Tips on phrase matching.

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Tips on phrase matching.

If there is one thing I need to improve on right now it is phrase matching.

I’ve handled it different ways in the past, through experience I have a rough idea when to bring in track 2 but this isn’t terribly accurate and a lot of times I’m off one or two bars. And all it takes to mess things up is one bar.

So I decided I needed to work with more accuracy. I started counting the bars wich it what I’m still doing now, but so often I lose count or something and if you do a one hour set, it becomes so tedious and demanding.

Is there a better way ? How do you handle phrase matching ? My mixes where also kinda okay without phrase matching, should I even bother ?

2

Most of the music I mix has vocals, which makes it much easier as I can drop the needle pretty much anywhere in a track, hear some of the vocals, and I’ll know where in the track I am, how far away the next chorus is and what have you.

Here’s some tips though: -

  1. Get to know your music as well as you can. The beginning of a new phrase is where something about the music changes, a bassline kicking in, or the transition from verse to chorus for example, so the more you know your tracks, the better.

  2. When you listen to tracks to get to know them, listen for good in and out points. Again, if you’re mixing non-vocal EDM you have more options here, but in some respects that can make it more difficult. With hip-hop, you’re often gonna do last chorus/intro or outro/intro blends. But you basically wanna be thinking “I could bring a track in here” and listening out for those points. It becomes second nature after a while.

  3. If you’re gonna count bars - which is certainly not a bad idea - then obviously don’t bother counting from the beginning of the track. You should have some idea where you’re going to mix the next track in, so you can start counting at the beginning of one of the phrases that occurs before the point where you’re going to drop in the next tune. It’s a good idea to count like this: -

1, 2, 3, 4
2, 2, 3, 4
3, 2, 3, 4
4, 2, 3, 4
5, 2, 3, 4
6, 2, 3, 4
7, 2, 3, 4
8, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3, 4

etc.

So you’re counting in 8 bar blocks and each block that begins with 1 is potentially an in point - that’s what “dropping on the 1” is. It depends how the music is structured of course, but phrases are almost always built up of even numbers of bars, so if you count like that from the beginning of a phrase, you should never drop a track in 1 bar too soon or too late. Being out by part of a bar is worse than being out by an odd number of bars, which in turn is worse than being out by an even number of bars.

  1. If you’re using a DVS, you could use the comments section of the tag to add some info about the track that might help you. I’ve never done this, but you might find it useful.
3

Phrasing is very important!

Make it a habit to count all your tracks and you’ll notice the breaks at 8, 16, 32 bars. I used to do this with EVERY song I played and eventually I didn’t need to count any more i could just tell where I was on a track and how much time (bars) I need to transition in phrase. May sound silly but count (1,2,3,4 - 2,2,3,4 - 3,2,3,4 - 4,2,3,4 etc. until you get to 8 on your first number for 8 bars). You’ll understand your tracks much better.

4

Traktor will count the beats for you if you enable beats in the deck view settings and grid your tracks correctly.

I can’t be bovvered gridding tho tbqh and just count beats/bars from the last phrase or grid on the fly and check the numbers at the next phrase/key change and do the mental math to calculate where I want to start the transition.

5

i use que markers and the beats to cue feature in traktor… honestly ive been thinking of making a tutorial on this because i think it would help alot of people. if i can find the time maybe i will, and also one on beatgridding since people seem to think its time consuming. i can beatgrid and q mark a track in a minute or 2…

first i just need to watch some tuts on making a good tut vid :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Being extremely lazy this is what I’ll probably end up using, but only for important sets.
And I 've never got the idea of just starting count at a new phrase (thankfully I already know how to recognize them) so I’ll implement that system from now on.

7

Pro-tip: Listen for crash cymbals.

8

and it’ll happen on a 8, 16, or 32 count!!

9

learn your tracks :confused: it’s really not that hard. i picked it up while learning how to beatmatch. it’s pretty obvious with most electronic music. for example:

tracks starts: 8 bars just drums, 8 bars drums + hi-hat. then continues with 16 bars of drums + hi-hats + clap. so on and so forth. if you have a listen to your music you will recognize the pattern. it’s all about the 8,16 and 32.

10

Umm doesn’t wave display make this easy or am I the only one that knows how to read a wave display… Sorry to be a smart ass but really a wave display makes this fairly easy thing to do

11

Absolutely, but I think only after you know the first steps of counting and what you are looking at.

I also think the waves in SSL and Itch are more despriptive that Traktors. If you set up beat grids they area also marked with numbers and solid lines on every bar so it’s really easy to know where you are at by looking at the wave ---- but only if you know what it means.

12

Wave displays help but truly understanding structure and theory behind modern dance music like the 8, 16, and 32 will help you produce later on if you decide to produce - whether doing mashups or originals.

13

Wow. You all would have no clue if the software wasn’t there for you to do everything. Learn you music, you will enjoy it more, and it will show when you are playing.

My 2 cents.

14

Yeah you are right this does make it easier.

But if you don’t have a wave remember this. Most choruses are 8 bars sometimes 4 bars. The best way I learned this was listening to the tracks I wanted to mix. Notice the changes in the track like when the chorus will start the drop will come the breakdown starts and how long these are.

Also here is a tip using audacity and traktor ( this is tedious but pays off in the end it will really help you understand your tracks). This can be done with cue points to cut the time as well.

Take a track you like put it into audacity and enlarge the wave so you can see each section of it
Cut the track up in sections the verse, the chorsus etc.
Export each section to mp3 or wave which ever you prefer
Open traktor and load the sections from start to finish in each deck.
So you will load verse 1 in deck a chorus 1 in deck b in that order
Then start your mix with out looking at the track just listening to start deck b at right when deck a should stop
Record this you are trying to recreate the song with out any breaks in the track
See where I’m going with this at the end of each phase you will be starting another.
In time you will come to learn not only the track in and out but phrase matching.

Also with these sections look at the wave in the deck view then load a full track and look at it to see where the section you cut can fit perfectly into the next track.

Hopes this helps

15

the problem that I’ve encountered with lots of songs is they don’t follow a perfect phrase pattern. Lots of songs have a 4 beat blip before a drop, which completely throws shit off…

16

“Umm doesn’t wave display make this easy or am I the only one that knows how to read a wave display… Sorry to be a smart ass but really a wave display makes this fairly easy thing to do”

waves are ok for judging distance if the songs are roughly the same length… if one song is 2 minutes and one is 3 or 4.. gauging it by the wave is not so accurate… beats to q is the pro way to do it imho.. and i really appreciate the new time to cue feature as well, its great for accapellas and vocal samples etc that cant be counted in beats.

i basically just mark all important or interesting changes on each new track i bring into my collection. after beatgridding of course. then i “rate” with stars each track by energy or feel, and break into folders of 10 bpm intervals. this way i can be sure that any time i play i can have a palate of songs that i know will work together without having to make a cohesive set. i know its not my own idea per se,but this workflow has been my digital djing evolution, and the feeling i get while playing out now is alot different then the days of playing from crates of records.

17

Haha well yes with software there’s waves and with this being a software based community one would assume he is talking software… Before software it’s called being musically keen and know basic music theory… Also could read grooves on records… Yes I just said that and knowing your tracks make a hell of a difference… Learn the basic then a wave display will be there… Now for your attack about without software I would be clueless cdj1000mk series had waveform display by 2002 or 2003 now since likely don’t consider firmware software your point is invalid as firmware is software… Who’s clueless now…

18

Edit here don’t use beatgrids myself or sync beat match manually and can’t read a waveform display the only catch here is vocals as they do not show in a waveform display so don’t get caught with a vocal on vocal for some bad sounding mash up mess of a dog orgy

19

Nice, did not know that.

20

just listen to your tracks and practice ya mixing with them a lot and you should pick it up. Plus with digital and cue points it’s easy to alter intros/outros anyway. Set a cue marker when u want to mix in/out and if for instance your outro is 16 bars but your mixing a track with an 8 bar intro, u used to have start ya mix halfway through track 1 outro, now u can start it at the beginning of the outro and loop track 2 intro or just hit ya cue to restart the intro and make a longer better sounding mix anyway.

Practice and listening is the key, in vinyl days you picked this up while learning to beatmatch but i suppose thats not the case as much today.