How to beatmatch dance music on turntables

More and more people nowdays are wanting to be a DJ. Its all good and well up to the beatmatching stage. It takes ages to master. Its not something you learn over night, its takes practice; there are no shortcuts. Here is a guide which should get you on the road to be a mixng-master.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 2 Turntables
• A Mixer
• Headphones
• An Amp
• At least 10 dance records
• Motivation
• Speakers

1. Start one desired record and start playing it (The song should be a 'Club Mix' - a long version of the song which usually lasts around 7 minutes). Play this song through your speakers. This record is now 'Live'.

2. Start the record you want to mix to, listen to it through your headphones. Listen for the bass kick. Thats the 'thud thud thud thud' sound, thats what were mixing. This is the 'non-live' record

3. Hold the non-live record still just before a bass kick.

4. Have one headphone on your ear, so you can listen to the other record in your other ear. Some mixers have a function that splits the sound of both record to one side of the headphones. This is useful.

5. Let go the non-live record so first bass kick is on time with the live bass kick.

6. Which one is faster. (For the sake of this gudie we will say that the live record is faster) - You need to turn the pitch on the non-live record down a little bit

7. Repeat steps five and six until the bass kicks are the same speed.

8. Now the records are beatmatched

Tips & Warnings

• Get used to analysing to different songs at the same time
• If you have to change the pitch to more than 3/less than -3, dont use this record. It will be too fast and will sound daft
• Its best to use dance record from the same sub-genre because the BPM will be similair
• If your mixing drum and bass, beware; it is a lot harder!