Mix Club - The Remedial Class

Echo

I remember Oakey saying, in one of the mags at the time, that whenever he played Everything’s Not You, he used to pitch it up by +2 after the main breakdown for an increased burst of energy…

Homegrove

I’m fine with pitching most records down or up 6 %. I do go over that too, but not all tracks can handle that and still sound ok.

Matt

Homegrove but not all tracks can handle that and still sound ok.

Yeah. I have found it useful to create a couple of playlists in rekordbox of tracks that sound good pitched significantly up or down.

Dubman

I always used to use key lock if I had to pitch it up or down when using traktor.

gcw

Thanks for the comments chaps.

I think I have a bad ingrained habit from when I first got Technics of ’don’t go over or under 2 on the pitch control’ and so it always feels wrong if I have a track playing that is a very different speed to the original speed. But good to hear that actually most of you arent limited by that.

Homegrove

gcw yeah, I never heard that rule even before now. 😀

NasserAlazzawi

Professional DJs used to be against this, but Key Lock (Master Tempo) in more recent CDJs has finally got good enough to not sound weird when you use it.

Anything from the CDJ-2000nxs1 onward (including XDJ-1000) got really good at not crushing the audio - meaning you can keep the key lock / master tempo on and move the tempo quite a bit (I often work around 2-6bpm with master tempo on)

Sometimes, however, certain tracks just are NOT going to sound right beyond 2 or 3bpm. In layman’s terms the kick drum may sound like it’s actually being fast forwarded (among other weird sounds), you will notice something not sounding ‘right’ but that’s relatively rare and you would hear it in the headphones and move on to the next track.

Old school vinyl DJs I know did used to write the BPM on the vinyl but they were working with really old technology in the 90s and 2000s.

I really wouldn’t worry about BPM in the
120 to 122 range or even up to the 125 or 128 personally. Most of it works.

-si-

NasserAlazzawi Old school vinyl DJs I know did used to write the BPM on the vinyl but they were working with really old technology in the 90s and 2000s.

What age bracket are you in, nas? There’s a reasonable chance literally every single person on this forum owned a set of turntables in the 90s. You’re talking like they were winding up their gramophones lol.

gcw

^ Cheers, good to know that it’s my own personal foibles rather than something that everyone struggles with.

I am very much taking small steps with digital mixing. An hour here or there - I haven’t even used any of the loop functions or hot cues etc - I’m just enjoying the basic beatmatching and transitions between tracks - maybe I’ll get confident enough to publish a mix in 2023!

NasserAlazzawi

-si-

Ha, I’m 36 but I like hanging round with the old and the wise 👨🏻‍🦳

I didn’t have any interest in DJing until 2013 either.

Amps

NasserAlazzawi I like hanging round with the old and the wise

Mad_Cyril

@gcw the small increments are a good way to gradually get up the BPM range, maybe half a BPM during a track isn’t particularly noticeable, especially if you choose the right spot.

Nass’ point about Key Lock (or whatever it’s called on Pioneers, I can’t remember) is a good one as speeding up / slowing down alters a tracks key. Locking that in really helps

Amps

Mad_Cyril small increments are a good way to gradually get up the BPM range

Is the right answer. You can get away with a couple of percent per track if you are careful. A doddle these days with key lock / master tempo etc.

Re pitching in general: one of the things you have to remember is that the audience won’t have listened to the tracks as much as you have and as such they probably won’t be able to spot if it’s pitched up or down. If you play the average clubber a track they don’t know, they won’t be able to tell you if it’s pitched up 4% or down 4%, they might suggest tit’s fast or slow compared to some arbitrary idea of how fast house music is, but they won’t be able to tell you how far it is from the producers original chosen speed.

Mad_Cyril

Amps Is the right answer. You can get away with a couple of percent per track if you are careful. A doddle these days with key lock / master tempo etc.

Aye aye Capn

Amps

Amps might suggest tit’s

I might be pre occupied.

Dubman

Pitching up or down to much changes the key of the track as well.
@NasserAlazzawi I’ve never written the BPM of a track on any vinyl. You just know just by listening to it. If it’s going to go the record your playing.

Along_the_Wire

Dubman Pitching up or down to much changes the key of the track as well.

Only changes to a whole new key at around 6%

NasserAlazzawi

Dubman use Master Tempo (Pioneer) aka Key Lock on some decks. You can get away with a lot then.

Dubman

Along_the_Wire
I did think it would be lower than that. But that’s a much bigger window to play with.

Along_the_Wire

My first mix for 18 months is pretty much good to go. A little bit more practice and I’ll get it posted up.

303abuser

Dubman 2-3% is safe, beyond that it can still sound off even if it’s not in a completely different key. Really depends on the track, the more melodic it is, the worse it’ll usually sound. If it’s all Zack style pots and pans, you won’t notice.

Dubman

NasserAlazzawi
I only use vinyl these days. Had a few years using digital. But have gone back to vinyl as I prefer it.

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