Operation Manual

VirtualDJ 5 DJC Edition
6) Beat matching music files
The DJ's task is to provide the audience with the music they need to dance,
which includes:
- playing tracks adapted to the audience,
- keeping a dancing rhythm, with a good vibe and avoiding breaks in the
rhythm, such as empty spaces or BPM rates which change too quickly,
- making transitions easy for dancers by synchronizing the next music
track to the current music track wherever possible: this synchronization is
called beat matching.
Beat matching consists of adjusting the speed of music file B until the moment
when the beats (generally drums) of music file B play at the same time as the
beats of music file A, to keep the same beat during 3 steps:
1. when you play music file A,
2. then when you mix music B together with music A,
3. and then when you stop playback of music A to keep only music B, so that
the dancers don't need to change their dancing rhythm.
If the BPM rate of a piece of music is very far from the BPM rate of another
track, you can also synchronize the two pieces by setting the beat rate of the
second track at half or twice the BPM rate of the other track, so that the beat of
the second music track is played at the same time as 1 beat out of 2 of the first
music track or vice versa. For example, you can typically synchronize a 75
BPM music track with another track set at 75 BPM, or with a track set at 150
BPM.
Your Hercules DJ controller has 4 controls for beat matching:
- Sync button,
- Pitch fader (and Beat Lock/Master Tempo button),
- Pitch Bend buttons (Pitch Bend -/+),
- Jog wheels.
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