Tap

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Tap

Ok, seeing as you do not have a supernewb part of the forum, I will post this here.

I have very limited DJ experience, and musical theory in general, and I am totally dependent on ITCH scanning my songs and listing the BPM for me.

Sometimes ITCH doesn’t come through and leaves me with the TAP option where the BPM number usually is.

I assume I am supposed to click the TAP at certain intervals or something to measure the beat, but I have no idea how this works. Am I supposed to TAP on the hihats or something?

Could someone please explain this procedure to me like I have no clue (which is the fact)…

(Yes I am your average wannabe-just-started-hobby-dj just to get that out of the way)

Very grateful for any answers… Cheers!

2

BPM are your beats per minute.

The Tap function should only be used on the downbeats. So if you count out a song with your foot, every downbeat, that beat is when you use the tap function. IF what I just said makes absolutely no sense I’d recommend reading up on some basic music theory.

3

Thanks for the reply DvlsAdvct!

I think this is pretty much in sync with what I thought, but I probably need to read up on some music theory. Do you have any recommended reading for DJing I could look into?

4

Dont Tap on the Hi-Hat
“TtsTtsTtsTts”

Tap on the Bass Drum..

“Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom”

Or Tap on the Bass Drum and Snare Drum.

“Boom-Clack-Boom-Clack”

Tap on the Boom Clack not the Tts.:smiley:

5

Well i just found some pretty cool stuff on youtube that was mentioned on here yesterday. Do a serach for music theory tutorial on youtube and you should pick up some vids by warrior something or other. Check out the ones on beats phrases and sections i think its called.

Should help you out
Gav

6

Yeah, do youtube searches. You can also get books like “Music Theory for Dummies” and the like. Most DJ training books also give basic music theory in regards to song structure and the like.

Lots of resources. Good luck to you.

7

nice..haha…not the Tts!!!

8

I’ve always been tapping all four beats. If you tap on only the downbeats or upbeats, wouldn’t the bpm be read at half the actual bpm?

would you then use the double button in traktor then?

why not tap all four beats instead?

9

Yeah that right, defintely 4 beats to the bar.

  • Boom Boom Boom Boom -
  • tap tap tap tap -

Just on the down beat is to inaccurate and would be slack. Keep it tight .

10

All four beats ARE downbeats. If you break a track down as

Kick - high hat - snare - high hate - kick - high hat - snare - high hat

which gives you the

Boom chik pff chik boom chik pff chik sound

The boom and the pff are both down beats whereas the chik are upbeats. Once again, it’ll help to get a basic music theory book.

11

Yeah but i think the guy is refering to the downbeat as the first beat in the bar.
Maybe even the first and third as opposed to the Upbeat which is on the two/second beat.

12

By that definition, then yes. Just not how I was taught, is all :slight_smile: