Beatport and BPM

kmick

When putting together a mix I find its essential to keep your tracks within a certain bpm say beteeen 126/127 or 127/128 i.e. within 1 beat. Recently I downloaded 10 techno tracks from beatport and found the BPM ranged from 121 to 129 (I mean 121 aint techno thats for sure)which of course is completely useless for a 10 song mix. Does anyone know how you determine the BPM on beatport?

Thanks in advance

Zascar

I would not worry about it too much. I regularily start a mix at 125 and end at 129 - there is no necessity to stay withing 1-2bpm - I find it a little boring if it does not change around a little even. Some people can go in way bigger variences easily especially when changing genre.

kmick

Yes buts its difiicult to move from 125 to say 127 without distorting the track and making it even more difiicult to cue. Im just wondering does the facility exist on beatport.

Zascar

What software/equipment are you using to mix?

No track should ever "Distort" when changing bpm - you have to do it, its part of DJing. Going from 125 to 127 should prove no haslle whatsoever. What is the problem you are having exactly?

There is no facility I know of opn beatport to identify bpm. With practice you'll know by ear roughly. It should never really be an issue. Obviously you want to avoid mixing anything more than 5 bpm or so.

If you are having problems mixing two tracks that are not similar bpm, really all you need is more practice with your beatmatching. It will 'clikc' one day

kmick

Just a powerful laptop and Virtual DJ. Its not so much that it distorts but when you for example pitch it to say +2 bpm from its original sometimes its very hard to get it to beatmatch for any length of time. I mean its no problem if its less than 1 bpm. It can also sound wrong at say 3/4+ bpm more than the original bpm. I prefer to keep the set to no more than say 125 to 127 at worst. But I cant do this with beatport as it wont give me the bpm.

Zascar

I'm still confused. Beatmatching is more or less the same no matter what the speed difference is - just might take a little longer. Virtual DJ should show you the BPM of each track anyway, so you can see exactly how different they are and just move the pitch slider until they both say e.g. 128 etc

Can you explain exactly what you are doing and what is not working?

acman

kmick wrote: »

Yes buts its difiicult to move from 125 to say 127 without distorting the track and making it even more difiicult to cue. Im just wondering does the facility exist on beatport.

If you are using CDJ's the chances are you will have a Master Tempo / Key Lock to stop the track changing key even though you change the pitch. Even without that, you can make subtle pitch changes during a track without anybody noticing...its all up to your timing and skill

Jev/N

Use your ears! Listen to the track on Beatport and you should have a rough idea of the BPM

tman

You kind of make it sound like you're just staying at the same tempo throughout the mix, try increasing it as you go along, playing the slower tunes at the start and building it up...

No offence, but mixes that start and end at the same bpm usually bore the living ****e out of me!

121 should pitch up to 124-125 easily enough without sounding totally ****

(slightly drunk on white russians right now, so this may not make sense:P)

I used to have a bpm counter program, you just tap the space bar on every beat to work out the tempo of the music.... Maybe try searching download.com for something like that

seannash

you just need more practice mate

JoeSchmoe

I'm always amazed at people getting hung up on BPMs, "I think that's a great track but it's too fast/slow, so i wouldn't play it" if it's a good tune and you like it play it, simple.

you only want to play between 125-127 bpm, why are you restricting yourself like this?

and what do you mean the tracks are distorting and not staying in time when they are are more than two or three BPM apart, that's ridiculous!!!! tunes with stay in in time for as long as you like if you you now what you're doing.

I mix a really slow reggae style track about 65 BPM with a 180 or so drum and bass track, with a bit of tweaking of the pitch fader they stay in time for 3 minutes or so, works great but the BPMs are 115 apart

I'm guessing you just want tunes at the same BPM to make them easier to beat match, as the gentleman above says, more practice

Helix

kmick wrote: »

Just a powerful laptop and Virtual DJ. Its not so much that it distorts but when you for example pitch it to say +2 bpm from its original sometimes its very hard to get it to beatmatch for any length of time. I mean its no problem if its less than 1 bpm. It can also sound wrong at say 3/4+ bpm more than the original bpm. I prefer to keep the set to no more than say 125 to 127 at worst. But I cant do this with beatport as it wont give me the bpm.

i really hate it when people say this on the internet but...

youre doing it wrong

Zascar

OP is obviously only new, we all had to learn some time.
Keep practicing OP. Look up DJ Tutorial video's on youtube.

mr biazzi

i know what ya mean virtual dj can ruin tracks when you pitch them, so get better sotware, Traktor maybe. . if your put of buying a tune cause its 122bpm, thats mad, you can get desktop bpm counters try download.com. but you shouldnt judge like that.
if the tunes good buy it, yeah techno can be 122bpm its them germans on ketamine.
its virtual dj that fks them up, its a toy.
Pitchen a tune is part of the fun, mashups etc oh ableton how i love it. .
and yeah i'm in on a saturday night, savin my energy!!

kmick

Might have a look at Traktor but I have to say i like the VDJ interface. Thanks for all the feedback but I still have to say a track pitched to 128 from 122 sometimes just sounds wrong to me.

Zascar

Traktor and torq etc have key lock which is very handy. On vinyl when you move the pitch up to +6 or so, vocals can sound like chipmunks. Software can speed it up without this happening. works quite well.

If you were playing a track that was 122 and wanted to go to a track that was 128, the trick is to very subtely speed the first track up to about 125, match the second track to the same 125 bpm and do the mix, and then slowly bring that up to its 128.

This as you say it quite a step and it would not normally be this big a jump, however it can work quite well to change the pace of a set and step things up a little.