while it is playing, or do I just let track B play at 128 BPM? If the proper technique is to return track B to its normal 126 BPM, then what must I do, when adjusting the speed using the pitch fader, to change the speed without the crowd noticing the whacky sound of the track slowing down?

    Thanks,

    /Brett

  2. #2
    The track will be fine if you just leave it at 128. If you do want to slow it down, if you do it in small increments, no one will notice. Something to consider though is the tempo of the next track. Will it need to speed up or slow down?

    If you change the tempo by a lot, it will change the key of the track. If you are mixing harmonically this could trip you up. There is more than one post on DJF about how much you can change the tempo without affecting the key. I'm thinking it's something like 3-5%.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by ocbrettoc View Post
    My question is, do I return track B to 126 BPM while it is playing, or do I just let track B play at 128 BPM? If the proper technique is to return track B to its normal 126 BPM, then what must I do, when adjusting the speed using the pitch fader, to change the speed without the crowd noticing the whacky sound of the track slowing down?
    Hey Brett - welcome to the forum.

    Regarding your query: I would just leave the new track (track B) at its current 128bpm providing the next track you want to mix in (track C) is within the same bpm range. A difference of two beats per minute would be imperceptible to the majority of the crowd.

    Personally, I would consider a good, safe bpm range where the audience will not be thrown off from a radical difference in speed to be within plus/minus 4 bpm.

    Coming from a 1200 turntable background, where the pitch fader ranges from -8 and goes to +8 - I would discourage anybody from going to either extreme.

    Today's digital media players, however, have pitch key lock where the software attempts to keep the original song key while you can manipulate the tempo.
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  4. #4
    The way I see it is as follows:

    - The only question is does the track sound 'good' being deviated from? Does it sound too fast or slow? (If either, do not mix it in the first place - simply choose another record that does not require such rash changes in pitch)
    - There is a caveat to this with key matching - if you are a DJ that key matches, you really dont want to go beyond -+3 % as it goes up/ down a key (Or 7 on the 'Mixed in key' wheel) - meaning it no longer matches key. (Unless this is what you intended i.e. new record is 2A, old record is 8A and by pitching new record up it becomes 9A...)

    One more thing I will add - it can be tempting when beatmatching each transition to get faster and faster each record... so it is good to 'bring it back' a bit by either not beatmatching a new record (Just dropping it in) or slowing things back down...

  5. #5
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    Depends if you use pitch lock or not.

    Most people hear 'Pitch Relative' not 'Pitch Perfect'.

    Pitch Relative means the song will sound right as long as it's close (not chipmunked or slowed right down). If you change the pitch to the correct pitch the change will stand out as a change, the new pitch, the right pitch will sound wrong. This is also why playing the song at the right pitch then speeding it up/slowing it down is an incorrect method of deciding if it's OK to play the song at such a pitch. Your brain associates to how you were hearing it first.

    People who hear pitch perfect, very rare, it's impossible to learn, we lose it in early stages of life as our brain focuses more on other importance, only a few with musical beginnings retain it. If it's their favourite song, they'll notice it's now in a higher or lower scale.

    If using pitch lock, the algorithms are rubbish. These work by chopping the audio up into tiny segments and either over lapping the edges (faster) inserting gaps (slower). The problem here is if the transient of your kick lands in the overlap it will be lost, which completely destroys the nice phasing, mixing sound you get.

    In the old days radio stations used to play things at +2 just to give them that edge over other stations. Pete Waterman (I think) also got mastering engineers to apply it to the original recording to give his records more energy. It's very similar to the 440 vs 432 conspiracy that keeps doing the rounds, but as DJ's with this knowledge we know it's BS. For the last 30+ years we hardly play anything at the correct tuning anyways. Those people are just doing it for youtube hits.

    Another thing to consider is... A higher pitch will also move the bass up from lower down, which is some circumstances can be better or not.
    Last edited by mitchiemasha; 08-06-2019 at 02:23 PM.

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