Any point beatgridding old tracks (ex. Beatles?)
Hey guys i’m going to be spinning a 25th anniversary party, so i’m going to be playing a lot of oldies, so i’ve basically got a wedding playlist to work with. Thing is all these old tracks aren’t fond of beatgrids and staying in beat. Is there any point in beat gridding them? I know I can warp them in ableton but I don’t have the time to do that. What happens when you put down an more then a single beat grid in a song?
Really I’d think Cue points would be a lot more important in that situation.
Yeah I’d just get your Load Points spot on so you can drop the tracks quickly. Remember most old stuff , you mentioned Beatles is less than 3mins long so u need to quick off the mark.
Also, playing a tune like “Day Tripper” deserves respect. You can’t be mashing that awesome guitar intro into “Build Me Up Buttecup” or whatever the old folks have asked for.
Beach Boys - Do It Again. Now that’s a classic 60s tune.
It’s also very unlikely that anyone is gonna notice or be I
pressed if the tunes are beatmatched , they probably just wanna hear the tunes they know played in a good order. Programing is way more important than beatmatched tunes.
I’ve done these type of events and you simply can’t please eveyone all the time.
Get ready for a lot of complaining.
If they have supplied a playlist just play it and take the cheque!!!
One technique I use on the older stuff is to set a perfect beatgrid and a loop on a short intro or hook of the song. Sometimes I’m lucky and the resulting tempo can be used to set a loop on an outro as well. More often not. But the point is that if you can get those loops set, you have a reliable tempo/grid you can mix in and out of, while just letting the middle of the songs drift (no mixing).
Alternately you can ride the pitch fader, and just go old school. I myself use a VCI-100, so due to the low accuracy I’m not a big fan of this method. If I’m going gridless, I prefer short and sweet cuts just pushing the track forward or back a bit to correct.
For the event in question, I don’t think they’ll be focusing too much on whether or not you’re in sync. Quick cuts would probably suffice for the tricky stuff. If you want to put in the effort (which is what i’d do anyway), i’d grid the intro’s and outro’s in ableton and export it so that i can easily loop the beginning and end of each song. For 60-70’s music I wouldn’t try and grid the main body of the song as you’ll be setting markers every couple of beats. it’ll drive you insane.
for this kinda situation, the mixing’s very different anyway. Often sounds rubbish if you try and beatmix, and no-one’ll know the difference!
If you have a mic, all you have to do is mix the next track in while you’re introducing it, ie press play and slide the x-fader over on a gentle curve. That way your making the mix seamless, and you’re being more than a jukebox!
Hope it goes well! I hated those gigs which had to do just for the money to supply my beatport addiction… But sometimes you can have quite a bit of fun at them!
yeah, second that
for this type of music there’ll be very little opportunity for and decent beatmatching.
just quick cross fades is the key, as the song finishes fade over and as it begins to get quieter just drop in the next track.
k
i use the one beer per track rule, so playing the beatles etc would get me in trouble quickly lol
yes I use this technique too for classic rock songs, it works wonderfully.
I would also recommend riding the tempo but to do that properly you need to really know the tracks which takes just as much time to learn as it would to just warp it in ableton… actually I think learning a track to the point of being able to ride the tempo smoothly takes longer than warping.