Mix Music Using Beatmatching
Beatmatching entails seamlessly matching the tempo of two songs so that the beats of the two songs hit at the same time when both are played simultaneously. The technique was developed so that there would be no time lag between songs on a dance floor making people stay on the dance floor at the end of a song rather than leaving. Beatmatching manually (by ear) can be performed using vinyl, CDs and even software.
Contents
Steps
Cueing Your Song
- Get two vinyl turntables. You will need to use both at the same time in order to beatmatch your two songs.
- If using CD players then you will also need two. You will need two CD players in order to play two songs at the same time and work to beatmatch them.
- Choose two songs that you know very well. These are the songs you will first try to beatmatch. It is best to choose two songs that you know well because it makes it easier when first learning how to beatmatch. It is also best to choose two songs of the same genre with similar beats per minute (BPM)(+/-5 BPM) and the same time signature as these will be easier to beatmatch as a beginner.
- Most house songs will have a 4/4 time signature and around 120-130 BPM.
- Adjust your headphones so that they cover one ear and play track B. This is so that you can hear track A through the speakers and track B through the headphones. Track A would be the song playing to the audience and track B would be the next song in the set if you were performing.
- You should also turn off or cover up the BPM and waveform readers with sticky notes. The point of this exercise is to learn how to beatmatch by ear so using these readers would be cheating.
- Cue track B on the first beat of a bar. Find the first beat of the song by starting to play the song and then stopping the record as soon as you hear the first beat. Then turn the record back and forth through the beat position to locate it precisely. Cueing the record means that the needle is slightly behind the beat position.
- On a CD player play the track and then press pause as soon as you hear the first beat. Rewind a little using the seek buttons or jog wheel to find the point just before the first beat. You may also set a “cue point” for future use by pressing the Cue button just before the first beat of the track.
- Although most professional CD decks claim to start instantly there will always be a slight delay between pressing play and the track actually beginning to play. You will have to get used to your individual CD player and adjust your cue point accordingly.
- Some songs have a buildup or lead-in at the beginning so you may have to move past that to get to the first beat.
Syncing the Beats
- Start track B so that it lines up with the beat of track A. Remove your finger from the record to start track B. It is best to start on the first beat of a bar or, even better, a phrase so that the flow of both tracks happen simultaneously.
- A bar is a group of repeating beats with the first beat usually sounding heavier or having a slightly different sound. There might be a sudden snare kick, a new baseline or start of a synthesizer lead.
- A phrase is a set of bars that repeat, as in a chorus. House music almost always will have 32 beat phrases, but 8 and 16 beat phrases are also common.
- On a CD player you will start track B by pressing the Play/Pause button.
- Speed up or slow down one of your tracks to correct any lag. If you have started track B slightly off from the beat of track A then you will need to either speed up or slow down track B to get its beats to match.
- To speed up the track you can either give the record a slight push near the edge of the center label or twirl the spindle clockwise using your index finger and thumb.
- To slow down the track you can gently touch the outer edge of the record with your finger.
- If the records get further apart after your correction then you corrected in the wrong direction! Simply correct in the opposite direction to fix the problem.
- On a CD player you can either use the Pitch bend button to speed up or slow down the track or rotate the jog wheel if the CD decks have them. Rotating the jog clockwise will speed up the track while rotating counterclockwise slows down the track. Both the Pitch bend buttons and jog wheel may vary considerably between different models so you should familiarize yourself with whichever player you will be using.
Adjusting the Pitch
- Figure out which track is faster or slower than the other. Pick an easily recognizable sound in track B that plays once or twice per bar. As you play track B at the same time as track A concentrate only on this sound and listen to where it falls on track A. You should start to notice that it either falls behind or races ahead of where it should be on track A.
- Although it is easy to notice that the tracks are not at the same tempo, it may be difficult to determine which one is going faster or slower than the other.
- After a time the tracks will be so far apart that it becomes confusing to determine which is slower or faster. If this occurs stop track B and cue it to start over again.
- Speed up or slow down the pitch of track B to match the tempo of track A. Use the pitch control slider to speed up or slow down track B. If you have not corrected enough and the drift still occurs then continue moving the pitch slider in the same direction. If you have gone too far and over-corrected then the correct pitch is somewhere in between your two pitch values and you can push the pitch slider in the opposite direction to find the perfect pitch.
- On a CD player you will adjust pitch (called “pitch bending”) in the same way as on a vinyl turntable. The only difference is that you will be able to see a very accurate pitch percentage in the display, which can help with adjustments.
- If the tracks get so far apart that you can no longer tell which is faster or slower, then stop and cue up track B once more. This will happen a lot at the beginning; be patient and try again.
- Wait 20 seconds to see if the tracks start drifting apart again. If they do not drift until after 20-30 seconds that you have successfully beatmatched.
- Beatmatching perfectly (lasting minutes or more without drifting) is very hard to attain and not necessary. If after 20-30 seconds the two tracks begin to drift you can always adjust them a bit more. Once you play an actual party you will be so good at noticing the differences that you will adjust any misalignments before dancers even hear them.
Using Beatmatching to Continue Your Set
- Try to match the pitch of the two songs before track A has finished. You should try to match track B to track A before track A is finished so that you can transition to the next song during a performance.
- It is ok if you are unable to do this in the beginning, simply restart track A and try again.
- Stop track B and cue it again. You have matched the tempos of the two songs by keeping track B in your headphones. To play track B over the speakers you will need to stop track B and cue it again by finding the first beat on the record.
- On a CD player you can press the Cue button again. Since you have already set the cue point earlier this brings you back to that point and you then press pause.
- Wait for the mixing point. It should be a beat near the end or before the break of the live song at the beginning of a bar or phrase. Preferably there will be no vocal at this point of the song because vocal can cause even beatmatched songs to sound jumbled or conflicting.
- Lift your finger off the track B record to start it at the correct beat. The tracks should be at the same tempo so if you notice that there is a lag then slow down or speed up the record by pressing the turntable disc with your finger or lightly pushing it to accelerate it. Now the beat from the cued song will sound exactly when the beat from the live one does. The audience will hardly feel they're two different songs, especially if they're in the same key.
- On a CD player press Play to begin track B.
- At first track B will still only be playing in your headphones. You will want to correct any errors in terms of lag at this point.
- Mix the two songs using the channel faders. Bring the volume of track B up until both are playing in the speakers. Make sure there's a reasonable time during which both songs are playing (at least 15 seconds) and then slowly fade out track A. As you crossfade, no one will know when track A is finished, and they will have the feeling that only the vocals have changed.
- Start the same process with the next song. Now you can repeat the beatmatching process with the next song in your set by placing the new vinyl or CD on deck A. This time you will be beatmatching the new song to track B.
Tips
- Beatmatching by ear using software uses the same processes but with the buttons and features of your particular software system. It is best to cover up the BPM and waveform images so that you do not cheat while learning.
- A simple DJ trick is to have an "escape track" at hand. Those are tracks beginning with flat beat that are easy to sync. If you feel you can't mix the desired song in time, put on the escape track to keep the music from stopping.
- Try to record your mixes. Many MP3 mixing programs have MP3 or WAV recording abilities. If you're using other playback devices such as CDJs or turntables, you may use a tape recorder, or plug the output of the mixer in the LINE IN of your sound card. Listen to the recorded mix and make a note of your mistakes as you practice.
- If you do not wish to learn how to beat match manually (by ear) you can use the "Sync" button on many software systems when mixing songs.
- Even after you can easily beatmatch two songs you may notice differences in volume, the tracks being out of tune or the records sounding all jumbled up. The next step is to learn to mix songs together by taking in all these factors.
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