Thread: Going into - Pitch!

Sometimes it can't be avoided by I can't stand going into minus pitch, slowing a tune down more than it's natural tempo is almost a no-no for me except for some circumstances. Even when I'm ripping a tune and feel that the tune should be quicker I'll rip it at normal speed then rip it at +8. 2 tunes that I've done this with are Awesome 3 - Don't Go and Doc Scott's N.H.S.

Give me +8 anyday or in Puffa's case +95

Originally Posted by Curly

Sometimes it can't be avoided by I can't stand going into minus pitch, slowing a tune down more than it's natural tempo is almost a no-no for me except for some circumstances. Even when I'm ripping a tune and feel that the tune should be quicker I'll rip it at normal speed then rip it at +8. 2 tunes that I've done this with are Awesome 3 - Don't Go and Doc Scott's N.H.S.

Give me +8 anyday or in Puffa's case +95

ALL ABOUT THE PITCH!!!!!!!!!!!

DID YOU EVER GO INTO A RECORD SHOP AND THE GUY BEHIND THE DEX PUT ON THE NEW TUNE AND NOT HAVE IT PITCHED UP?????????

NO

DID YOU EVER THINK IT SOUNDED THE BOLLOX IN THE SHOP.. THEN GET HOME AND PLAY IT 0 PITCH AND THINK IT SOUNDED WANK???????

YEP!!!!

ALL ABOUT THE PITCH!!!!

& hence why Easygroove was the best DJ back in the day! He would pitch up the tunes so they were faster than everyone else was playin' them & funnily enough, they sounded better!

Obviously he also played loads of tunes nobody else had got their hands on & could swap from hardcore to jungle to techno in the same set but that's beside the point....for the purpose of this argument, it's all about the pitch innit!

I wish people would rip their tunes slightly faster too for the non-DJ's amongst us...

couldn't agree more....when you've got tracks around the 140 BPM mark and you want to mix through to the 160 BPM tunes.....well, it doesn't take a genius to work out that that's a big pitch increase...it means one of 2 things....either you're going to have to REALLY pitch down the 160 BPM tunes to accommodate the 140s; even then you're still going to have to pitch up those tunes; even if it's only by say, +4......it just doesn't work...and the 160+ BPM tunes sound terrible, because...well, you were always going to pitch them up anyway! So you have no choice but to send those 140ish tunes into pitch overdrive!!! As long as they don't sound like a smurf-warbling fest; the results are exciting.....and if like me, you have possibly synaesthesia - I always 'feel' the pitch as if they were colours and each pitch increase brings a different 'colour' which indicates a different sensation (and was one of the reasons why I didn't use many drugs because I had that natural 'switch on' to the music and its colours so to speak...) and I basically hardly ever mix without at least some minimal pitch variance; usually in mosy cases a MASSIVE pitch variance because I've found that perfect 'colour'!!! (Yeah, please don't laugh but it's actually true...!!) And that's how I respond to the music...I can on my ejay software go up to +33 (!) but I never go over +16, but I do often find myself hovering near that mark; especially with tunes under 150 BPM etc......hehe

Speed demons!

There's two sides to look at this and I see both points (standby Puffa ):

1. The element of 'energy' put into a tune when it's pitched up is a fair comment. Cautious Jungledon (my fave DJ), everything is +8 which gives everything a manic feel and obviously faster pace but this just doesn't sit right with me. It's all about personal preference and as Thrash rightly says, Easygroove created his own unique style by doing this and for some reason, all tunes sound better when speeded up.

2. When record-buying BITD in Brum-Land, Shock C. used to pitch the tracks up when playing them for the above reasons - to make them sound better (henceforth maybe sell them better??). On his days off, Michael "Ellis The Menace" used to cover and he had a totally different approach to it:
He'd just had in the Foul Play remix of 'Renegade Snares' which is a very slow tune compared to the others of that era (I'm leaning towards they wanted you to listen to the complicated snare pattern rather than just uzi-machine gun it) and he played it - amongst with everything else played on them 1210s - at 0 pitch so the green LED was always on.
We'd obviously heard that track 100s of times in the clubs the few months before pitched up before it went on general release and I vividly remember refusing to buy it because it was such a slow pace.
Ellis urged me that it was a classic and the point of the pitch was to mix, not play stuff at fast speeds!
He then said something very profound:

"You should play it at 0 pitch because that's the speed the producer made it, therefore the speed you're meant to hear it at" - also a fair comment, but again it boils down to personal preference.

Most producers wouldn't give a donkey's dick what pitch you play it at (remembering again that pitch is to beat-match), they're happy with the initial bpm they made it.

Done a couple of dozen tunes myself about 10 years ago and I never went past 175 bpm as I learnt to make a sampled drumloop (amen for example) sound faster, it only needed to be done on one note higher and then time-stretched to make it loop properly yet the bpm remained relatively slow.


I thought it was a nice gesture for Curly to rip the same tune at 2 different speeds but for the non-DJs like Thrash who like listening to them on their media device at a faster speed, I disagree with.

i disagree, i have numark TTX1's and they can be pitched up +/-8%, +/-10%, +/-20%, +/-50% so i can mix opera with gabba if the mood takes me. i never need to go below - pitch.

Originally Posted by swipezster

He then said something very profound:

"You should play it at 0 pitch because that's the speed the producer made it, therefore the speed you're meant to hear it at" - also a fair comment, but again it boils down to personal preference.

It's not that profound, depends if you want to dance to the music or stand around stroking your chin whilst mulling the finer points of the production!

I know which I preferred....

Originally Posted by Thrash

It's not that profound, depends if you want to dance to the music or stand around stroking your chin whilst mulling the finer points of the production!

I know which I preferred....

HERE HERE


@ euphs......

my stantons have the same pitch range, but also having serato i can set that to 33rpm and the dex to 45.............. THAT IS SPEED

Originally Posted by Renegade Radio

HERE HERE


@ euphs......

my stantons have the same pitch range, but also having serato i can set that to 33rpm and the dex to 45.............. THAT IS SPEED

did i mention my decks have 33/45/78 rpm as standard? not that i ever use 78......although i did try mixing two similarly pitched tunes on +50% @ 78 rpm. not easy!

TO SWIPPA THOUGH............


talking of fave best djs...........

my mate i grew up with, the dark horse himself OLY.S...........

fantastc dj, never clanged in 20 years and mixes like a fuking dream.........yet... not into high pitch atall!!

the chin strokers love him more than me.... but though his mxes are faultless....the energy goes for me as he is not a speed demon and not afraid to ste and stay in the - pitch.

its all horses for corses......... but frush hit the nail on the head above!!!!!!!

I always record tunes from vinyl at the correct speed (these days) but when I used to take a walkman into college I don't think anything was recorded on less than +4 or 5

Also was very confused when hearing 2 Bad Mice's "Hold it Down" at the correct 33rpm speed.
I'd always heard it on the pirates played at 45rpm -8, which is the only speed I could listen to it to.

in Houston US they drink cough medicine & slow everything down (Chopped & Screwed) which is supposed to make the bass sound heavier. In this country we like to speed beats up, probably because of pills/speed.

Since i have got my decks this is the difficulty i am having - i don't like to put the pitch into the minuses either but i have found especially with hcb vinyl - you could have 4 tunes on one vinyl and the bpm can vary greatly between the tunes and sometimes it's difficult not to mix in the minuses - which pisses me off as i think it spoils the tune when it plays too slow - it just doesn't sound right

i've never had any issues with pitching down to make a mix work....but i totally prefer it if everything i'm playing is around +6%

I play nearly all my dnb tunes at minus, -3, -6.-8, (sounds s bit rawer)that maybe something to do with the speed of hardcore, If I had hardcore records I imagine they would be pitched up a tad

Originally Posted by Ridegroover

I play nearly all my dnb tunes at minus, -3, -6.-8, (sounds s bit rawer)