Archived Sections - Learning How to DJ

Moving on from the first lesson about bars and beats, we now begin with the next important all too confusing topic of releasing the record in time!

You’ve most probably got a fair understanding of bars and beats and for this next part, you’re going to need 2 records that start off with a beat and are not too complicated in rhythm and content.  You should familiarise yourself with the two records you are going to use as explained in the last article, and become accustomed to how the beat and content sounds, as this is a very important part of beat mixing, distinguishing two different records from each other when they are blended together.

We’re not concentrating too much on pitch this time, but hopefully the two records will be not too far apart in BPM (Beats Per Minute) or tempo.  The BPM or tempo designate how fast the track is, if you have two tracks that are way too far apart in BPM (for instance, a house track (average 125-135 BPM) and a Drum and Bass track (160 BPM upwards)) then you’re going to be in trouble!  Try and find two that aren’t too far apart for now, you should be able to roughly tell whether they are close by listening and tapping your foot or nodding your head etc, nobody really gets inspired by an unanimated DJ who looks like they’re not enjoying themselves.  If the DJ can’t have a good dance behind the decks to their set, is anybody else in the club going to?

Once you have your two tracks, place one on the deck making sure that the volume is suitable on it’s designated channel, if it’s too loud coming out of your speakers, it’s going to be even harder to guess which track is which later.  Place the needle on the record and with the crossfader over towards the track you are going to play, press your start button on the deck and find the start of the track (by winding the record forwards or backwards if necessary).  Once you find the start of the track, push the record backwards and forwards with your two middle fingers making sure that you only hear the first drum kick (or percussion) depending on the track, ideally you should be hearing the sounds that occupy the “1” of the beat.  Keep doing this until you get the feel for how far backwards and forwards you need to move the record to hear this first sound.

Now we get to experiment a little, keep that record on the deck and just let it play whilst you put your second record on the other deck, but don’t press play on this deck just yet.  Make sure that the crossfader on the mixer is still over towards the deck that is playing.   Now you will need to put the headphones on over one of your ears.  Deciding on which ear you find it easier to monitor with will take some time to recognise, and it may not always be the same ear that everybody else uses, everybody I know has the headphones over their left ear, whereas I use my right, it’s all down to personal preference!

An all important part of monitoring on headphones, is to balance the sound between the headphones and the speakers, I cannot urge this important factor enough.  If the sound is far too loud, you are going to become confused quickly and also run the risk of hearing difficulties later on in life (believe me!!).  You should now press play on the second deck, press the monitoring button (or switch) for the channel and balance the sound you hear in the headphones so that the headphones and speakers sound roughly the same volume.  Now you need to take the second record back to the start and find that first “1” of the beat.  Once you have found the start of the track, move the crossfader into the middle and begin to move the second record backwards and forwards as you did before.  Try to do this in time with the first record that is playing, so that you are pushing the record forward on the first beat of the bar and the dragging it back on the second beat, pushing forward again on the 3rd beat and pulling it back on the forth and keep on doing it in time until you get comfortable.  What this should sound like over the speakers is very simple scratching!  This is your first step into the wonderful world of Djing!

Once you have become comfortable with scratching in time and tried various rhythms by pushing the record forward and backwards on different beats of the bar, you can now have a go at this:

Step 1: Take the needle on the first record all the way back to the start to give you more time
Step 2: Leave the second deck playing, but take the needle on the second record all the way back to the start and find the first beat like you just did with the simple scratching, but don’t start moving the record yet!
Step 3: Make sure that the crossfader is still in the middle
Step 4: Start the first record playing (if you stopped it!) and listen very carefully to identify the “1 2 3 4” of the beat.
Step 5: If you have been concentrating enough and have mastered counting the beats, on the 4th bar you should begin taking the record backwards and forwards and release the record on the “1” of the 5th bar like so:

Bar 1 “1 2 3 4”
Bar 2 “1 2 3 4”
Bar 3 “1 2 3 4”
Bar 4 “1” – record forwards “2” – record backwards “3” – record forwards “4” record backwards
Bar 5 “1” release record!!!

When you release the record, you should make sure that you do not push it too hard or fast, it’s almost as though your fingers will follow the record without pushing it too much, this takes a while to master though, so don’t worry if you don’t get it right first time!  If you have released the record in time to let it play, you should hear the two beats from both records combine and stay in time for a little while and then probably go out of time with each other.  They may stay in time for a bar, or for a little while longer, it all depends on how far apart in BPM the records are.  If they do stay in time and sound okay, you’ve done well!  If the result sounds like a mess of beats, chances are that you released the record a little too late or early.  The whole point of this exercise is to get you used to releasing the record in time with another beat, it’s not really about how long the records will stay in time although seeing how long the records do stay in, no matter how short a period, will give you an idea that you are releasing the record in the right place.

You must keep on practicing and practicing, no amount of money spent on lessons is going to make you excel any further at this point.  There really is only so much another person can show you, you have to understand these fundamentals of mixing yourself to go any further into the technicalities.

The next lesson will be the all important topic of “pitching up” or getting both tracks at the same tempo.