Entering the world of DJ'ing is no easy job.There are many aspects of DJ'ing that you need to master. Not forgetting the investment in getting your own decks to practice on. Your dj equipments are not just any instrument, they are instruments made for precision and fun.
There are two important things too learn and master, beat mixing and bar mixing, but most importantly, you need to understand BPMs (beats per minute).
BPMs - Q: What does a bpm do for you? A: It tells you the speed of a song. Now before you start to push the fader, you need to be able to differentiate the genre of songs and their bpms. This will help you find a track that is appropriate for a mix your intending. For example, if the track that is playing on air is 128 bpm, it is not a good idea to try and mix a track that has 95 bpm. In general, you should find something that has the same or close to that 128 range. Even if it is 120bpm, you can still mix with the pitch control. Now, almost all mixers and cdjs have a bpm counter. The moment you play your track, it will show you the current bpm of that particular track your playing. Just for fun and in-case your bpm counter isn't working for some unknown reason, here's how you count it manually. There are different ways to count them but here's how I do it and thanks to DJ Love for this.
BPMs - Q: What does a bpm do for you? A: It tells you the speed of a song. Now before you start to push the fader, you need to be able to differentiate the genre of songs and their bpms. This will help you find a track that is appropriate for a mix your intending. For example, if the track that is playing on air is 128 bpm, it is not a good idea to try and mix a track that has 95 bpm. In general, you should find something that has the same or close to that 128 range. Even if it is 120bpm, you can still mix with the pitch control. Now, almost all mixers and cdjs have a bpm counter. The moment you play your track, it will show you the current bpm of that particular track your playing. Just for fun and in-case your bpm counter isn't working for some unknown reason, here's how you count it manually. There are different ways to count them but here's how I do it and thanks to DJ Love for this.
- Prepare your watch or stop watch for a period of 10 seconds.
- At any-time of the track, count every beat or kick drum in that 10 second period. If your not sure what I mean. You know how you shake or move your head every-time you listen to a track you like? Your shaking your head to the beat. That's how you count.
- Once you get the amount of beats in that 10 sec period, just multiply that amount with 6. Example: 20 beats x 6 = 120. The answer (120), is the bpm of that particular track. This will not be an accurate result, but close to the actual bpm.
- Do remember this, always keep your pitch control on neutral. Anything below or above will not give a good result.
Here are a couple of videos. The first one simply shows how I mix and the second shows how I get the right tempo for mixing. Please note this was done very quickly with one hand as I was recording it myself :). Hope you guys find this helpful. I will post a more detailed video soon.
