mixing a variety of BPMs together

siberia · Post by **siberia** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:40 am

myself being a producer, and have never mixed or anything of the sort I've always been in the dark about how djs put sets together with such a wide range of BPM... I mean how do artists like flying lotus throw dubstep in along with his sometimes 89 bpm tunes? or modeselektor, on happy birthday alone there are tunes that range from 100 to 140 i believe. i'm just trying to understand how beat matching works i guess. so help me solve this BPM mystery that has been confusing me ever since i was a youngster. thanks

siberia · Post by **siberia** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:46 am

also, how in the world do house djs mix dubstep in to their sets? thats at least a good 10 to 15 bpm difference

_boring · Post by **_boring** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 8:55 am

house djs either speed up the house or slow down the dubstep, or both

135-137?

deamonds · Post by **deamonds** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:01 am

or simply play a faster sounding house tune into a slower dubstep tune, dont want to move the bpm's too much otherwise it sounds shit (can sound good, depends really)

morro_e · Post by **morro_e** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:02 am

there are ways i think.

i play hip hop + dubstep thats the range of bpms

siberia · Post by **siberia** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:07 am

so basically most djs that do this sort of thing start off with slower tunes such as 125 for example and maybe slowly move up and end up around 140 by the end of their set? you just have to gradually move up? cuz i believe i saw kode9 play a set that started off with some dubstep and ended in some jungle tunes

siberia · Post by **siberia** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:07 am

ov3r wrote:there are ways i think.

i play hip hop + dubstep thats the range of bpms

how do you do this?

_boring · Post by **_boring** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:12 am

deamonds wrote:or simply play a faster sounding house tune into a slower dubstep tune, dont want to move the bpm's too much otherwise it sounds shit (can sound good, depends really)

this is true, and this is why its good to make tunes off the normal bpm map

shamwow · Post by **shamwow** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 9:27 am

siberia wrote:so basically most djs that do this sort of thing start off with slower tunes such as 125 for example and maybe slowly move up and end up around 140 by the end of their set? you just have to gradually move up? cuz i believe i saw kode9 play a set that started off with some dubstep and ended in some jungle tunes

Some people make jungle at 140, Cluekid for example. Skream's burning up too?

para · Post by **para** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:43 am

loads of oldskool jungle / rave / hardcore range from 140 - 155 so it can be mixed easily with dubstep

fork · Post by **fork** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:45 am

deamonds wrote:or simply play a faster sounding house tune into a slower dubstep tune, dont want to move the bpm's too much otherwise it sounds shit (can sound good, depends really)

This.

james fox · Post by **james fox** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:51 am

bung a tune into ableton live, automate a tempo change, render it, burn it, use as a tool to switch things up

gravious · Post by **gravious** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:24 pm

...or

- cut like a hip-hop dj

- use effects to do little stutter effects between tempo switches (tricky to make sound good, but nice when it works

- mix in a faster/slower tune over a beatless breakdown part of the original record, and switch up the tempos.

- play a in a bit of an ambient/beatless track to fill in between 2 records of massively different BPM. You can get away with doing this really quickly, seeing as how you don't need to beatmatch etc.

All of these can sound quite good I reckon, given practice and knowing what tunes work well for these.

gravious · Post by **gravious** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:26 pm

Oh, forgot to mention.

- if you are a producer, just make a track that starts at one BPM and ends at another. If I recall correctly Aquasky used to do this to switch between playing breaks and DnB when DJing.

bunzer0 · Post by **bunzer0** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:48 pm

pitch controllers are not a decoration on your decks

incnic · Post by **incnic** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:20 pm

stop drop and rolllllllll
bellend and fade
loop sections up and picth them up/down instead

paolo · Post by **paolo** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:08 pm

You could just whap the crossfader over from one tune to the other and not bother with beatmatching. No shame in that

Hibbie · Post by **Hibbie** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:40 pm

paolo wrote:You could just whap the crossfader over from one tune to the other and not bother with beatmatching. No shame in that

Plenty of shame in that

mumble · Post by **mumble** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:50 pm

hibbie05 wrote:
paolo wrote:You could just whap the crossfader over from one tune to the other and not bother with beatmatching. No shame in that
Plenty of shame in that

I don't see anything wrong in not beatmatching, it all about context. If your mixing music thats somewhat unmixable or you want to play a track that simply wont mix with the one playing then I don't see any shame in letting a tune roll out and starting the next track edge.

Hibbie · Post by **Hibbie** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:53 pm

Mumble wrote:
hibbie05 wrote:
paolo wrote:You could just whap the crossfader over from one tune to the other and not bother with beatmatching. No shame in that
Plenty of shame in that
I don't see anything wrong in not beatmatching, it all about context. If your mixing music thats somewhat unmixable or you want to play a track that simply wont mix with the one playing then I don't see any shame in letting a tune roll out and starting the next track edge.

Yeah it's fine for the odd track, but a whole set of doing this? not kool

mixing a variety of BPMs together

mixing a variety of BPMs together

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