So fella’s i’ve been at it for about 7 months now, practicing practicing PRACTICING, and I am fairly confident about my mixing skills. I know beat matching is very basic stuff but I still seem to struggle a bit. (I got 2 cdj200’s btw)
Now I can match the two tunes fairly easy and quick, it’s keeping them in beat for a long time that I’m struggling with. It will seem perfectly matched but there you have it after 10 or 15 seconds it’ll start to drift off. Usually I use the jog’s and slightly increase/decrease the pitch.
However, it always seems to be a tiny bit too fast or too slow!
No matter how small the movement, even in 0.02% accuracy I can’t seem to get it synced up properly unless I spend a minute or so finding the EXACT spot and I mean movements of 0.05 mm at most.
It’s either that or I have to use the jog constantly and I loose time to properly EQ and use effects… and the joggs aren’t actually pleasant on the 200’s. So it’s giving me a pretty hard time to pull off a solid mix of 30 minutes to an hour without having the beats go off.
Looping is giving me a hard time as well. They two tracks can run at the same speed but when I use auto loop it’ll go off instantly, even when I press that button at the EXACT ammount of time, it won’t make a tight loop.
I guess I’m just frustrated, as I expected to be able to do this kind of thing by now quite easily. So how do you cdj guys beatmatch? Do you ride the pitch constantly or use the platter? I would really like some insight in techniques others are using to sync up their tracks and shizz.
if its going off in about 10 seconds then your pitch is just off. Thats pretty fast to have your mix go out, if it was in mix. When I beatmatch a track I listen to it for a good, 20-30 seconds so I know its on pretty good, I mix all my tracks all in my headphones as well. Even then once I am mixing fully I’m constantly touching the jog or pitch to make sure it stays on. If you are expecting a 128 to stay with a 128 just cause the cdj says it is right then it will eventually come out of mix. You will notice top djs in their videos always adjust the track via pitch or jog. CDJs bpm detection is great, but its not perfect, therefore there is constant adjustment. Once I’m on point I usually can go for about a 1min or so without drifting, thats usually enough time for me to mix out and wait for the phase of the next track to help me mix out perfectly.
Also if you are using cdj 200s and the looping function that just hard. Sorry but making loops on old cdjs and expecting the button pressing to be perfect will almost always be off slightly.
And I’ll just add - coming from a more traditional vinyl background and now DVS perspective, you shouldn’t be worrying yourself with the effects bank(s) so much until you can get the beat matching skill down cold. At least in my opinion, I think with the new technology at our disposal we’ve seen some DJ’s using too many effects. I think the fx we have now can sound amazing, but too often it’s just overboard with the dj spending almost the entire track twiddling with the efx and eq bank. There’s a skill to it, and I feel like moderation in the twiddling is important. As far as EQ’ing, I certainly will eq during a mix when its appropriate, especially if the tracks are not harmonically compliant. There is a bit of multitasking that you will need to get used to also - one hand on the CDJ/Turntable keeping it on beat with the other adjusting the fader or pulling / dropping the bass.
As guilty blade said, all professional dj’s using cdj’s will be doing some minor adjustments to the jog wheels when in the middle of a mix, or just riding the pitch slider to keep it in time. A lot of people act like it’s really easy to do, but it is a skill that has to be practiced, especially if you want to keep two tracks mixed for 2+ minutes: you had better be able to discern which track is ahead/behind, and by how much before it becomes noticeably audible through the main speakers. Frankly, on this point it seems to me that 90+% of the crowd doesn’t even notice when the beat gets slightly off. I’ve heard the beginnings of a trainwreak and the rest of the crowd is just dancing away - oblivious because generally people just don’t care. They are there to party and have a good time and don’t have an ear for the intricacies of a “mix” that dj’s have; meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking “he’s loosing it - oh shit, speed up the new track buddy … ah, ok, there we go, we’re good again.”
I’ve never touched a CDJ 200 so I don’t know how they feel, but if the jog wheels aren’t working very well for you, perhaps the next best thing is to really master the art of pitch bending. If you have that down, you will never need to touch the platter/jog wheel again.
[quote=““Nicky H””]
I find it pretty funny watching dj’s ride the pitch control during a mix, cos they’re usually useless, and their mixes are awful.
[/quote]
Riding the pitch is the best way to keep tracks beat matched. It is much more difficult than the ol’ push or pull on the platter/spindle tweak - but you avoid the noticeable rise/drop in pitch you get from nudging.
I can’t do - but have maximum respect for those that can do it well.
It is NOT for beginners, though. Learn to nudge/tweak/push/pull first.
riding the pitch came from vinyl djing, cos it was near impossible to nudge a track forward in time without it sounding silly, then again you could slow down the one playing very slightly, but that was always noticeable as well.
^^ what? I’ve found that it’s quite easy with practice to get to a point where you can nudge a vinyl without there being a noticeable pitch difference. I’ve never rode the pitch faders.
Hmm I guess I’m focusing too much on the EQing and effects and underestimated the skill of beat matching hehe… off to practice, practice and PRACTICE again ^^
I’m going to go ahead and disagree that dj’s who ride the pitch during a mix are “usually useless, and their mixes are awful.” Dj Sneak for one I know typically will ride the pitch more often than making jog adjustments, especially once he’s actually mixing. I’m going to go ahead and say his mixes are not “awful.” It’s a skill. I’ve never been able to reliably pitch bend to the point that I would be comfortable doing it live. I have seen some dj’s back in the day who were masters at it - never having to touch the record except to start/stop. Seeing it live was really something special.
Not only that, but the man can actually ride the pitch AND accept your fist bumping with his mixer hand in the middle of a mix and keep it sounding good.
If you’re playing out, I find a good skill to learn along riding the pitch is being able to hold back friends (or friends of friends) coming into the booth for a few seconds. They’re the first cause of trainwrecks, skipping records being a distant second.
