TECHNEWS IN ASSOCIATION WITH


POINT BLANK’S DJ TIP OF THE WEEK


DJ 101 – THE FOUNDATIONS OF BEATMATCHING


BEN BRISTOW DEMONSTRATES THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF BEATMATCHING ON PIONEER’S NEW ERGO CONTROLLER


POINT BLANK ONLINE SCHOOL brings you weekly fresh nuggets of music production advice courtesy of our team of pro producer course developers and tutors… “This week we got the chance to have a play around with Pioneer’s DDJ-ERGO-V. As an entry-level product with a selection of the cool features that you will find on some of Pioneer’s more expensive decks, this is a great option for DJ’s who want something portable and easy to get to grips with. So in this tutorial, with those of you just learning to mix in mind, I have explained the building blocks of beatmatching: beats, bars and phrases.


Most modern dance music genres are structured in a specific way to make them ‘DJ friendly’. They are usually in a 4/4 time signature, meaning that there are four main (quarter note or crotchet) beats in every bar. In house music each beat is usually marked by a kick drum. As a general rule you should find that tracks are structured so that there are eight bars in every short section of music - commonly known as a phrase. There are therefore usually thirty two main beats in each phrase (4 x 8 = 32). New


elements will generally enter and leave the track at these junctions, and melodies/bass lines and vocals etc will repeat in phrases. There is also usually a slight variation just before the new phrase, which leads into the next section. When mixing, it is therefore important to not only make the two tracks the same tempo, but also align their phrases so that all of the changes in the tracks happen at the same points. This means that they can be played over one another and effectively sound like one piece of music. Watch me demonstrate this in the video”


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