Beatmatching: by ear and with SYNC

Beatmatching means getting two records to play at the same tempo with their beats landing together, so the kicks hit as one. DJs did it by ear long before software could do it for them, and it's worth knowing how even if you press SYNC every time.

Two things to match

Tempo: how fast each record plays. If one is even a little faster, the beats slide apart over a few bars.
Where the beats fall: two records at the same tempo can still sit a fraction of a beat apart. You hear two kicks where there should be one.

By ear

Bring the new record in quietly, with its fader low, and start it on a kick of the record that's playing.
Listen to the two kicks. If they drift apart, the tempos don't match yet.
If the new record's kicks fall behind, speed it up. If they run ahead, slow it down. Move in small steps.
When the kicks stay together for several bars, the tempos match.
If the tempos match but the kicks sit a little apart, speed the new record up for a moment and then back down to pull it forward, or slow it for a moment to let it fall back.

The BPM readouts on the decks get you close. Your ears finish the job.

The tempo control in Mix//Sync

Each deck's tempo control sits beside its BPM.

The percentage shows how far the deck is from the record's own tempo. 0.0% is the tempo it was recorded at.
Press the minus or plus button to move 0.1 BPM. Shift-click to move 1 BPM. Hold a button down and it repeats, faster after a moment.
Drag the percentage up or down for bigger moves, or scroll over it for fine ones. Double-click it to go back to 0.0%.
The control reaches 8% either side of the record's own tempo.
The BPM shown is the tempo the deck is playing at right now.
You set the tempo of the decks you're playing. With a friend in the session, the tempo of their deck is theirs: see Who controls what.

SYNC

Press SYNC and your record takes the tempo of the one that's playing and comes in beat-locked. Press it again to turn it off.
Master, beside SYNC, chooses which deck leads. Click it to make that deck the master, and click it again to clear it. With no master chosen, the deck that's playing leads, and if both are playing, the one that started first.
While a deck is synced, its tempo comes from the master, so its own tempo control doesn't move it. To speed the mix up or slow it down, change the master's tempo and the synced deck follows.
Turn SYNC off and the deck stays at the tempo it was playing. Turning SYNC off clears the Master choice too.
Sync lines up beats, not bars. Which phrase you bring the next record in on is your call.

Why it still matters

SYNC works from each record's beat grid, the map of where its beats fall. When a grid sits off the kicks, a synced record lands off the kick too, and an ear for beatmatching is how you notice it in the first few bars. Then you know it's the grid that needs a look: Fix a beat grid shows how.

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