Pitch, BPM and cut-in

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Pitch

When DJs play a song, often the pitch needs to be changed unlike when listening to music normally. Pitch refers to the speed (tempo) of a song. Normally, increasing the pitch will increase the speed of the song and increase the pitch, and decreasing the pitch will decrease the speed of the song and decrease the pitch. This is the same principle as slowing down during slow video playback (CD players have a feature called master tempo that does not change the pitch even if the tempo is changed). If you connect songs of different tempos, changing the pitch and aligning to the same tempo, and then mixing will create a new groove cleanly even with different songs.

How to change the pitch

Generally, the right side of the turntable has a pitch fader like the one shown in the picture. Move the fader to the front (+) side to make the pitch faster, and move it to the back (-) side to make the pitch slower. The normal tempo is located at ± 0 in the center of the fader.

BPM and measures

BPM stands for Beats Per Minute. It is a guide to measure the speed of the song. If it is hip-hop, it will be about 90-110 BPM, and 110-150 BPM for house and techno. You can purchase a BPM counter or download free software. A measure is a break in the score. For example, a song with 4/4 timing has 4 beats per measure.

Before practice

Please prepare two records of your favorite record. A song with as simple a beat as possible should be good. Both pitchers are set to ± 0. Practice cut-in using the same song on the same record. Play the song part way before you cut in. You can play from the very beginning of the song, and you may or may not be able to use the very first sound. Please note that some songs start from the beginning of the 4 beats, and some songs begin with the drum fill-in.

Cut in

It is practice of cutting-in if the beginning of the song is finished. Cut-in means changing songs instantly. Keep one of the records playing. Take a rhythm according to the sound coming out of the speaker, and try monitoring with headphones. You can catch the timing and cut in with the next song, and you’ll hear the gap between songs from the speaker as well as from the headphones. Please practice many times to eliminate the gap with headphones. When there is no gap in the rhythm, it means that the cut-in was timed well. Move the crossfader to the middle and confirm that both sounds are clean, move the crossfader to the other side. Once this is done let's start with the other player and repeat the same thing again. The point is to practice again and again so that you can send out records without making mistakes.

Match BPM

When you can cut in with the same song, try cutting in with a different song. Different songs have different BPMs, so you need to align them. Please practice the cut-in while monitoring with headphones. Both rhythms fall apart because of the difference in BPM. The hard part here is listening to which song is faster. It may be difficult at first, but let's practice it over and over again to make a quick decision. Listen to the difference in BPM and move the pitch fader. When you hear the same rhythm, you have the same BPM. Cut in and move the crossfader to mix. The rhythms that should have been in time may fall apart, but in that case the rhythms were not completely synced. Change the song quickly to make the gap less noticeable, or practice repeating so that you can more closely match the BPM.

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