BPM Matching

Beat matching takes lots of skill, and practice. For starters you can always count the # of beats in 15 seconds then x4=BPM When you get more skilled you can match BPM by simply looping a short 4-8 beat in your head. Use a pair of good headphones, and listen to the song that you want to mix into with the headphones in one ear, while listening to whats playing with the other ear (your only using one side of the headphone, leave your other ear uncovered to listen to the speakers/monitor). Then what you do is figure out if the song u want to mix into is slower or faster... change the pitch until it sounds about the same speed as the song playing. Ok so you got them at pretty close BPM now they have to be matched, use the pitch bend to temporarily speed up the track(about to be played) until they are matched. It takes a fair bit of practice before you get good. It also helps if you get a good instructional DVD so you can visually see how it's done.
Here is an example:
2 tracks, both at different BPM:
. . . . . . . .
......................
2 Tracks at the same BPM but not matched(ignore the green smileys I had to use smileys so it would work):


Now matched up:
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

Well done DJ Ray, I didn't know you could count beats in 15 seconds..x 4 = bpm...'course, now that I see it written...that's pretty good!

The best way to learn to beat mix is how DJ Ray said, throw away the magic equipment, auto-counters, I have the lights on my dcd 4000, but I never watch them!

Nothing is more "bang-on" than what you hear...if you use electronics to find the beat, you're not doing yourself any favours.

I like to bob my head to the beat of the track playing, and then start the second track I'm mixing into in my earphone, if it doesn't match up, I speed it up/slow it down, and try again.

My best piece of advice is: on the track you're mixing in, cue it up to the first beat. So, when you hit play, it is like banging out the beat to the on-air track. when it goes off beat, if you can tell which one messed up first, that's how you figure out if the cued track needs to be sped up or slowed ( is that a word?) down.

Keep practicing!

Scully

If I never learned how to play drums, I wouldn't of understand how music works. Having some knowledge of playing an instrument really helps when it comes to DJing. If you have a hard time getting beats lined up you can loop a short 4-8 count beat. Listen to a song like Daft Punks, One more time. Count the beats starting with the beat right after the distinctive 'high picted sound' you will notice the beats are in groups of 8.

keeping at it. It takes some time and its always good to have a good amount of records and different speeds. To give you a choice.

All good advice guys, you definately need to learn to trust your ears and practice till you puke.

Avoid using auto BPM counters, they're not always accurate as they make out and in most cases can throw you off a mix.

It's also good to learn tempos of all types of music, learn how to count beats in your head. You'll soon learn how to estimate the BPM of a song just by listening to it. Once you're at that stage beatmixing music becomes second nature because you're already halfway there knowing how fast the song is. The rest is bending and tweaking.

Also avoid mixing songs that are way off in beat difference and style for example an RnB track(eg 80BPM-115BPM range) into say a Techno track (eg 130BMP-150BPM range). You want to avoid "Chipmunking" a mix basically because it sounds like cr@p.

Keep practising, good luck man.

ROQ out

Also if the BPM counter fails and your playing a live gig your gonna be in deep sh**.

Yeah, we call those "train wrecks" (shudders)

I believe people also call you a "Lazy DJ" if you use a BPM counter. If you got one built into your mixer put a nice sticker over it

That said, the bpm button on a dcd 4000 is a good learning tool, you hit the button on each beat, and it shows the bpm. It's a good set of training wheels as you have to hit the button, and it's your sense of beats, not the electronics.