5 - Pitch Control
BPM definition: it's the number of beats per minute. The BPM represents the tempo of a song. In other words its speed.
In general for disco, dance and techno, the BPM is between 110 to 150. So Trance has a higher BPM than House or disco;
and house has a higher BPM than Hip-Hop.
Once both tracks are playing, and the first beats are synchronized, the speed of track 2 should
be adjusted to keep this synchro. In fact, it is uncommon to have exactly the same BPM for
both tracks. On professional equipment, the DJ can get an automatic extraction of BPM displayed on screen.
The BPM can then be saved in the memory of the player.
Some software let you tap along with the beats and calculate the BPM for you. But this is very slow and unreliable.
Having the BPM displayed is not mandatory. In fact professional DJs don't use it. They prefer to do the mix on the fly.
This is why it is not available on turn tables.
The idea is to have the same BPM for both songs before raising the volume of track 2.
So if the beats of track 2 are in advance, you should slow down track 2 and if they are comming late,
you should accelerate it.
This example shows the case where track 2 is too slow. It should be accelerated
so it can catch up track 1. If not, track 1 will reach the end before the beginning
of track 2's first Verse:
Slowing down or accelerating is done using the Pitch control slider. In general,
you can adjust the pitch by more or less 12%. Values above 12% should be avoided as
they badly mess up the song.
The pitch should be modified very slowly and very progressively if the volume is up.
If not, you'll have noise deformations as in old tapes left under the sun!
Sometimes the BPM are equal but there is a slight delay between the beats of track 1 and track 2.
In this case it is practical to use the pitch bend buttons (+ and -) to temporarly accelerate or
decelerate the pitch without modifying the BPM synchro as long as you are pressing on the buttons.
When you release the button, the pitch gets its previous value. The Pitch bend are not available on all systems.
This enables you to accelerate or slow down the pitch without loosing the synchro.
Adjusting the pitch is definetly the most diffcult part of the mix. Once you get successeful at this, you can
start mixing mix almost any kind of music.
Next: Conclusion
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