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introduction : cueing : pitch finding : fading : advanced : Advanced Beat Mixing Once you have the basics of beat mixing to the point where you can consistently get it accurate there is a technique you can apply which removes the need for touching the vinyl once the mix goes live. To get the speeds together on your dummy run whilst we are monitoring, we are adjusting and keeping the mix together by using a finger. This is ok when no-one but you can hear it. When the mix goes live you may need to adjust the pitch ever so slightly to keep the mix together but don't want the listeners to know you are adjusting it. The method we apply is known as Riding the Pitch Riding the pitch You have cued the record and monitored it successfully. You are mid-mix and are enjoying the fruits of your labour. However no matter how consistent you are you will never get every single mix absolutely spot on. At some point (could be after a minute or more) you may hear through the headphones that the mix starts to drift ever so slightly. As normal we will assume its too slow and a slight poke is needed. (If its too fast you would just apply the following but instead of poking it you would decrease the pitch). Place your thumb nail so it is pressed very lightly against the pitch slider knob on the side nearest the green light (zero point). This in effect acts as a marker so you know where the pitch was. Keeping this thumb where using your other hand quickly pitch the deck up by a fraction (+0.5 will be adequate). Instead of returning it to your thumb nail (as you know this point was marginally too slow), leave it fractionally above the original position. It maybe that a millimetre is sufficient. This is fine tuning at its best! The necessary "poke" will occur by temporarily increasing the pitch of the platter but by doing this change quickly will not be enough to let the pitch change dominate and make your mix run away with itself This works best on high end direct drive decks as the dab and poke on these decks is more audible. This technique can be applied on budget decks but to be successful depends on the accuracy and precision of your decks and most of all practice. You will soon get to know if this is a technique you can apply on the equipment you have.
As I mentioned previously in the cueing section, if you throw in a perfectly matched record late all you need is to add a quick poke to the record and all will be well. Some people will think that's rubbish and you should ride the pitch as touching the record is somehow wrong and frowned upon. Alternatively on higher end decks it is possible to use the RPM buttons to poke a mix. The record must be running at 33, not 45RPM for this to work and doesn't apply to pitching or slowing a record down. Instead of poking the vinyl or riding the pitch you can leave the pitches unchanged which in this scenario is ideal. ALl you want to do is make it catch up after all. The idea is to very quickly tap the 45 button then press 33 again. This should theoretically apply the pitch change, speed the vinyl and return it to its original speed. i read this and it didn't work at all. It wasn't until I discovered that you have to press the 33 button the whole time. While it is pressed tap the 45 button once very quickly. this does apply the shove you need but doesn't allow for any accurate measure of how much poke you are applying, of course until its too late! I haven't tried this on many decks but certainly works on the 1210s and 1200s You'll probably never use it but at least you now know something you may not have known before! Instead of this I'd wait for a very slight pause between drum samples on the incoming record to in effect you are "poking" silence. No matter how much you shove or poke or alter a bunch of silence one things for sure is that the listener certainly won't hear anything. Using Other Noises to Monitor Against We picked two similar records that all being well started with a kickdrum as the first noise produced on the vinyl. However not all tunes will be nice enough to give you such an easy option. As previously discussed in the Understanding Dance Music tutorial you will know that new noises are added at regular intervals throughout the build up of a tune. It may not be until further into the record that you even hear a kickdrum and the beat actually drops in. You may only have hihats, hand claps etc. to monitor with. This doesn't mean it's impossible to mix however. The better you get at beatmixing and your ears are trained to hear what they are supposed to be hearing, you don't physically need to hear a thumping beat through the headphones to match the tempo of the two records. When mixing drum and bass over house for example many newbies struggle to get theier ears round what appears to be a random collection of beats. Breakbeats are jsut as structured as a thumping four ot the floor house beat, its just a bit more subtle. In the majority of cases for drum and bass the one thing that will stay constant is the snare drum. It usually occurs on the second and fourth beats of a bar on most records. You should, listening to these alone, be able to mix two records monitoring against the snares. You will soon (and may even find it easier when learning the basics) to match hi-hats or other noises on the vinyl that appear at given points of a bar instead of concentrating on the beat only. Cymbals and high hats are a good way to highlight with a degree of accuracy a mix drifting before its obvious to the audience. For example we know Trance has four kickdrums to each bar of music. In addition to this it may have 8 high-hats placed with on each beat but also with one at equal gaps between the beats. In music theory this is also known as the half-beat. In effect you are counting twice as many sounds within the four bars. Because the high hats occur twice as often as the four kickdrums you can measure it to a greater degree of accuracy as you have twice as sounds to monitor against. You would cue it exactly the same to get your speeds but if you aren't comfortable doing this straight away from the first noise (whatever it may be, make it easier on yourself. Cueing from where the beat actually is introduced on the record. Get your speeds accurate but on the live run, don't drop it back to the start of the beat as you would have before, but drop it back to the very start of the vinyl. Find the first noise and drop the record in where you require. As long as your cueing is accurate you will find that you can introduce noises and highhats or whatever long before the beat drops. The mix will be much more progressive and easier to creep in with no-one noticing. When the new beat does finally drop in over the one already playing may be the first point where the listener knows you are mixing. It gives you much greater control and subtlety over a mix. Add EQing to this for even finer control. So in essence what is all this about? Your ears will train over time and you won't need a beat. Your brain will automatically place in your mind where the kick drum should be even though you aren't hearing one. Bargain!
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