Newbie Pitch Fader Question
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  1. #1
    Tech Guru Gryz's Avatar
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    Default Newbie Pitch Fader Question

    Ok, so I guess this can either be answered very easily or very detailed depending on your own specific method of DJing, but this is just something I don't understand.

    I guess it would help to tell what genre of music I want to play....progressive trance I would say. Well my question is this:

    Say you start with a song that is about 130 bpm. Then you find your next song and it's say, 136 bpm. Now I know a lot of people just hit the sync button like me on Traktor and having the first song as the master, the second song drops down to 130 bpm as well. Now this is where I don't understand....now your songs that are supposed to be at 140+ are dropped all the way down the the tempo of the very first song. This isn't right, right?

    A simpler way that I thought you all might do it this. Pick a song, sync it to the next (that is pretty close to the same tempo) and then gradually pitch fade it throughout the song to match pretty closely the tempo of the incoming song (which could be a much higher temp). It won't be perfect, so then hit sync again...thus matching the tempo to all the new incoming songs?

    Sorry for all the info, that's the easiest I could explain my question at the time.
    Last edited by Gryz; 04-30-2010 at 05:06 PM.

  2. #2
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    I personally don't do that, specially since it will throw the keys off, and if you're bumping an extra 6 BPM on the pitch fader, it will sound noticeable. I either program my sets to gradually move upwards in BPM value (a gradual increase over a few tracks, never within one), or use a combination of cue point sampling, effects, or conducting a cumulative BPM value across all tracks to see where the middle ground or "BPM average" is rather than forcing everything to the lowest or highest value.

  3. #3
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    Well, scratch that. I guess key correction could help in that department, but I would still be cautious of it throwing the general feel off in a track by cranking all the incremental changes in BPM to bridge a set together within a short span of a few minutes.

  4. #4
    Tech Guru Gryz's Avatar
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    Thank you for the advice! Now if the songs in the set were picked from lowest tempo to highest, say 130-145, it wouldn't be too noticeable in the songs that were extremly close together in tempo would it? say songs that were 6 min long and increasing it from 130-132 over that time to match up with the incoming song which would be 132....?

    On a side note...you say you "program my sets to gradually move upwards in BPM value." how do you do that without touching the sync button which would set your tempo back to the beginning song value?

  5. #5
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    I have always changed tempos in individual tracks even when I was rocking vinyl, so no privilege of using pitch correction. If done right it's not noticeable, or if done noticeably you have to do it right.
    The first way is to do it slowly. I can confirm it's not noticeable as I have always watched the crowd when I do it to see if I get any confused people looking at me. So far I haven't had one person look at me or have their dancing go off time (there is actually a science behind this I read somewhere, if you change the pitch slowly enough the human brain can't register it to a certain extent). The best time to do it is when the music is building up as it blends in with the energy of the track.
    The second way is to do it blatantly. Again when the music is building up or even on short a drum fill. If you know how to do it and when to do it you can just slam the pitch fader up. Obviously do it with style. If I drop a track and I think it should be faster I do it in such a way I get good crowd feedback from it. A few cheers here and there when people feel the pace of the music blatantly speed up, adds to the vibe.
    You can also wait for a break in the music and be sneaky about it, if there is no percussion just pads or wooshes etc, no one will even no the pitch has changed until the music comes back in (and only a few really notice then) and again the energy is a lot more fast paced and I generally get good feedback from it.
    Just be creative with it.
    Hope that helps.

  6. #6
    Tech Guru Gryz's Avatar
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    Thanks for the tips! I will give them a try here soon enough!

    Any more tips are welcome!

  7. #7
    Tech Guru BradCee's Avatar
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    general rule of thumb is to stay at the tempo of the song you started at, but it isn't frowned upon to speed up through a set, in fact sometimes it's a good thing. people that constantly try to return to 0 annoy me, speed is everywhere. no groove. sounds poo

    if you have a track that much faster you could always leave til a bit later, bring it in synced with previous song, then switch it to master and speed it up, and all the others will come with it, but drop it filtered into the start of breakdown (i recommend filtering the highs off and bring in the lows of the beat), then as you speed up unfilter it to build the energy of the mix, breakdown, and tempo change. then when it all drops people go mad. as you're playing trance i can see this working really well. maybe some creative beatslicing on the breakdown as the filter comes completly off to, thinking about it. really mash it up as you come out of the mix.
    but you need to make it as 'epic' as possible imho.

    another trick i'd do was if i knew my first track was a bit slower than some of the other tracks i had planned, was to start it at +3 or 4% so then if i had to drop below 0 later it wasn't by so much. not as exciting that one.

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