DJs - Still BPMing records? Stickers?
jaysus
787 Posts
So all you real DJs out there still using vinyl (that's like what 5 people on this board? heh) do you BPM your records? Do you sticker the sleeve or the record itself? Is it worth it? I have started into it to an extent with some of my reggae 45s marking the BPM and rhythm on the sleeves.Also got some colored 45 sleeves, you all color code your 45s?
Comments
Never bpm'd records though.
But don't sets get really stale then?
My whole thought behind BPMing is to be able to pull off more unexpected mixes, mainly coming from using microwave and sorting songs by BPM.
I would pay to see that.
No diss, i just think that it is funny as hell
But all power to ya man, and yeah, you should sing into a mic.
it would trip Becky right the fuck out.
no not really at all. i mean if you have a small library of music to work with i can see it getting stale, but for the most part you can have about 20 or so songs that blend perfectly, so in any given set you might use say 3-10 depending on your style. add that to the other 8 sets of records that have 20 or so songs that go with each other, ect...see what i'm saying?
also your schedule is what will really detirmine whether or not your sets will get stale.
However, I do recommend BPMing to anyone who doesn't feel like they have the rhythm to get the tempo down on the fly.
One thing I do (which is often made fun of, by my homies) is create a bunch of tracklists or notes that record what goes well with what and I'll draw a little diagram which let's me know the difference in pitch neccessary for one track to blend well with the next. It's cool because I now have a handful of notepads which have tons of sketches of sets that I can reffer to if I don't want to waste time digging for the next shit. Plus, it's a good thing to fall back on if you find yourself having to cover for the next DJ and you're like "what they fuck do I do now?".....
But, nah' I've never BPM'd my shit.
plae face take notes, this man just summed it up...
Called out, need to step my record bins up into a record wall!
Yes, this is exactly where I have been finding myself lately. Played through a set of records I know mesh together well, then scrambling (been spinning more 45 sets lately) for another record in a similar BPM range.
Good tips yall.
naw i wasn't calling you out. just was using that scenario as an example. i've been there though believe me!
Haha, just know I'm not trying to sound pretentious or anything...I'm just saying BPMing can be a great way for someone who isn't familiar with tempo to develop a feel to it.
Have any of ya'll ever noticed how much prep stuff isn't even needed. I have homies who BPM everything and when they are in the mix, they don't even pay attention to the BPM labels they just go on auto pilot, but it's the security of the BPM's being labeled which seems to give them the confidence to just run with it. I've pointed it out to them to like:
ME: "Dude, you just did a flawless set and I noticed you didn't even look at the BPM labels....you don't need them anymore"
DUDE:
ME: "Word..."
Anyways, bpming is really helpful. It's not some sort of cheating, lazy thing to do. I don't mark mine and then just adjust the pitch based on numbers. I still have to pay attention, but it helps along the way. I think it also opens up new mixes that you may not think of on your own. If you just go off of your internal rhythm and guess you may not realize some songs would go well together. If you mark your records sometimes you'll be like "oh shit, that's 85? I think this one was 86, let's see how this sounds." I don't know, for me it's been super helpful and opened up some new ideas/remixes that I never would have thought of.
I also don't like to mark up my records. If it's a plain stock black sleeve I will probably write on the sleeve. If it's an actual printed sleeve (picture cover or even stock label sleeve) I will use post its. I found that this works best for me. The adhesive on the post it isn't super strong to the point that it will be a bitch to get off, but it holds. The trick is to take the post it and write only on the top of the adhesive section. Then you take some scissors and cut off the paper only part below. This way it's all adhesive underneath and it won't flap around and get pulled off. Then you've got a little strip with the bpm on it. It stays pretty well and if you want it to come off it pulls right off without leaving any mark.
In all seriousness, in the '90s, I'd BPM all my records. I even did the sticker system where I'd put them on the top edge of the sleeve, relative to what speed they were (95 would have been dead center, in other words).
Overtime though, it became a bit unnecessary insofar as the more I played, the more I memorized the speeds to the point where I didn't need the stickers. However, had I never BPMed them to begin with, I couldn't have known this.
These days, since I tend to spin non-quantized music (save for some disco), BPMing is less relevant than the "feel" of a tempo and I think that's something one acquires with experience and intuition regardless if you BPM or not .
I think its a great tool. Just becuase some drum patterns are shifty and sound fast when they are really slow and so on. I donno... most tracks I used to just sing in my head over every beat and shit... I had standard raps at certain bpms. I donno... ultimately I've stickered like 2000 songs in the last year and im not looking back. I put on like 50-100 new stickers for new songs every time I play out too. Works for me.
Also really lets me think about tempo schemes before I play out.
With microwave, I arrange my crates by BPM, though.
I was always too lazy to do it. I also was never really one of those quick-cut blend type hip-hop DJ's. If I was, then having the BPM's mapped out would be so necessary. However, I was spinning on my dude's Microwave rig one time and found it really useful to sort by BPM. Then I was like, "damn, why did I never BPM my shit?"
Sometimes my memory is kinda wack too. I'll think two songs would fit together tempo-wise, then when I get in the moment i'm at +8 and shit is still way off. If I ever get Microwave I'll BPM up my shit for sure.
Has anyone trying mixing with Microwave without listening? Like with just their BPM counts, cue points, and the visual aids on the screen? I always wondered if that was really doable.
the last few weeks, when I've been using it at the bar, the sound will dip out for about half a second even though I'm not touching the laptop. Totally random.
I'm running it off a MacBook Pro with 2 GBs of internal memory. Do I need to up my cache? Lower it? Sacrifice a chicken?
I usually BPM my funk and live band music at selected cue points, and then put a little round sticker on the 45 sleeve. Personally, I think it's a big help when mixing lots of music with changing tempos.
Still use stickers too, I like to have a mark for the ONE. (no OWWWW)
People who think marking bpms is for folks who have 'no rhythm'...or that it is cheating in some way...are TRIPPIN.
I did this back when I was DJing a lot. It's nerdy as hell, but it's nice to be able to sort by BPM column and pull 50 records real quick. I also played just about everything and went from 92-186 BPMs over the course of a night, so it helped to have a sense of whether two things would work together, particularly if I'd been drinking.
Which I would be.
I'd really like to BPM my 45s just because I don't tend to think of them by BPM like I do with hip-hop.
Stickers are a must though, I sticker a little past 1 o'clock where the needle hits the record.
Yup... my shit's all over the map as far as genre and tempo goes so I love that BPM tag.
Yeah, I can do it, not too hard considering the wavforms are up on the screen so you can pick out the first beat, helps if you know there is an instrumental at the intro or you run into alot of key clashes, the pitch lock fixes that right up too though, to an extent.
But beatmatching like this is a snap.
I like to keep my laptop mostly closed though and turn on the "next song on flip function" set up a set list in a crate and just run the whole set flipping the records over for the next song, pretty wicked.
what does this mean?