Beatmatching Tutorial Beat matching (or beatmixing as I know it as) should be the backbone to your DJing repertoire. The only time this may not so be so applicable is if you are a turtablist as your main skill will be scratching and cutting beats not mixing them over one another. Hip hop DJs will rely on beat mixing and scratching to an extent probably in equal measure. Anything else and you'll rely on beatmatching to get you from one record to another. Quite simply I define it as: "the process of blending two records from one, through a seamless mix (or transition) into another whilst maintaining the same tempo (or speed) of the original record." When you layer the two together (or mix them as a more simple viewpoint) the beats should be exactly in sync with each other (and consistently run together) creating a smooth transition between the two tunes. The result is a change in the record without the listener's rhythm being changed and maybe not even being aware of this transition taking place at all (all being well!). For any newbies, this is likely to be the hardest part (and probably the most frustrating part) of the DJ learning curve. The time it will take you to master beatmixing varies from person to person and depends on your natural musical talent, ability to learn and apply new skills and a very clear understanding of what you are supposed to be doing.
Why is it so important? The emphasis placed on good beat mixing is key and will instantly separate an experienced to a less experienced one. Good beatmixing will mean a smooth transition. The crowd cheers and claps. You repeat. A bad transition will be where the record isn't running at the same speed, is obvious to all, brings not only the dancefloor to a grinding halt but all their eyes onto you, the DJ, for all the wrong reasons. Everyone is similar though as their ears will feel like they've been whacked with a plank. It is also a natural human instinct upon exposing your ears to a bad mix (or trainwreck is the most widely used term) to screw your face up and wince - for those unfamiliar of this facial expression, it can be compared with watching someone's face when they have hit their thumb with a hammer and waiting to see if it is actually going to hurt or not.
Will all tunes beatmix? Quite simply the answer to this is no. All vinyl and tracks are produced at varying BPMs (beats per minute). The higher the tempo of the track the faster it is, and thus the higher its BPM value will be. There are several rules of thumb (no hammer this time) which should be understood. Basically if you are mixing music from the same genre (i.e. hard house approximately 150bpm from the year 2000) you will find it will fit with similar styled tunes of a similar BPM with no real problems.
What can affect the success of mixing tunes? There are several factors that will help you determine if two tunes will actually mix successfully. The pitch on your decks will also affect your mixing success in terms of BPM scope - some decks have an extra increase or decrease up to +/-12 rather than the standard +/-8% pitch slider (as found on a Technics deck for example) This affects the deck in the following way based on a standard +/-8% pitch slider We will use the example of the above hard house record, for arguments sake which when playing at 0 (so the green light is in at the middle of your pitch slider) is 150bpm.
Setting the pitch to -8% means you can reduce the original from 150bpm making a reduction of 12bpm, giving the lowest speed of 138bpm.
At +8% will give an extra 12 BPM making the max speed of the vinyl 162bpm. So your range, or scope, for that record is 138bpm to 162bpm on a standard +/-8 pitch slider. If you have +/-12% pitch range this would give you a little extra at both ends of the scale, an extra 4%. This allows now 18bpm rather than 12bpm either side of the green light on your deck. This decreases the minimum which was 138 down to 132bpm and increasing the original maximum from 162 to 168BPM.
So the range or scope for the same record is 132bpm to 168bpm on a +/-12 pitch slider. By having the hard house pitched right up you could also pitch down a drum and bass tune of 175bpm and the scopes of each record would just about overlap. Pitching down the hard house to -8, you could equally mix in a record of 125bpm funky house that was pitched right up. However the outcome would be very poor indeed, verging on the borderline of sounding ridiculous. The funky house tune would sound like Pinky and Perky on helium and the tempo would sound forced. The structure of the beat would sound daft as it was never designed to be played at these kinds of speeds. Increasing speeds dramatically of a tune with higher the tonal level of the sound as a whole. So on normal House we all know it has a fairly strong thumpy kick drum. You may find upping the pitch by large amounts (from -8 to +8 as an extreme for this example) will not only increase the speed but will raise the frequency band (the lowest note to the highest note). The musical "note" of the kick drum is raised with the bass also being shifted. The outcome is a less bassy thump to the kick drum which you may decide makes it sound weaker and crap.
On the other hand the hard house would sound equally ridiculous mixing over pitched up, weak kick drummed funky house as it'd sound really slow. This mix would give a horrid noise for the listener showing relatively little thought taken by the DJ in terms of music selection - but that's another lesson which we'll explore later. Trying to beatmix any genres outside these BPM ranges will just never happen as the scope for the styles is too varied. Never in a million years are you going to successfully beatmix hip-hop at approximately 100bpm with Hard House at 150. The scopes will never overlap. Ok, the more experienced bods out there will say you can transfer from one to the other, but as maintaining the same speed is not a criteria and beats are not strictly overlapped at the same tempo it doesn't belong in a basic beatmatching tutorial.
Are there any other factors other than speed? Yes. Every tune you buy will be written so it works harmonically and no one part or musical note clashes with any other. To ensure this happens each tune will be written in a particualr musical key. All a musical key is, is a set of rules that mean a certian sequence of notes are played others are missed out. This prevents two notes playing together and it clashing and sounding terrible to hte listener. Mixing tunes in the same key will give you a rich non-clashing mix that is pleasant on the ears. Mixing two different tunes written in different keys (depending on the two keys of the individual tunes) can give varying results. Some keys even though they are different will sit and mix over one another than another two records of differnt keys with little effect on how the mix sounds. It may still sound good with no clashes. The skill is to use your ears when mixing and pick records that allows a gradual change of keys rather than going straight from one extreme key to another. You may find in practice going from Tune 1 to tune 2 sounds terrible no matter what you do. If musically it doesn't fit no matter what you do you are unlikely to make it sound good. You may be able to lessen the awfulness but its not really a fix, more of a workaround. However you may find (through experimentation and practice that putting a new record in between will not ony make your set longer in time (as you are using more records and doing more mixes) but may mean the transition is more smooth to listen to. To keep it simple we will worry about speed only to start with. Firstly we need to know how we can get from one tune to the next. This is where we use the headphones and pitch controls on the decks. 
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