r/Beatmatch • u/culesamericano • Mar 28 '18
Success! [Update] I always use sync...but i didn't this time
I made a post some time ago stating that during my gigs i always use sync because i can use the extra time to do other stuff like eqs, interacting with the audience, song selection etc etc.
however i decided that i wouldn't use sync for my next gig just to see how it goes...and i hate to say it but it was my best set yet! everyone loved it and i had more fun than ever before!
i have a couple theories as to why this set went better despite not using sync.
normally i play tracks im familiar with but usually they are newer tracks that i don't know inside and out so i have to be very precise as to when i move into the next track, this time around i used my "all time faves" that i know to the T and didnt really need to think about all that, it came naturally
when i use sync i have some free times on my hands and i end up doing more than necessary, so keeping myself busy beatmatching was good
forced me to beatmatch under pressure, at home when im mixing i take my sweet time but while performing i had to try and get the tracks sync'd up as quickly as possible which forced me to improve and now i'm much better at it than before and takes me less time overall
like someone mentioned last time in the comments, the imperfections sound good and i found that out as well. my beatmatching might not have been perfect but that little dissonance sounded good and gave the audience a heads up that a new track might be coming...building anticipation
i enjoyed myself more...this is the most important one. despite me previously always using sync, at home i dont because i enjoy beatmatching manually...doing it live was just as fun!
TL;DR I didn't use sync, had more fun, improved skills and audience loved it
Edit: here is the original post
https://www.reddit.com/r/Beatmatch/comments/84bjfs/why_i_always_use_sync
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u/solefald Mar 28 '18
Congratulations! You dropped the crutches and started to walk. DJing is fun and it’s even more fun when you realize that you can find a way in and out of every track you have.
In my 16 years DJing I prepped 2 sets for gigs ... and both times, 3 tracks I abandoned prepared playlists.
Mixing 2 tracks together is a small, but a crucial part of the skill. With enough practice it will take you seconds to mix pretty much anything
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u/panopss Mar 28 '18
Think I commented on your post before. Great to hear that :) I started similarly to you, matching waveforms and bpms, now trying to learn to do it manually.
What kind of strategies did you use to teach yourself?
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u/culesamericano Mar 28 '18
Literally just practicing every day, at least an hour. Its the only thing in the world that doesn't feel like work to me, so I always practice a lot
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u/panopss Mar 28 '18
Oh but I mean HOW did you practice?
Do you use cdjs at home? Or a controller? Bc it's hard to manually beatmatch with serato when bpm is shown very visibly on the screen
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u/culesamericano Mar 28 '18
Oh I see what you mean... You can use paper to cover up the screen. I had that problem with my traktor controller but now I use XDJs at home
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u/panopss Mar 28 '18
Ahh, easy enough. The paper is just difficult bc when you move to certain angles or need to pick the next song, you accidentally see
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Mar 28 '18
It used to be very normal to write the bpm of songs on vinyl sleeves. I don’t see why you shouldn’t know the actual bpm of songs and use that as a starting point.
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Mar 28 '18
Finding out the BPM on vinyl was a laborious process involving counting and stopwatch, and not everyone did it well.
I have written the BPM on most of my vinyl, only after I ripped the vinyl and put it through analysis. Much quicker!
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u/catroaring Mar 28 '18
I never found it laborious. count the beats for 15 seconds and times it by 4. It doesn't need to be super accurate, more of a range.
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u/culesamericano Mar 28 '18
Can you beatmatch with bpm
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u/panopss Mar 28 '18
You mean just nudging to correct position? Yes
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u/culesamericano Mar 28 '18
Yeah there's going to be very few instances in live you'll need to beatmatch without bpm available
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Mar 28 '18
Opaque paper on the XDJ screens - so simple, yet so effective.
Thanks for the inspiration!
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u/rnpreach Mar 28 '18
Here’s a trick I just figured out. I was listening to a top 40 radio station in my area and realized that I have about 2/3 of the songs they were playing, so I loaded them up in Serato and used cue points to try to get them playing perfectly with each other. Something I noticed was that half the time they were playing faster than the zero position on my controller. It made for an interesting hour or so of practice
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Mar 28 '18
Might feel awkward at first, but loop a 16-bar section of a track that has a strong beat, then pick another track and cue it up on the first beat. Practice scratch-dropping it on the beat and adjusting with the jogwheel after. That way you’ll develop a feel for both basic scratching and beatmatching. And USE YOUR EARS!!! (Not your eyes).
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u/panopss Mar 28 '18
Thanks ! Ya practising in serato's library mode so no waveforms. That's a good idea though !
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u/OhAces Mar 28 '18
Nice work, proud of ya, I remember your first post about using it, Im glad you got to appreciate the feeling of putting in the work to do it manually, I hope others see this and give it a try, its so much more rewarding to smash a set that way.
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Mar 28 '18
You just pretty much explained all the reasons why people shouldn’t use sync all the time. There are times when it’s incredibly useful, such as:
Doing a tempo transition with more than 1 track playing
Mashups with more than 2 tracks (at this point you’re doing what people do with DAWs live so it’s not cheating)
Sometimes when mixing tracks that have tempo transitions build in that you want to negate (however I believe that’s only doable in Serato and the proper way to do it would be editing it in your DAW)
On rare occasions, when you want to mix in a song starting at a section that has virtually no element for you to beatmatch with (weird intros and whatnot) and you need to make sure the first beat will line up perfectly
Other than that, you pretty much summed up why you shouldn’t use it. I feel like a lot of people defend sync with their lives because they find it hard (and it is) to learn to beatmatch, but once you do, as you experienced, you start understanding the benefits. Welcome to the club.
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u/n-some Mar 28 '18
I always had trouble getting off sync when I used traktor, the software did such a good job of marking the beat grids that it ended up always sounding better than I would be able to do it at my level of skill then. When I switched to serato I never managed to get beat grids to line up, so I just stopped using sync entirely. Honestly now when I use traktor sync messes me up.
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u/Beast_Pot_Pie Mar 28 '18
Good for you bro! Mixing without sync makes you more invested in each track and more scrutinous in which tracks to play in a set, and in what order. But be careful not to overthink it too much with the track selection either. It's all a balance
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u/bart2019 Mar 28 '18
this time around i used my "all time faves" that i know to the T and didnt really need to think about all that, it came naturally
Well that's the limitation... You cannot only play your all time favorite tracks all the time, it'll get stale fast...
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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '18
Fantastic! The first point you made there about going to your all time favorite tunes which you know inside out: that's huge. Knowing your library is more than half the battle really.