A Beginner’s Guide to Beat Matching and Mixing with DJ Aryan Magat of Beat Project Manila
When in Manila, are you looking for a studio to jump start your professional or amateur DJ career? Then be part of the Project. At the heart of Manila’s prime area for a night of gallivanting and clubbing, is the pulse of Beat Project Manila at The Fort in Bonifacio Global City Taguig.
WheninManila founder and CEO Vince Golangco and I had the chance to be schooled under the tutelage of some of the country’s DJ supremos at Beat Project Manila. Read about it here: https://www.wheninmanila.com/beat-project-manila-professional-djs-school-us-on-mixing-tracks-matching-beats-and-making-magic/
Now I’d like to share what they taught and what we learned. This article is for all the folks out there who might be interested to try their hand out at DJ-ing or are simply curious as to how the beginning process goes.
Gather around and put on your headsets, kids.
Disclaimer: You won’t actually magically know how to DJ after reading this article. This is just to give you an idea of what it would look like when you first try it out. The pros at Beat Project Manila have a better chance of showing you the ropes on DJ-ing than I do. 🙂
A Beginner’s Guide to Beat Matching and Mixing: The Basics Before You Bring the Noise
Before learning and studying any craft, you first need to get the basics down. In DJ-ing, the most basic things you need are the following:
A CDJ turntable (with which Beat Project Manila comes fully equipped)
A pair of decent headphones
Once that’s squared out, let’s familiarize ourselves with the CDJ turntable. In the beginning, it may look quite daunting and intimidating what will the bazillion buttons, shiny nobs and thingamajigs before you. But when starting out, you only need to tinker with a few buttons and functions.
Play/Pause Button
Cue button to well, cue your next song.
The Track Search (to move to the next or the previous song) and the Search buttons (for rewinding or forwarding).
The Tempo Control (to increase or decrease the tempo of the song)
The Jogwheel (can also adjust the tempo instantly but for a brief time only)
The Channel Faders for each channel (in DJ-ing, 2 channels are generally used)
