DJing with sync, mixing in/handover

I've seen a lot of higher end DJs sync all 4 decks when they're playing and I really don't have a problem with it. However, I believe the "it saves me more time to do other stuff" is just sort of a cop out. Unless said person is doing a lot more than just playing tracks like using MIDI pads such as the F1 or Maschine to add tons of hits and FX to their mix like Richie Hawtin or Dubfire, then I really can't see that being overly justified.

This used to be said so much on DJ Forums that it became a complete joke.

The sync crowd would first contradict themselves by saying "beatmatching is easy to learn anyway and it only takes a few seconds to beatmatch 2 records" (so why not learn it then?), but then they would follow it up with the old "I have more free time to be creative!", except when asked for examples, all they could come up with was videos of other DJs on YouTube, rather than anything they had actually created.

People who say that are largely lazy bastards who wanted to skip the basics and that soon becomes apparent when you listen to their shitty mixes. There are a few exceptions, but considering the number of mixes I check out from other DJs on a weekly basis, I know that it really is just a few. If sync didn't exist, a lot of them wouldn't be DJs in the first place, and that includes a bunch of the folks that post on here.

7 pages of sync debate, I'm impressed this is still going. If you want to use sync, do it. If you don't, don't, and if you want to use it half the time, use it the other half instead.

I just don't see how sync "makes room for creativity" what is it that it's making time for? Honest question really.

It literally takes me seconds to manually beatmatch, and I do on occasion spin 4 decks at once. I still manage to find myself having moments where there's nothing to do but let the music play. Maybe I'm just not getting intricate enough in my mixes I guess.

Actually, I don't believe that's true. Even when sync first came out, when I was leaving feedback on mixes on DJ Forums I would add "you used autosync for this right?" on mixes where I could tell they used sync and there was never once a case where the guy replied "no, I manually beatmatched". Often they would ask "how did you know?".

The telltale sign is perfect beatmatching, but poor to mediocre everything else. SoundCloud is riddled with mixes like that and so is the mix section of every DJ community these days. It is the main reason why I don't really bother trying to search out good mixes these days - manually I mean. I tend to go to blogs where someone else has filtered out the good ones, I check them out based on recommendations from friends, or I follow DJs that I know are good and grab their new stuff.

The whole point of sync is to free you up to do other things.

Yeah I believe as technology progresses making it easier etc I believe a lot of the fundamentals will be lost. I'm not saying everyone is the same, but if it were me starting to DJ now, I would want to know about it's history etc learn the basics before anything else. But maybe because thats just the type of person I am.

I believe if you are truly serious about DJing and want to do regular gigs etc then you need to be the most rounded DJ you can be.

I don't see technology as a bad thing at all, I've used traktor in the past with a controller, with timecode but I went back to spinning straight vinyl again which is where I started. Purely because I enjoy it more, and I like buying vinyl.

It seems like people want to get playing in clubs as quickly as possible, before they've really learnt everything.

There's no rush, I DJ'd for 4 years before I got to play in a club, learn as much as you can before you do. You will continue to learn when you start playing in clubs too, but don't leave learning to beat match to a club environment.

The learn to beatmatch wasn't aimed at you just a comment.

The first bit of my comment was referring to your post. Like I said, I dont see why you need to ask about BPM, cue up your song, mix it in, to be honest, you can get a ball park figure by listening.

Most of the DJs I play with, use vinyl, I know none of them mark BPMs, most CDJs will give you a rough BPM, hell most mixers will. I don't believe not knowing BPM is a huge problem, if you can mix, then mix, it only becomes a problem when someone who only uses sync, and cannot mix without the aids of BPM/phase meter etc

If you are going to be getting gigs on the regular, where you are not the only DJ on the evening , then you need to know how to beatmatch, its simple. It's a fundamental part of DJing.





People should want to cover all the angles,

I only play vinyl, and tbh I don't put bpms on my records, nor do I use a bpm counter. I mainly play with other DJs who also use vinyl, never asked about BPM, I just mix the next record in, why is it any different with different formats.

Seriously though, if you can't mix into the previous DJ then you really need to learn how to, it's a basic skill that all DJs should know, I can mix into someone playing CD or using a controller, so for someone using one of those formats not being able to mix into me, bit of a joke.

Learn to beatmatch.