Transcript of the video above, "Beatmatching Tutorial with DJ Hapa". Edited from a speech-recognition draft for readability and identifiable names. Music demonstrations are marked; unclear wording is indicated in brackets. Consult the video for the original delivery and on-screen settings.
I have this example of rubber bands really quick. There's two different ways that I'm making an adjustment to the record. One is, these are two of the exact same record to the exact same length. If one is off, let me make a mark on it. These are just regular rubber bands, they're not magic rubber bands or anything. This is a good example. Let me make a couple marks. I'll just make two marks. Two of the same. Can you see in the camera here? Let me see. I'll get it right here. Cut. This is the start. Let's say these are my snares, let's say. Okay, so my two and the four.
So and drop. And then the snares being lined up exactly. There we go. Okay. Now, if they are different tempos, this is what this looks like. Do you see that? So the top one, the snare hits later. And you see that it's changing over time. Like over time that snare, like the first snare is pretty close. But later on, if I stretch it more and make it a bit different, you'll see over time that it gets a lot more off. And this is because of the tempo. This is that the BPM is not exactly the same. This is that case. Okay. Now, if I go back to the regular.
Okay, this is back to regular. If I don't drop it in at the right time, but they're set to be the exact same, and I don't drop it in at the right time, it would look like this. It's got to be in a better way, but this is pretty good. Okay, so you see that? Do you see that now? My fingers are kind of in the way. This is that it was dropped off. So it doesn't need, like there doesn't need to be an adjustment to the pitch to the tempo. This won't do anything. This won't fix anything. In fact, if this is like this, and now watch, if I stretch this, it's not going to do anything.
It's not the right adjustment. This isn't what is wrong here. What really needs to happen is what? You guys know? Yeah. Nudge it left or right. Yeah, this thing needs to get nudged, right? So depending on which one I dropped in is the one that I have to nudge to then get back into place, all right? So there's two types of adjustments here. There's one that's going to be this nudging. We sometimes often call this tapping and pushing. It's like pushing and tapping, just like slow down. Or I call this a minor adjustment. So I'm either going to speed up the record a bit, slow down the record a bit, and there's different adjustments that you're going to use on either the CD or the turntable, different types of adjustments to do the minors.
So there's one that's a minor adjustment, or there's a major adjustment, which is a tempo adjustment having to do with the pitch, okay? But the first thing, before we even get too deep into that, I just want to focus first on like our reference point, trying to get that one to line up with the one like nine out of 10 times. When you first do this exercise, it may be that it's like two out of 10 times. You want to get this so that it's like nine out of 10 times, 99 times out of 100, so that you know that that's not an issue. Because then when you start using songs that are different BPM, you know, we're using just two songs that are the same.
If you have this issue of not dropping in on the right time, and then now you're working with other BPMs, like now you're, that's what's really confusing. You don't know if it's your hand, if it needs to be faster or slower on the tempo, like you're not sure what the change needs to be. So always start with two of the same record. So here we go, we'll start with two of the same record. I'm just going to play this one, and I'm just going to practice bringing this in over and over again. In fact, let me talk through, actually let me do it first and then I'll, I'll put it up there.
So here we go. I'll do this out of the, out here so you can hear it. Forward, forward, forward, forward. Bring it back. Two, three, four, three, two, three, three, four. Bring it back. Two, I'm going to let it play for like a bar, see if it's on. Forward, forward. Now if my timing is off, it's going to sound like this. All right. Bring it back, back, or it might sound like this. Slow. They need to be pushed together. This can also happen if I'm not exactly on the beginning of like where that one is. So if I'm too far back, meaning now that's going to be off.
So I literally have to be at the edge of the sample, like at the edge of that kick, like right up to the one, toes on the edge. And then you notice I'm doing this little scratch to then drop in. Now the reason why I'm doing that is because this timing is going to be essential for dropping it in. If I drop it in cold, the chances of me nailing it are a lot smaller. Be the same as if the four of you guys, five of you guys, you're running around the track. I'm standing here watching you run around the track. I'm about to then jump in with you.
As I'm watching you around the track, what am I doing? How am I preparing? You know what's coming. I know it's coming. Am I physically doing anything? Okay. Anything else? Jogging in. Okay. I'd probably be trying to time your pace, right? So I'd kind of be like, okay, yep. All right. So that then when you come, I'm like right there with you. Right? So this scratch is the running in place. This is that running in place, getting the timing, nothing crazy. I'm not doing anything where I'm like showing off here. It's all like for a purpose. It's like even a simple eighth note, which is forward, forward, forward, forward, drop, or like maybe a sixteenth.
Like I find that the sixteenth is a little bit more accurate because I feel like it's almost more real time. Four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, four, drop. If you don't get all four of those, if you don't get the entire last bar, and you just get the last two beats of it, that's cool too, or even the last beat. Remember, it was more so so that this lines up on the one. So it goes like this, and drop, and this is going to play. You're going to let it play and hopefully you're hearing snare, kick, snare. Now you're going to rewind this.
Back to the very first one, get ready to go. You've got sort of four beats until the four, and then forward, forward, forward, forward, drop.
Although I've spent most of the last 10-15 years in the world of hardcore, metal, pop-punk, and so forth, the truth is that hip-hop was my first love. Waaaaay back in the day, before I knew what hardcore even was, I was all about EPMD, Rakim, Gangstarr, Doug E Fresh, and all that. Later on, I was very into the emerging Bay Area scene that brought together a bunch of subcultures that I was part of including skateboarding, graffiti, punk rock, and hip-hop: Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Kool Keith, Cut Chemist, etc.
Ever wonder how to beatmatch like your favorite DJ? Here's how-- from DJ Hapa's CL class "DJ Fundamentals"
For our latest podcast, we caught up with DJ Hapa, who is not only a CreativeLive teacher and the National Brand Director for Scratch DJ Academy but a cool guy who has a lot to say about hip-hop/DJ culture. We talked to him about turntablism, what it means to be a DJ, how the role of the DJ has changed over the years, why he has a passion for teaching, and tons more.
[powerpress]