learning to mix

[Poison Kitty]

Hey guys
Have you got any advice for a girl who's practicing to beat match and mix with vinyl and timecode records? I love mixing just find it difficult sometimes.
Thanks so much
Kitty

 

[Jigsaw]

Hey guys
Have you got any advice for a girl who's practicing to beat match and mix with vinyl and timecode records? I love mixing just find it difficult sometimes.
Thanks so much
Kitty

I learn't to mix over 20 years ago and to match your beats, you need to count your beats that are coming out of the speakers, then count the beats to the other record your listening to in your ear. Then move your pitch control to the same speed as the beats you are counting. Your looking for a certain beat in the music once you find out what one you need to count your are their.

unfortunately some people can never pick this up and their is no easy way of explaining this. It took me 2 years to figure out what beat I needed to count, but I did get it figured and I can mix by beat counting. Hope this helps

Take a look on youtube that might help

 

[Jigsaw]

I learn't to mix over 20 years ago and to match your beats, you need to count your beats that are coming out of the speakers, then count the beats to the other record your listening to in your ear. Then move your pitch control to the same speed as the beats you are counting. Your looking for a certain beat in the music once you find out what one you need to count your are their.

unfortunately some people can never pick this up and their is no easy way of explaining this. It took me 2 years to figure out what beat I needed to count, but I did get it figured and I can mix by beat counting. Hope this helps

Take a look on youtube that might help

Before you try to do this make sure that your turntables your using have a good flutter rate on them. If they do not have a good flutter rate you will never be able to mix with them or its going to be very hard.

Their should be a chart somewhere online telling you the flutter rate of your turntables and which turntables have the best flutter rate.

 

[Superdan]

Hey guys
Have you got any advice for a girl who's practicing to beat match and mix with vinyl and timecode records? I love mixing just find it difficult sometimes.
Thanks so much
Kitty

Hi Kitty,

Welcome to the site, the great thing about time code vinyl is that it shows the BPM of the tune which you are playing, this helps massively when learning to beat match. Straight away when you put on a tune to mix you know straight away if it needs pitching up or down.

The main key to learning how to mix is practice, even if you think you aren't getting it, keep practicing and you will do a mix and you will buzz ya tits off, the rest will fall into place.

Now get practicing and get playing LIVE

 

[Jigsaw]

Hi Kitty,

Welcome to the site, the great thing about time code vinyl is that it shows the BPM of the tune which you are playing, this helps massively when learning to beat match. Straight away when you put on a tune to mix you know straight away if it needs pitching up or down.

The main key to learning how to mix is practice, even if you think you aren't getting it, keep practicing and you will do a mix and you will buzz ya tits off, the rest will fall into place.

Now get practicing and get playing LIVE

That is true!!! Practice practice and more practice

 

[JACKG]

1. Practice
2. Record and listen to your own mixes
3. Keep it simple. I’d stick to a handful of tunes, try different points where to put the tracks ‘in’ and repeat. Understand where to take the track out.
4. Look online - you newbies got it easy now with YouTube etc .. was hard work back in day as I taught meself!
5. Listen to how others mix, try n get some time with another DJ
6. Avoid clashes, eg piano v piano , vocal v vocal.
7. Practice some more
8. Most importantly - ENJOY

It’s only a bit of fun!

 

[Poison Kitty]

Thanks for all your advice guys I'll definitely be practicing and having fun with it. I'll check some you tube videos out and chat to some djs

Loving mixing it's so much fun would love to go live soon bit more practice I think

Thanks all

 

[DJRazz]

I learnt to mix with an old turntable that had speed adjust on it and an old hifi system with no speed adjustment !!!
Start with an easy tune with a well defined beat that you can tap foot/nod head to..then cue another tune up to the first beat on another well defined beat tune on...listen to the first tune while tapping/nodding then on the first beat of the next bar set the second tune going...it takes practice to hear which way you need to speed/slow down a tune. I use one earphone on my left ear (left handed so might be different for you) and one listening to the track thats playing from speaker. Use your hand to speed up/or slow down the track you are trying to cue and adjust the speed on the slider accordingly. if you cant get it go back to the start of the track and try again....one day it will click...sort of Eureka moment...If you can ignore the bpm counter as you will be better off in the long run...epecially when you start to cueing up with a hihat sound or snare or a part of a bassline ( tunes that you need to set off on a half/quarter beat) Good luck and these lot are a friendly bunch so dont hesitate to ask for help.....always wanted to try serato...quite jealous tbh

 

[Vince Menace]

Learn to use your ears. What I mean by that is don't rely on Serato to feed you BPM info. I don't know what styles of music you play but I say what I say because not everything is at a constant tempo. For instance if you were going to mix some old school funk record. The music is played by a live band. Which means 95% of the time for live bands the tempo will NOT remain constant. It ever so changes! It is even more complicated when your mixing 2 live bands together. So a bpm count is useless in that situation. Mixes those kinda records require different techniques.
Now with a constant tempo song you can rely on the tempo 95% of the times. Yes even some electronic songs change speed. Some artist do it purposely. It is all knowing what record is faster and by how much. Which brings me to another tip. KNOW YOUR RECORDS! Not just where the breaks are but also know the tempos. So if you have a song playing at 128bpm and the next is 125bpm. You know that track needs to be sped up 3bpms. Which is about 2.3-2.4% on your turntable pitch. Which you can use for any 2 tracks that are 3bpms apart.
Here is a bonus for you. How do I know 2.3-2.4% will give me about 3bpms. Because of this formula

(BPM*Pitch)/100= BPM Speed.

I don't want to confuse you nor is it a good idea to do algebra while you rock a party! Unless that is your thing lol. Just thought I'd share that with you. With all that said practice practice practice! More importantly HAVE FUN! Hope to hear your progress someday!