No idea about the controller, but as far a beatmatching... When you are practicing try eqing the incoming song so that you just hear the snare in the headphones (and make it sound different than the snare on the other song). Makes it easier to tell which is which.

First, thank you for actually trying to lean and not just using the sync feature.
I was going to try to type out how to learn beatmatching but it looks stupid when I read it. There is no "right" method, just a lot of paths to reach the goal of matched beats. I'd highly recommend finding other DJs and try to build a relationship so you can learn directly from them. You will learn a lot more than beatmatching, I promise.
When I learned, I could already count beats, so it was a little easier for me. You can also easily get the BPM for songs and try again and again with similar tempo songs. I learned by listening for the snare on the 2 and 4 and matching those (I play mostly urban music). I also recorded everything so I could analyze it later & practice again and again. Often times if I'm just practicing at home and I'm not super happy with a transition I'll just practice it again and again until I have it right.
One thing that I'd REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY recommend is matching by ear and not simply using the waveforms. It will really help you in the long run and allow for much more creativity later.
Remember also that as soon as you learn to match beats, you need to learn about PHRASING, it is sometimes more important. DJ Soo started a good thread about it.

^^^^good advice right there, especially this:

and this:

Match bpm and find the 1st beat of each song and it's best to learn with instrumentals

Song repeat the best over and over 1 2 3 4...1 2 3 4. Match the 1 with one 1...

the beat

You are going to get a lot of flack for using a controller as a fair warning to you. But I'm glad you are being honest and up front about your skills and asking for help.

What type of music are you trying to beat match? Also, do you know how to record? If so, there is no shame in posting a mix asking members to critique it.

get two songs with the same bpm's, load one on each side. practice mixing those songs back and fourth and listen to how they drift apart, adjust that drift to make them sync up. do this a hundred times. do this with a few other songs of the same bpm's. after a week, you'll get a better idea how to match songs up. from there....you're on your own. practice makes perfect.

thread jacking this! how do you guys bring in the bass of the new track coming in?

lower the bass of the song already playing slightly so the bases don't double in sound level! or slowly turn up the new track while lower the track already playing

How about this? In five years or longer come back ( serato forum) and let me know how you doing? Most of the things you learn will be all by yourself.

Good luck!

i dont know the style of music your playing or what you have grasped so far but try with some minimal techno or something like that
dont just let the songs play out while there miss-matched as you will get nowhere unless you do something drastic
try and match the next song within say 4-8 beats, if it isnt close then rewind to the first beat and try again and you will get closer each time
if the next songs 2nd beat drops after the first songs 2nd beat you know its too slow, just carry that on through the beats until they play together

once you have matched them try pitching the 2nd track up a bit and using split cue on headphones see if you can pick that out, then try slowing it down and see if you can pick that out and hear the difference
also try and have a monitor speaker in your face within 2 feet , ive been playing for about 20 years and i hate it if a monitors behind me or far away , the latency just confuses me as they sound in on the headphones but out a little bit when mixed

after a while youl do a mix with say 3-4 well beatmatched mixes,next 8 or so, after a few years youl be complaining about the odd one going out slightly in your mix, then youl be focusing more on ahh fuckit if only id cut that fader 1/2 a second earlier that mix cd would be perfect
its all gradual, nothing you can learn in a short period of time is worth learning, take your time and you will improve

1. Set aside 2-4 hours of every day. Stand in front of mixer. Place crossfader in middle.
2. Using ONLY the upfaders, slam in each new song on the 1st downbeat over and over again (Do not try to beatmatch, and crossfader is off limits).
3. Again, do not try to beatmatch, just get clean, rythmic, quick transitions going, over and over.
4. After 1 month (60-120 long, tedious, frustrating hours), repeat the same, but this time use the crossfader (no beatmixing!!)
5. After another month, alternate between crossfader and upfader slamming, clean and on the 1, and add some EQ work (Start with dropping the bass for the last 2 beats of a song)
6. Continue with your slams and bass-only EQ work, but now you get to start scratching! (Baby's only, both hands, for 2 months).
7. Once you are the illest, cleanest, dopest Slammer/Bass Dropper/Baby Scratcher, post a mix on the boards here, noting that you're only goal is to be a clean, well practiced beginner, with a focus on Slams, Baby Scratches, and light EQ work. Take any criticisms and work on them. If there aren't any, you're ready for the next level!!

Good luck. Practice and Progress.

Because I can beatmatch by ear. I can be looking for the next song while i'm beatmatching, taking a request, talking, drinking, smoking hookah, not looking at the waveforms frees you up to do all types of different things.

try karaoke (kiddin)

1 deck - accapella (song that you know)
2 deck - beat (just plain kick hihat snare)
same bpm

match them, sing to the beat while mixing, you should know if you're offbeat or not

WHY!!!!

To gain some f-in respect for the craft. To put some proper fundamentals underneath you to build on. For a ton of reasons. To figure out if it's something you really want to do, once you realize the work it requires to be any good. Because newbies want to jump in and start mixing songs and tweaking knobs and don't have a clue why. They're trying to blend EVERY SINGLE SONG because "That's what a Dj is supposed to do". They don't realize that they have options. They only know that they've been practicing blending for 6 months and dammit they are going to blend out of 6 Foot 7 Foot into Single Ladies if it kills them!

If you wanted to learn Piano, I wouldn't give you a sheet of music and tell you to work on that til you get it right, I'd have to explain how the piano works, then get your hand strength and dexterity up, teach you what a scale is, have you learn you're scales until they were subliminally locked, then chords and so on. I mean that's if you wanted to be any kind of professional.

lol

I mean damn I just read a thread the other day where a guy who had been dj'ing for years JUST realized that the pitch slider doesn't speed up your song by bpm (+/- 8 bpm) but by percentage (+/- 8%). No joke.

Like I said, best bet is to find a pro who can help you. There are just too many ways to learn, and with all our methods and no one telling you if you have it "right" or not, it's not going to help much. Some of the above methods are really genre specific, the acapella over instrumental thing is probably the hardest (and least likely to work consistently) and DJ Wunder's method is, well, confusing and tedious. And using all of them it might sound right in your bedroom to you but would sound like crap to trained/dancing ears. Good luck!!

lol!

What's so confusing? It just boils down to "Slow & Steady" "Fundamentals First" type of mentality. I guarantee that you take 2 clueless people, and give one of them my method and let the other just try to beatmatch for a year, my Dj will spin circles around the other guy. I've watched it happen over and over again in my company.

Isn't this the place to have pros help other djs? Or everyone in here just comes in and gets told to go somewhere else to get advise from a pro?

double lol

Obviously, but, since you missed it above, I'm saying do this is real life as opposed to internet life.

It's not confusing to ME, but I also know what an upfader & a down beat is. And I am at a point where I don't mind practicing fundamentals (and I do) because I see where it pays off. To his ear, I'm not sure two months of practice with that method will sound different than he sounds now. And I'm SUPER unsure that he's going to know the down beat etc and get it right on his own. But if somebody is there to help him, they can point out what he needs to work on/adjust.

I'd start by beatmatching songs that are the exact same tempo. IE 114bpm with 114bpm. Then do 114 vs 115, 114 vs 116, etc. It'll be easiest for you to figure it out if you're dealing with exactly the same thing in the beginning. Also, if you can find some songs with long intros that might help you as well. Hope that helps.

...good point. I think the best piece of advice in this thread is "go with a pro". You can only coach so much via forum texts. That and "don't skip the fundamentals"

ive been mixing instrumental versions of rap song (atmosphere, gza, binary star etc) can you (or anyone) suggest some good and yet easy music to go with?

hey thanks everyone for your replies i really appreciate it, post some good and easy songs to try and start off with, i think a probly i haved is im trying to do songs that just arnt ment to fit for beginners.
thanks

my best advice would be to just to practise tunes you know inside out. no good mixing tracks that your not that into

i started mixing drum and bass because i knew a lot of the tracks and had heard mixes pulled off with the same tracks i owned. so i just tried to pull off the same mixes i heard other djs play.

this forum was very helpful for me because Im new at djing to and I have the same problem with beatmatching , I have 2x denon 3700 with and beringer 4000 mixer,and I also have the denon dnmc 6000. I have only beeen djing for about 2months or less now and Im wondering how to correctly beat match hip hop, i mean I have being reading the books and it says to bring my second song in with the end of the course coming in out of the verse. I know Im supposed to have my second song cued in with the beat and ready to drop in but how do I make that smooth transition. I practice with my dnmc 6000 and i use a sample from lil wayne lollipop whish is tight to deat. i play my song in deck 1 and my sample in deck 2while im playing deck 1 i drop that sample in there and its tight ,but when im ready to mix in another song with my sample man it gets off. i hope this wasnt to long but yea i neeed help.

oh yea I try my best not to use that sync button on my dnmc 6000 because Im trying to learn , and with my denon 3700's playing thru my mixer there isnt and sync button. so im trying any advice fellows would be helpful hit me up at kevin_clemon@yahoo.com

Damn, we skipped learning how to actually READ music entirely. That's not fair, he got off easy. :P

practise on virtual dj , learn every basic meaning of the knobs and switches by using them and feel the music you're playing

Pz.

LOL i already prCTICEWITH VIRTUAL DJ ,THAT WHY I GET MY SETUP BECAUSE i WAS FEELING IT I GUESS I JUST HAVE TO GET USE TO THE EQUIPMENT IM WORKING WITH THATNKS IDUBZ

I have those books
djing for dummies and last night a dj saved my life.

They do help out.

Just take two songs like shady said, similar in bpm and hell even make them both extended.

Mix the intro (1st beat) into the first beat of the chorus of the other song.

keep doing that until you get it.

listen to the music and notice changes every 16 beats.

Basically what everyone is trying to tell you is just keep practicing. The time it takes you to learn is different for everybody. Im not as musically gifted as some so it took me alot longer but once i got it , it was lights out. Practice , practice, practice and then practice some more. dont give up. it will happen and listen to lots of old school mixes were they are mixing live and listen for the breaks and how they do it. good luck.

p.s and yes record your mixes and listen back. biggest help is listening to what you are doing and trying to even copy another dj you like alot. you will develope your own style but that takes time. learn from the best i say.

oh yes. I remember the first mix I recorded, no one was in the room (bedroom) and i was nervous as fuck.

Now at clubs I don't even need a drink first, I just go in and do me. (NM)

Personally when I started I started with 2 of the same songs...grab an 2 instrumentals of the same song and practice dropping on the 1 beat on time. Then after you get that down try 2 different instrumentals similiar in beat like someone else suggested. After you get that move into songs with vocals, this should teach you to pay attention to the beat.

That sounds like a good plan, although there isn't really any "easy" songs (maybe more EDM music vs hip hop, but don't play what you don't like!). I would say (again) to try to match the 2 & 4 beat of those tracks (aka the snare) because it is a little easier to do if the music is syncopated. One thing you can also do is mix the regular version of a track with the instrumental. Just put one at +3 or something and try to match by ear. I think that will also help you learn/understand the phrasing aspect.

persistence and patience.

you have to figure out how u learn the best.
can you pop open a book and learn that way (if thats the case, check out "how to dj properly")
do u need someone to stand by you and phisically show you (you need to track down a mentor)
or can you see someone do something a few times, then successfully repeat it? (Youtube)

once you have figured out you learning style your learning curve will greatly decrease.
alot of people dont realize that people learn things in different ways....

but at the end of the day persistence and patience & commitment will get u there.

2 things that help immensely.
RECORD EVERYTHING YOU DO... EVERYTHING.... play it back when ur not at your decks.
that way you can critique yourself.

put a mirror in front of your mixer so you can see your hands from the other angle
true, this is more for scratching...but for someone completely new its not a bad idea.

I have books like DJing for dummies and I have youtube videos to help me on this journey i just gotta rememeber to just slow down and be patient. alot of the people on here have being dj's for years I have only being trying for 2 months. thanks for the help and hopefully on of these years I to will be the next DMC champ