Just useful? It’s the most basic/corner stone of DJING! Everyone knows that a computer can do it for you, but why be lazy? Learning the fundamentals to any skill, hobby, whatever is usually a smart idea. If you even plan on DJING outside of your bedroom, i would suggest learning the fundamentals of DJING. You never know what your going to run into at a club or party. That club might not want your controller plugged into their gear, that hard drive might crash, that full drink that just spilled on your controller. Learning the fundamentals is really for all the reasons you can’t think of, the unexpected stuff that can and will happen along the way.
Learn all the way, then pick and choose as your feel necessary.
Go watch Roger Sanchez on you tube, no lap tops, no controllers, just 4 CDJ 2000’s and a mixer.
It can be done. Hard work pays off.
Spoken like a true newbie person who has never run into situation where people are changing in between DJs, or something goes wrong. Sure these tools are there, but beat grids are not perfect man, many many times they are wrong, many many times djs have to switch from one to another, either controller djs, from vinyl, from anything. Many many time laptops crash, controllers stop working, and you have to rely on actual mixing. Additionally what makes it worse is there are so many djs that rely on sync then don’t hear that the track is actually slightly off, and just let it ride cause the computer says its right.
Its a skill that should be learned to improve your skills as a DJ. Do you absolutely need it? No you don’t, but you will probably not be as good a DJ if you can’t do this simple skill.
Agreed. I definitely practice my beatmatching simply because it’s the heart of what being a real DJ is (as someone above said). I don’t even truly consider myself a DJ yet. Sure, I’ll use sync if I’m at a small party or trying to put out a podcast. Just because I know how to use software and hardware does NOT make me a DJ in my eyes. It just makes me feel fortunate and blessed that I have the ability to buy this gear and follow my passions and hone my skills. I will never ever try to get a gig at a bar or even dream of putting myself out there for clubs until I truly am at peace with my beatmatching skills.
I am a part of the controller class. But I have an understanding of what it really means to DJ. To me it means being able to mix on any medium put in front of you. Until I’m comfortable with my beamatching skills, I will not consider myself a real DJ.
It’s such a serious skill to me that it’s almost an issue of morals. But to each his own Yes, the argument can be made that as long as you rock the party, who cares? But ask yourself deep down do you still consider yourself a real DJ? haha. Keep telling yourself that if you do. Whatever makes you happy right? Ok im done!
Edit: With the current explosion of controllers going on, the definition of “DJ” is starting to be blurred. This is the real issue here.
I never said its not about playing good music bro. Obviously it is. The question is whether or not beatmatching by ear is a necessary skill. It should already be assumed that number one priority is the music.
Not trying to get involved in a debate here man. Sorry if I wasnt clear
IMHO beatmatching is akin to learning scales when you play piano.
Sure you can play piano by ear and make a melody but you will never have an understanding “why” things sound good together, or how to fix a melody (efficiently) when 2 songs don’t quite work together. For beat matching that goes for either on the grid, on the bend or on the warp, if you can do it by ear you start understanding the structures better which in turn makes everything tighter.
There’s no “need” to learn beatmatching so long as you are comfortable with how software reads the tracks and comfortable with how a computer can make a mess of it sometimes.
You should learn to beat match so you can bad mouth others on Internet forums. Also, only bad things happen to computers and controllers, CDs never get scratched, USB drives never get corrupted and vinyl never warps.
Seriously, learning to beat match is fun and its a handy skill. You may never have to use it again, but you’ll feel better about yourself if you know how to do it.
Uhh, well, you’ll never have to be able to do it, until you step outside the bedroom and play a gig that doesn’t have a laptop on stage. Beat grid sync is a crutch, one I won’t ever fully understand (seriously, do controller cue buttons suck THAT bad? My S4s was pretty bashy), but it’s one that’s completely dependent on the laptop, and the laptops brains, not yours. People who defend it religiously, not necessarily people who use it, are usually just terrible at cue-bashing, and at a serious disadvantage when the stage doesn’t have room for whatever controller they live by.
I don’t really have any aspirations to be a pro dj, but that’s not really the point. I was trying to say that djing is evolving as is beat matching. The fact of the matter is, you may never have to do it, but even so you should learn it. This is kind of silly to argue about.
I also call BS on the whole ‘your laptop could crash’ argument. All DJs use electronics, the whole thing is a crapshoot.
I don’t understand why threads like this exist. I don’t understand questions like the ones in the OP. Why do you need opinions from other people on whether you should learn to beatmatch by ear or not…? Lol, who am I kidding. I know why you’re asking. I know why people feel like they need to look to other people for a way to justify their actions/beliefs. Whatever. Here’s my answer. Maybe you can use it as justification for something, who knows. I don’t really care.
Personally, I’ve always learned whatever it is that I need to learn to do what I want - at whatever level it needs to be at. When I decided I wasn’t satisfied with the way sync and beatgrids functioned, I learned to do it manually… it’s pretty simple. I needed to learn the skill to do what I wanted, so I did… What is there to talk about here? If you don’t need it, don’t learn it. Lol. If that decision leads to negative consequences, that’s your own fault for not being aware of what skills you yourself required. If it doesn’t, great. That probably means you’re not an idiot and you’re aware of your own needs and limits as a “DJ” or whatever you want to call yourself.
Either way, I don’t care. It doesn’t mean a thing to me whether you know how to “beatmatch by ear” or not. I don’t see why it would ever matter to anyone else either. I really don’t understand. Whether people like it or not, it’s not a skill that is required to mix music anymore. These people constantly throwing around these meaningless reasons to learn the skill just seem awfully sad to me. Hell, trying to convince someone at all to do something like that seems sad to me. All of this “you’re not a real DJ if you don’t know how to beatmatch”… what a fucking joke. What a fucking joke this “DJ” thing is, haha. What are DJs supposed to do again? Someone remind me… Someone tell me what your job as a “DJ” is. I think a lot of people forgot.
Now that I’m done venting… I’ll play along with this thread and simply say that, regardless of what you decide, you will never understand certain things about music that someone who can beatmatch by ear does without learning yourself. You will not hear music the same way either. You’ll understand what I mean when you learn how (if you decide to, that is). Whether that’s beneficial to you and what you do personally, I can’t say. I’m not you.
My OP was two-fold, first question was whether all cdjs have bpm counters which i believe to be valid as i am ignorant to their structure. Second yes i was looking to other people for justification and their opinions which i think is also valid as i am a beginner and the insight of experienced DJs could help me greatly to avoid making the same mistakes they did while learning and see if anyone would recommend learning in a different way to how they did. Also i asked not whether should i learn to beatmatch but rather should i learn that first or concentrate on mixing skills then learn it.
Thanks for playing along though, i did find the last paragraph to be of help.
Lol, well, that’s all very obviously being taken out of context. I certainly don’t care about the things I said I don’t care about, and I don’t think those four paragraphs do anything to indicate otherwise. Admittedly, my post ended up being more general venting on the subject rather than a direct response to your post, so I apologize for that. However, I think a lot of what I said still holds relevance. I feel like the question of whether you should learn to beatmatch or not vs when is really the same thing here. Shouldn’t that be something you decide for yourself based on what your goals are? I know that you asked for information about cdjs and bpm counters, which is understandable, but beyond that…
4 pages and no-ones mentioned that the OP has been mixing for a “couple of weeks”!!! At this point just enjoy what you can do and learn your music and basic mixing skills. Think about your cueing. Think about learning the phases of your tunes. Think about your EQ levels. If you decide you want to learn how to beatmatch at a later date then go for it. For now there are more important things to consider. After only a couple of weeks there are a LOT of things you need to learn and beatmatching is only one of them!!
Sorry learn to beatmatch oh and 99% of mixers and cdjs display bpm that means that you really can say you need to know but you don’t a wrong number gets you close enough to make perfect by ear.
Ya right learn how to do it for real so you can laugh when you catch a vinyl purists checking his bpm on his djm
dude all things break, but ultimately a computer programs crashes more frequently and more randomly then a cd being scratched, or a USB getting corrupter or vinyl warping. Plus those 3 things are how you take care of your media, with a computer it can be so random to why it just decided to shut down the program.
I’m not saying ita bad. I use my laptop for gigs that require long set or not as big, but there have been so many instances where djs didn’t know how to beat match that I had to beatmatch their own gear for them before they could start their set. To me that a huge problem.
Yes, the argument can be made that as long as you rock the party, who cares? But ask yourself deep down do you still consider yourself a real DJ? haha. Keep telling yourself that if you do. Whatever makes you happy right? Ok im done! 
