hi guys im new to djing.. and bought a controller, pioneer ddj-t1 (after being recommended by my teacher) when i started.. after learning for 3 months now.. i know the fundamental of mixing.. and kind of pissed off that he recommended me a controller..
reason is because i want to be able to manually beatmatch by ear as in cdj (as most clubs now only have cdjs).. with that in mind with my economic situation now.. i couldnt afford to buy another pair of cdjs and mixers..
is there anyway that i can practice my manual beatmatching by using a controller? if so, are the (% of bpms) in controller the same as in cdj?
for example if a song in deck a is -0.80% slower than deck b (in traktor) would this to equate the same in cdj (assuming same song)? thanks very much
Your honest best bet if you want to manually beatmatch is totally ignore the Tempo and BPM readouts and (beating dead horse) “Use your ears”.
If you get used to mixing using your ears not the readouts in Traktor you will be much stronger at mixing in the long run or even just have the experience of being able to do so. If you are too impatient or lazy to learn how to (properly) manually beatmatch use the BPM read out as a guidance and learn to adjust to suit by ears.
the best way is to “hide” the information of songs shown on traktor or just dont look at screen and try to beatmatch with your ears
i was in the same situation with you when i bought my controller,i used to load two tracks with different bpm and i was trying to match them without watching the information on screen
thanks for the reply mate.. yes for the long run i will be practicing where i would totally ignore the readouts..
but for the short term i was thinking of doing what you said last.. which is to use the readout and adjust to suit by ears.. however.. this is where i’m usually confused.. does the bpm readouts on traktor equates to the one on cdj’s?
for example (when using sync on traktor song a is 0.8% slower than song b) .. can this 0.8% be used on all cdj’s also?
the reason im asking this is that.. my friend has told me that part of dj’s homework is to know your songs (and though he is a very good dj) usually on his cd’s he has a note of bpms of his songs and what key’s they are in..
so if cdj% and traktor% are the same maybe i can rely on these (bpm notes) meaning i can write on the cd that one song is 129 the other is 130 and so on and so on.. because i wanna be able to mix on a cdj also
hence why im asking whether the % of cdj and controller are the same.. reason im asking is because just say i am used to the ranges in controllers to beatmatch my songs.. would the range be the same of in the cdj? meaning how far i have to take the pitch slider (%)?
if they’re the same then i can just learn how to manually beatmatch on my controller and be able to transition to cdj smoothly right?
I can’t answer that to my full ability due to i’m not 100% sure on what Traktor reads out. I own Traktor but i hardly use it.. Sorry about that.
But yeah a good DJ knows his tracks inside out really.. When i use CDJ’s (which is 99% of the time) the tempo does tend to be what you say 0.80% for every 1BPM. But this is not 100% accurate because you will always have to adjust the jogwheel to catch up or slow down. But it does get you roughly in the correct area.
I would never recommend someone learning to beatmatch to use that method though.
I think you’re making it more complicated than it is.
I dont know the length of the DDj-T1’s pitch faders or what % adjustment you have them set on.
I know on my S4 beatmatching can be harder than on the Technics as the fader is smaller so therefore you decrease the pitch range to make it more accurate.
It shouldn’t matter too much what the range is or how long the faders are.
I personally think beatmatching is more training your ears and then just having a rough guess of how much you have to speed it or slow it down by.
Yeah, honestly i used to sync first and i think it helps when you first start out as you can concentrate on things like phrasing, composition and what it sounds like when things are in sync.
yes offcourse.. infact i have a frame of songs that ive played in clubs 4x.. using a controller, ive played some of the neatest set on those nights.. but the only thing now that concerns me is that most dj’s know how to use a cdj.. where as tho i lifted the crowd those nights.. one dj came up to me and said “real dj’s dont use controllers”
thats what got me thinking that my next goal is so that i can be able to play on a cdj as i can play on a controller.. that would be the ultimate dream thanks all..
but yes im willing to practice.. just like i said before my limitation is that i couldnt afford a cdj.. but ill try to treat my controller as a cdj from now on
Make sure you’re playing tunes of the same genre. There won’t be a lot of variance in the bpm. Turn off sync. Turn off the waveforms. Don’t match by site, or the distance of the pitch slider. Match by ear. Beatmatching has to be second nature. You need to not only know that a tune’s slipping, but which one is faster and slower. It becomes second nature. Once you start gigging, you’re going to run into a whole world of problems and you want to be versatile. You’re having problems with the gear. You’re playing in a different room, with different sound. Even when it was just two 1200’s and a mixer, you’d run into all kinds of problems ie. no monitor, monitors too loud, bad mixer, 20 year old Tech’s that have never been recalibrated, needles skipping all over the place. Also, learn to beatmatch in the headphones too. You will play in rooms that sound like total shit from the booth.
I just entered the digital world. I was coming from straight vinyl. The first thing I did when I got the S4 was played with just the jog wheels. I wanted to get a feel for them, how hard you need to hold them, how much you need to turn them etc.
Don’t think too much. Have fun. For me, music’s more feeling than analytical.
Reverse processes until you get back to the basics.
Start with all visual aids on BPM, phase meter, waveforms, whatever. Start with matching the BPM, then close the screen and start trying to beat match the song. Once you think you are set open the screen and see how far off you are on the phase meter. You will be off a fair amount starting, but it will teach to hear doubling, and bad beats fairly quickly.
Once you are comfortable with that, turn off the phase meter and pick two songs without knowing the BPM (Screw up one BPM if you do and match to it). When you think its on check the bpm. Keep doing this until you think you got it.
Finally go all in and turn off all aids and see how you do.
This method helped a lot of other djs learn quickly how to beatmatch. Its what I tell people to do all the time. The tech is there, use it to your advantage to learn.
I personally made a mapping that has an encoder set at relative 25% and with shift at 125% I believe? But to me it is a lot more useful
than two buttons. This probably doesn’t mention anything about anything, but I find that it helps me out!
thanks for the tips.. actually i love the method u are teaching.. i think turning off the phase meter is a good way.. its because my eyes are always tempted to see it all the time.. sorry for a stupid question.. but how do i turn off phase meter, waveform and bpm on traktor? is there anyway to do it? so i dont need to cover the screen all the time?
if you have a laptop you just close it and it will still let you mix with the laptop closed (at least for me). and so you match with no screen at all and then open it when you think you’re close
If you click just above the track name in Traktor, you can make the deck size smaller which hides the phase meter until you make the track view bigger again. So 3 quick taps on the mouse and the phase meter is revealed again showing you how well you’ve matched. It’s worth noting that you must set the grid marker well for the phase meter to actually represent something which resembles the right thing.
i hope i can learn how to beatmatch quick.. the reason is because i haven’t done this for a while 