I think beatmatching on CDJ’s is the best place to learn. It’s easier to cue up and has a better learning curve IMO. I do think you should practice with TT’s at one point though.
Beatmatching, manually matching the tempos of two different tracks, is the same regardless of what medium you’re using. There’s no way that beatmatching on a turntable is “better” than doing it with a CDJ or vice versa, that’s more of a “what i prefer to use” topic. When it comes to beatmatching, it’s your ear that’s doing the work.
IMO as the OP said, once you can beatmatch on vinyl it’s a skill that’s transferrable to anything else. CDJs are super easy to get the hang of with skills learnt on vinyl, but it doesn’t work the other way round to such an extent.
That said, if you never intend to use vinyl (a very valid viewpoint in this day and age as far as I’m concerned), then there’s not really any need to stress over picking up the extra couple of techniques that will never be useful to you. You’ll still get the aural experience with CDJs.
I’d say yes. It really does help for the more beginner Dj’s and other Dj’s too actually understand how to beatmatch. It also builds talent I think, and makes the process a whole lot easier once you’ve learned on turntables instead of CDj’s. I think that would actually be a little more difficult in my opinion.
probably easier on cdj’s than vinyl only because when u release the cue button the track is cue’d up on the beat again so less messing around with the needle.
never used cdj’s tho and find it harder personally to manually beatmatch with controllers than i used to with vinyl…
I think it’s an age thing, personally i started to playout out before many of the readers were even born, on belt driven Garrards (slooooow start).
Beatmatching really came in for me around 1988, before this people were happy enough for a simple fadeout.
I never liked, got used too or bought into CD’s. They never felt right and when i tried to use them i always felt i was getting it wrong.
I still teach people to beatmatch using turntables and dual copies of the same 12", this can easily be adopted by DVS users or controllerists.
If you don’t have turntables to hand, then don’t worry … it’s whatever floats you boat .. for me there’s nothing more natural than 12’s and a mixer, for others it’s CD’s and for some it’s just “hit sync and play”.
Whatever you choose, PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE ! and you’ll get it in the end, nothing is worth having if it’s easy.
you can beat match with anything that you can change tempo with, or that you have mapped to change tempo with.
the biggest hurdle for ‘non vinyl’ dj’s is to only use your ears, and to not look at the laptop screen, or cdj tempo readout… and if you are a vinyl dj - not to look at the tempo readouts that are on most mixers.