In this way, it’s similar to what a DJ does when blending song in a club. Using his or her ears, he or she match the beat of one song to another (a process called “beat matching“).
By clicking the on-screen buttons with your mouse, you’re able to control the widget, or you can type on physical computer keyboard to make adjustments more quickly.
How to Play the DJ Game
Your task are to match Deck A‘s hidden reference tempo with Deck B‘s tempo and phase so that they line up just right. First, hit the Drop a hidden club tempo button which will load up a random reference beat on Deck A. It then establishes target speed, which you would of have to fix. It also chooses a random phase offset that you must adjust. If you prefer not to mess with tempo and just work on getting those beats to line up you can opt for the Drop a phase only challenge button instead.
After selecting your challenge, hit the Cue both beat loops to play it out and get platters spinning.
The Deck B pitch fader is where you’re going to do most of your tempo adjusting. Moving the pitch fader left or right adjust the BPM on Deck B so that it matches Deck A’s (which we haven’t seen yet). To fine tune things, you can hit the Nudge 0.1 faster and Nudge 0.1 slower buttons as well. Alternatively, if you’re playing with your keyboard, you can just hold your finger in place and hit the Left or Right arrow keys to make same tiny changes.
Once both tempos is near, adjust the phase alignment to ensure that both kicks arrives together. To move the starting point for Deck B’s audio, press the Jog 20 ms forward button or Jog 20 ms back. Alternatively, use the Period key (on a computer keyboard) to jog the phase forward and the Comma key to jog it backwards. Check the visual cue on the platters, do they converge or drift apart?
The cue buttons (Deck A & Deck B) let you set which deck is playing. Hit either button to mute/unmute that particular deck so you can listen only to the track you are adjusting without the other interfering. You can also use the A and B keys of your computer keyboard to do this. This will come in handy if you want to isolate the reference track to realy hear how it’s drifting.
If you think you’re on the right track with the beats lined up, you can then press the Lock this blend button to confirm. The widget will calculate your BPM error and phase gap to show you how far off in time and phase you are. It will let you know whether or not you’ve nailed the reference. Once it’s low enough, you’ll get the success message and the decks will be locked together. If not, just tweak the phase and pitch until the number go under the threshold.
The mixer section has a slider at the bottom which you can use to control the total volume of booth. If it’s too quiet/ too loud for where you are then that will help out.
Next up there is the option to fully expand the How to play panel for an easy reference to all of keyboard shortcuts and other controls available. Lastly, there is a Fullscreen button which will remove distractions and allow you to focus only on the task at hand.