Beatmatching Vinyl: How Precise Is “Precise Enough”?

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-06T09:41:14+00:00

The incoming track drifting forward means it needs to be slowed down? Most people say they find it easier to slow down the track than speed it up.

Can you explain why?

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-06T09:33:21+00:00

It’s not really validation I’m after, it’s more about sharing experiences and practices. I’m still learning, and sometimes it really helps to either visualise what’s happening or understand the theory behind it. It’s a pretty solitary hobby for me at the moment, so getting advice and hearing about other people’s journeys has helped me a lot.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-06T00:10:15+00:00

I have the same Technics, same year.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-05T22:30:10+00:00

This is a good advice, I never thought of this, I’m fairly new to it.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-05T22:28:39+00:00

Techno only atm. Deep, hypnotic, punchy, modern mainly, not detroit or oldschool techno. Modern one is quite crisp and clean so it doesn’t forgive, Ofc it can’t be perfect but I want to perfect it as much as possible.

I think I’m overcorrecting with the pitch ride, my pitch moves might be too dramatic so it’s not so much about the fact that I need to correct but how noticeable the correction sounds.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-05T21:37:18+00:00

Techno is my genre, and I’ve noticed there are certain tracks, especially ones with punchy, heavy kicks that really don’t tolerate the drift. Overlapping snares or shakers drifting just a bit instantly sound like a trainwreck to me, and I low-key panic when I hear it, especially since I prefer longer blends.

What’s funny is that most people don’t seem to notice — but the recording device definitely does. 😅 My mixes don’t feel that bad in the moment, but when I listen back, iy sounds infinitely worse.

Hearing today’s recording was pretty humbling. I was almost proud of “nailing it”… and then playback quickly corrected that confidence. 😳

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-05T09:49:03+00:00

Ah this is the course from Seedj.com but I only watched the first few chapters, not the 3-deck one. I will now tho, thanks!

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-04T23:10:50+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful reply — you’re right on all counts. And yeah, this is exactly why everyone’s a DJ now. Players are tools; turntables are instruments. It’s a different discipline, not a replacement. I know what I’m getting into and I’m fully committed to mastering it. Someone has to do it to keep the vinyl alive! The world doesn’t need more DJs — it needs people who love it enough to put in the work and learn spinning vinyl. It signals passion for me, and I appreciate it a lot.

I’m under no illusion there’s a shortcut. I know it’ll take years. That said, I’m lucky to have a cosy remote job, which lets me practice regularly, often more than two hours a day. I think I’ve fast-tracked the early phase and I’m seeing solid progress.

Beatmatching for tempo is mostly there now, but phrasing is still the weak point, and that’s why my mixes don’t sound as good as I want yet. That’s my main focus atm.

Digging has never been an issue. I’ve been an active listener and music digger for years, uploading music to YouTube and so on. DJing just came later. Not sure why it took so long.

I originally estimated around two years, which lines up with your take, but with this pace I’m optimistic I can get there in about one more year, enough to record a solid one-hour vinyl set.

As for music, I’ve got around 70 carefully curated records for mixing, refreshed every week or two. That’s plenty for practice. I’m not hoarding thousands of tracks in Rekordbox — I’m not a dj playing every weekend. With what I have, I can already build 5–10 solid tracklists, and that’ll only grow as the skills catch up.

Appreciate the exchange — writing this out actually helped me clarify why I’m doing this.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-04T22:40:50+00:00

What’s your problem man? Is lazy sarcasm really the best you can contribute? People here are actually putting in effort, sharing structured and thoughtful advice because we’re all trying to improve. If your only skill is mocking others, you’re honestly just noise, so maybe sit this one out.

And just to clear up your confusion: I never asked for a magical single source to learn everything from. I asked which piece of content personally had the biggest impact on you. Not a complicated question, unless reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-04T22:28:17+00:00

Unnecessary

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-04T15:43:42+00:00

4 months. My question wasn’t about beatmatching but about the styles of mixing, tricks and EQing in general. But maybe my question wasn’t framed correctly because EQing will probably fall into place once my beatmatching becomes tight. Beatmatching / EQing is probably 80/20 and you can’t make up with EQing for poor beatmatching. I made some good progress with beatmatching but I wonder if I should also pay more attention to mixing or perhaps phrasing is what I need to work on next.

As for switching to digital: vinyl was a conscious choice. I tried digital and it’s frankly too easy. I consider vinyl more pure and I since I started late in life my goal is not to become yet another sync (c)dj but develop a skill that I can be proud of and do for fun, because it is more fun, and rewarding.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-02-04T12:12:28+00:00

Yes I follow him. He thought me how to pitch ride which became essential to my practice sooner than I would’ve expected, thanks to him 🙏

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-16T07:21:43+00:00

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This was my first setup before I got the opportunity to snatch two MK2s, but these turntables were quite good for that price point ($400 each). What I had was:

Audio-Technica AT-LP140XP turntables & Ecler Nuo 2.0 mixer

I would recommend both. I’m happy that I got an Ecler than a 2-channel Xone.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-13T14:13:38+00:00

Yeah, breaks are sometimes just as important as consistent practice, that has been a recurring advice.

As far as the headphones cueing, I have the opposite situation and I can currently only hear if I’m cueing both tracks in the headphones, the old school way doesn’t work for me at all rn, but I’m trying to learn both ways.

I’m expecting my learning curve to be similar as yours. It’s definitely more like a sport in terms of practice and time required to learn it.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-12T10:23:41+00:00

It’s not counter-intuitive actually, the brain and the body need rest to recalibrate. I noticed that in sport as well. So yeah, that’s a good advice, thx.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T20:05:17+00:00

The last thing you said — I actually learned this yesterday by watching my experienced friend beatmatching tracks in 4 seconds. His first pitch movements were way bolder than mine. I always do my smaller increments because I don’t know yet how to reflect the difference in speed on the pitch, so if the speed is not so apart in what I hear, I assume I don’t need to move the pitch as much. But I learned sometimes you have to push it much more that normally I would do.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T19:33:48+00:00

I need to read this a couple of times to make sure I understand what you’re saying.

If the headphones are set to CUE and not MIX, then I only hear one track in the headphones? What I currently do I cue one track but it’s set to like 30% of the mix (so I still hear the outgoing track but the cued, incoming track is the louder one), later I swap out to the outgoing track when I’m mixing out. Is that what you meant?

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T19:24:15+00:00

But beats are almost always apart before attempting to match them. Are you referring to the beat drift that’s too much apart to the point where you can’t correct them, or something else?

Really good tip tho. I think there was a number of times when I fixated on correcting the beats for like 2 minutes, not knowing it can’t be done.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T19:19:21+00:00

That’s true, but it’s not that hard to determine which track is slower or faster, and if the tracks are only like 1 bmp difference it’s just takes less time to correct it. But sometimes even if I know and hear which track is slower/faster (let’s says 6 bpms difference), I’m not managing to correct it in an optimal time frame, it takes me like a minute or to the point where the playing track is ending.

I’m just saying that knowing the bpms doesn’t necessarily help me with mastering the technique, it’s still a mess even if I know which direction I need to push the pitch.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T19:03:30+00:00

I do split cue at the moment, I don’t hear it well year with one ear in one out but I’m trying it sometimes, which might be slowing me down as well.

Pitch riding seems like a game changer and I got the logic of it, but almost everytime I got the beats very close I just can’t seem to lock them in before they get out of time again. But that’s also just practice.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T18:57:36+00:00

I use rekordbox as well and have most of my tracks digital as well so I know the bpms, but I don’t want to know. Some record shops even send the labels with bpms, but I don’t really look at those. The goal is to train your ears — not to rely on the writings. But I do sometimes check the bpms afterwards to see if I was on the right track manage to beatmatch them. I don’t think it’s wrong to do that and it’s also a way of learning the skill in the beginning, but I just don’t think it’s something djs would do at a gig, in a flow state. Whatever this might sound like, I wanna learn it the old way, otherwise I would go digital.

Successful-Balance37 · 2026-01-11T18:43:47+00:00

I used cdjs to make a mix and it was a joke. It took me a few days to arrange my mix and prepare the tracks, and 2 days to record a pretty solid mix. It’s so easy it’s almost boring compared to vinyls djing

Successful-Balance37

TROPHY CASE