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introduction : cueing : pitch finding : fading : advanced Finding the Pitch of a New Tune The key to successful beatmixing or beat matching is the accuracy at which you can match the speed or tempo of the new tune you want to mix with the one currently playing. So how do you do this? Whether your choice is vinyl or CD, the principal is the same and there are three elements you will use to help achieve this. 1. Your ears The process is that you have the one record playing through your hifi (or if you prefer to live the dream, to your audience). I refer to this as the external sound. You put the new record on and only you can hear what you are doing through your headphones (the internal sound). How to do it Now you can release a record correctly, the more accurately you can do this the better. If you have completed stage 1 (even for ten minutes) will certainly help here. If you are new to mixing or the decks you are using it will take time to get to know how they handle. In stage 1 you may have noticed that once you'd released Channel 2, it is unlikely that it will fit seamlessly over the record that is playing on Channel 1. We made no mention of setting the speeds and only roughly estimated the two records by setting them at approximately the same pitch on the pitch sliders. The point of the exercise was releasing the record accurately on the first beat of the bar. If this isn't the case and everything stayed together and you performed the perfect mix, chances are it's just a lucky attempt. You may wish to note down the records and the pitches your decks are set at (very easy on CDJs as the pitch slider gives you an accurate digital read out). You can replicate the mix as you practice but don't feel this is the way forward in mixing. This is for learning only and the pitches shouldn't be documented. You'll never get the hang of doing it quickly and will only have one tune you can mix into the one that is playing. You will have no flow to a set (or the ability to change the order in which you mix records) and limited by what you can do. But for now it's ok! If it works and until you can do it this consistently can be a quick way of experimenting with different points on where to mix it in. If in Stage 1 your mix drifted as we'd expect, you will find the beats become jumbled and sounded like something resembling a horse race (known round my way as a "3.30 at Chepstow mix") which sounded awful. The speeds need to be right, so let's sort it out. To create a seamless mix, both decks/CDJs need to be running at exactly the same speed. Imagine "|" is a beat, Channel 1 is the external hifi, Channel 2 is your headphones. The ideal mix scenario for one loop of 16 beats would look as follows, with each bar of four beats being alternatively white and red to visually highlight their correct alignment to one another: Beat no: ......1....................5...................9..................13................... Should the mix continue, the above diagram would continue in the same fashion up to whatever beat number you decide to finish the mix on. The good news is that most of the explanation on cueing is already done so the setup for pitch setting is almost the same as Stage 1.
Congratulations - you are now beatmixing !!! If you don't manage to drop the record in at the right time, or you can't keep the downbeats together it is pointless trying to salvage it as it will get very confusing very quickly. If you are inexperienced this is likely to happen a lot! Simply drop the needle back to Vinyl Point A and try again. Drop the needle back and re-cue it to [Vinyl Point A]. Release it as the beat continues after a big fill-in (i.e. at the beginning of the next available loop) The last opportunity to get this right and get the mix in is at [Vinyl Point D] where only the beat remains and your record is starting its outro. Otherwise your record on Channel 1 will run out and no transition to Channel 2 is possible! Just a slam-over with the Fader. Never a particular crowd pleaser. Note: Despite setting the pitch on Channel 2 deliberately low, it may be that record on Channel 2 is too fast, rather than intended "too slow". You may have been unfortunate in selecting your practice records!
Just do the opposite of the above stages - Too Fast or Too Slow? It may be that you are having trouble distinguishing whether the new record on Channel 2 in your headphones is too fast or too slow. I hope this section clarifies what's going on. Too Slow If new record, Channel 2 is too slow you will find the headphone beat starts dragging and gets left behind. Using the same formula as above it would look like this: Beat no: ......1....................5...................9..................13................... You need to apply a poke as by beat no 7 you have almost lost a whole beat. How hard you need this to be depends on how quick its fallen behind and determines the size of the increase you need to apply. The example above is an extreme example and should highlight that your pitches are way out and you need a fairly hefty shove to get it back together again. The decks however will also mean how heavy handed with the vinyl you can be. If you are using belt drives if you physically push/poke it, you will increase the whole speed of the platter. Because the motor is weak, it won't apply any resistance (due to its lack of torque) and it will ruin any chance of you manually keeping the two together. instead you need to be very very gentle when touching the platter or label, as the slightest adjustment will make a big difference. You need to be at the point where you can barely feel your finger tip in contact with the record label itself. Whisk your hand round and round the label very quickly gently and you'll find the "poke" is hardly audible. So what does it sound like if it's too slow? I have replicated a mix using a typical 4 thumping beats for ease of clarity - no breakbeats just kept it very simple for you to understand the process. I have left the fader in the middle and am mixing live. You would have the fader all the way to the left playing Channel 1 only and be monitoring Channel 2 through the headphones. You will hear the effect of touching the vinyl as the sound when I poke the record changes the consistency of the sound its self. i have also overdone the pushing to make this obvious. I've only made a few changes and left he time in between much longer than I would normally. I've deliberately also set the pitch way too slow for the point of this exercise. It sounds very bad at the beginning but remember the sequence. Poke to keep them together, monitor and judge how long they stay together. as it drifts apply another poke, increase the pitch, monitor, poke, increase the pitch. As you go you are reducing the error in pitches so the mix will stay together longer each time. I have deliberately done it in very audible poking and slowed what I do, so hopefully its obvious without you being able to see what I'm doing. If you pitch up too far and eventually find the tune is too far, apply a little drag and reduce the pitch a fraction. To hear what you should be hearing if you follow the instructions above, click here. Too Fast As you would guess the principal is exactly the same but instead of the beats being diagrammatically too far apart they are too close. It would look like this: Beat no: ......1....................5...................9..................13................... Instead of poking the record, you need to increase the distance between beats. As you can see you are almost gaining a beat by Beat 5, so you apply a little drag by either touching the label of the record, or briefly touching the edge of the turntable platter with your finger. This will slow the record and keep the down beats keeping it inline with the tune on Channel 1. If your pitches are set too fast, correcting the mix and applying drag will make the monitoring process sound like this. Again the decks you are using (CDJs are applicable here too) will affect how heavy handed you need to be. Belts require an extra light touch, budget directs and fairly light touch and top directs a decisive touch. How Long To Monitor For I tend to monitor a record so it will stay together after all adjustments are done and I'm happy that they will run in sync for at least a minute with absolute minimal or no touching of the record or pitches at all, before I consider going live in the mix with it. Depending on what style of dance music you are mixing you may find the record isn't structured to allow for long mixes or you may feel a short sharp mix will do the job just as well. For example in hip-hop. There is rarely a long introduction or outro to work with so your mixes are forced to be shorter by the limitations of the physical structure of the tune. Due to the physical time there is available for mixing, your pitches may not need to be so accurate when compared to beatmixing for a minute or more. It may be that the records will stay together for twenty seconds before the beats start drifting. You may only mix for 8 bars which would equate to less time than twenty seconds. So the mix is seamless to the listener even though the pitches aren't exact. However your cueing and releasing needs to be spot on to make it a good mix as you have left no margin for error - you already know the pitches are not precise and for example may be pitched too slow. Add this to throwing it in late and your beat is already behind. The fact that it is also pitched too slow, you may find the beats drift by the end of the 8 bars, less than the twenty seconds so you will either have to poke it which the listener will hear or increase the pitch which could man it catches up and overtakes. Its a lot of work for you that could have been avoided. The Decks You Use As described in the equipment section, the flutter of the deck may mean your decks aren't manufactured with enough precision to indefinitely hold an exact tempo. It will waver slightly as the record is played which unfortunately you can do nothing about. You need to then use your finger to make any manual adjustments. You'll only get the pitches so close, and rarely be able to walk away and leave a mix to play itself with no interaction from you. You may find that on the cheaper decks (belts are the worst) that the pitch slider itself with age may get sticky (especially if there is a region where you continually mix (+2 to +5 for example) or alternatively this area may become very slippery instead, with more tension around he areas you don't use so much. I have witnessed both and they are equally as difficult to handle. A top deck will be smooth and consistent no matter what. On a top deck you can increase (or equally decrease if required) the deck by the a very small margin, one that is almost invisible to the eye to fine tune you mix so its spot on rather than just "on". This tiny adjustment will be reflected on the platter itself straight away and will alter the record so the change occurs with the mix becoming absolutely spot on. You can stand back and admire your handy work and let the decks mix themselves. Don't assume that budget decks are the same. You may make the very tiny increment move on the pitch slider, to find it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. So you pitch it a little more. there is a time delay of the pitch actually making any change at all and if it does it may take a while to be implemented. By which time you've thought nothing has happened and you've pitched it up a bit more. All of a sudden all three of your changes just like a bus, arrive all at once and throws your mix totally out. You then have to have your hands all over the decks making both manual adjustments and trying to return the pitch to where it was originally. Sometimes when you have it as close as you can get it is better on the budget decks to cut your losses. If you know it will stay in for fifteen seconds then start to fall behind, you manually add a fraction of a poke every few bars, just to remove the fraction of beat it will have lost as the mix goes on. At least that way you are in control and know how to sort out a mix that you already know will go wrong eventually. The listener is unaware of any errors, because you are correcting them before they even happen and for all they know you are mixing on Technics, not Gemini's. If you are fortunate enough t o be learning on technics you may even find beat matching initially more difficult purely for this reason. The "a dab of poke here or a touch of drag there" simply doesn't work as Technics especially are totally unforgiving. You need to be spot on with your speeds before you go live in the mix as on-the-fly manual adjustments are audibly obvious to the listener which isn't so good and cannot be hidden quite so easily. But it can be done, which brings us conveniently to our next section.....
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