DJ Tips – How to beat mix
Beat
mixing is the primary skill that separates newbie dj’s from
professional dj’s. Beat mixing is far more important than any
other dj skills. Regardless of the music type you are blending
your number one concern is a even transition that’s always on
beat.
Mastering the basics of
beat mixing will require much practice. A serious dj will practice
up to 3 to 5 hours per day. Learning your music and mixing
all possible blends will give you an upper hand when you have
to spin for an audience.
Whatever your preferred music styles it’s important to practice
them all. And don’t ever throw away or delete any music
from your music resource center.(record crates) You never know
when you are going to need the old music. It never surprises
me when old songs regain popularity.
Before you can mix anything you need to know the required
equipment. Once you have all the equipment you will play a
song on turntable #1 outputting the sound through the speakers.
Next use your headphones to listen to the record that is not heard
through the speakers. Your pitch control should be set at "0".
It’s best to start off with two of the same songs. (See
basics of djing)This way you can know for sure that your mix
is on the beat.
Once you have turntable #1 playing out loud through the speakers,
and turntable #2 cued in your headphones, try to synchronize them
together so it sounds like one record playing. If you do
it correctly you will hear a phasing echo sound. Eventually you
should be able to remove the phasing echo at will.
Once you can master mixing the same record, then you should attempt
to mix 2 different songs. Be sure that the bpm (beat per
minute) of the songs are relatively close. Your pitch control
will only speed up or slow down a song so far. And plus you don’t
want your music to sound like mickey mouse music.
If you don’t have a metronome than you can figure dance and house
music will be between 115 bpm’s to 150 bpm’s. Hip-hop and
rap music will normally be at about 75bpm’s to 110 bpm’s. Of course
this is the rules. There are many exceptions. The more you listen
your music approximating the bpm’s will become second nature.
