I'm djing tonight and planning on starting off around 90-100 bpm for a while before moving into 140 territory. The majority of the 140 stuff I play is heavier than the 100 bpm stuff, so it seems logical to me to build up to the heavy stuff, but at the same time, the tempo pacing feels as if its slowing down as I move from 100 bpm into 140 half-step. I've tried this pacing before, and it worked out alright, but I am curious as to how other dj's slide between tempos and their experiences with it.

sometimes a slow down can be a good thing. changes the energy. if it's heavy stuff you won't necessarily be losing any energy either. i've tried doing the whole rising or falling for a whole set deal but it's never really worked for me (i get bored.) i find peaks and valleys tend to work best, especially for longer sets ( > 1hr.)

the tempo transition might not be as shocking as you think it is from behind the decks, especially if you're riding a buildup/breakdown.

2 cents.

There's a thread about the actual mechanics of the tempo transition from glitch-hop to dubstep with a lot of different techniques. I think energy level of the tunes is a lot more important than tempo, for sure--last time I saw Vibesquad he did a big, noticeable tempo change every 20 minutes or so, which is more than I really like to do, but he made it flow cause the energy level flowed.

Generally when I want to play the 70/140 stuff in the same set as midtempo stuff I do exactly what you described--just start out with whichever segment is lighter so you can build up. You definitely want to be careful with going up from 70 to 90--if the 90bpm tune is heavy enough then the tempo change can build people up, but if it's not then everyone's gonna be like "what happened to the rage?!" Going from midtempo to 70/140 is usually the safer bet, I think, cause people like getting slammed into some halfsteppy tunes.

OT - but vinja dude... droppleganger is amazing brah! when them chords hit, mmm.

OMG VINJA WAS PLAYING AND HE DIDN'T EVEN TELL ME!!?!!!


wtf bro... just... wtf. you owe me dinner for that one. how dare you not let me come support you.
i'll only forgive you if you were out of town.

recently tried something i never do, which is go UP from 90 to 140, playing some of that faster midtempo, as well as some glitchy house, then once i got to 135ish, dropped it halftime and people went nuts. will definitely be doing again.

I have no compunction against speeding up dubstep or slowing down midtempo and changing bpm as i mix. I honestly don't care what the bpm is anymore. some dub tracks at 140 sound better to me at 110 and vice versa. It really just depends what specific sound I'm trying to accomplish.

I start at 85-90ish, throw in some DnB, drumstep, keep people guessing early on, then when it comes time to make a bigger transition, it's no big deal..

What usually happens is I hang around 100-105 for quite awhile, definitely liking those vibes right now.. When time comes I will mix out of 105 into 140, halftime being 70, 105 being 1.5x 70bpm.. It sounds really interesting. Key is to find a clean drum loop on one and percussion free parts on the other.. Specimen A's remix of Cold as Ice has been working for me lately.

If it's one thing I appreciate about a glitch hop DJ, it's that they are usually mixing across a wide variety of tempo's. I usually like to go from one end of the spectrum to the other if I'm planning a set like this. Start at 70ish and work my way up, or some where around 105 and work my way down.

The vibe within the tunes you drop will affect the overall crowd vibe more than the tempo change if it's done progressively through your set IMO.

I only really mix wonky and happy hard, so it's pretty easy to transition.

ive always considered 90bpm to be the ultimate ass shaking sweet spot

couldnt have said it better myself. I like starting with a nice bumpin 90bpm, move slowly into 100-110, and then get into some 140/70 twostep. only hard part can be finding a good 100 or so beat that can transition well into a half tempo track, giving the mix that sudden cut of the tempo by half and completely changing the feel and opening up new options to move from there.

ya dig?

a bit off the topic but... when your djing, (if using ableton) to mix and play, do you set the launch to complex pro or re-pitch? i find if bass heavy tracks arent set to complex pro (at least on low-mid grade SS's) the bass sounds like shit..

I set everything in re-pitch but sometimes for transition ill set up the transition as complex given the clip a fallow action so it transition to re pitch for at the drop. I sue fallow actions alot to re arrange songs sometime so i can have parts that are more suited for tempo changes for when i mix between tracks

vinja tunes are smashing shit!

This is the coolest trick I've stumbled upon as far as interesting tempo changes..

I like to go from 130-140 up to 150-160 which of course I can then transition into the 80 - 86 range and move my way up to 90 - 96 or hang at 85 and use my secret weapon - Alex B's remix of Robot Koch's "Devil Drums" which goes from 85 up to 140 and that completes the full circle - or I can go the other direction by taking an 80 range track and turning it 160 and going down to 150 then to 140, etc

Those mathematical transitions can be really sweet. 70 x 1.5 = 105 is a good point.
I figured out by accident that I could turn 135 into 100 using a little delay trick that I stumbled upon..

(one of my tracks into a bassnectar track) it's the delay on the vocals that makes it flow, but you could essentially just go from one beat to the next if the tracks worked out like that.

- I've been meaning to come up with a way to throw a beat repeat or delay on a 140ish tune and mix into that 100ish range on-the-fly but I would need a delay set to ms instead of sync- so in the past I just set up the right situation ahead of time with an "unwarped clip" trick I picked up.

Along with using mixed-in-key I have been practicing traveling around tempo, key, vibe, energy and being as flexible and sporadic as possible within my sets. merging DJ, live PA and live looping + drums.

/rant

I like to drop a tapestop VST or use the turntable stop in Gross Beat, or alterrnatively drop a really fast beat repeat (as slow as 16th notes or as fast as 64th notes sometimes) in Gate mode and then fade out of in to a breakdown. Works best if you are actually mixing the two tracks together long before you drop the effect and mix out of the effected track and in to the new track... but you can also use it as a lazy way to mix out of unwarped tracks (the beat repeat will create digital "noise" which will be on beat, the tapestop or vinyl stop will slow the beat way down to where it isn't the hits aren't fully perceived but still sounds cool)

I generally play some 140 dubstep tracks and play around one there from about 135 to 145 depending on the mood, then find a good transitional drumstep track and maybe play a couple of those and then work into some 85-90 glitch hop tracks bring those up to a few 100-105 tracks then from there go to about a 115-120 bpm and work that back up to 140. If I have more than an hour I do those multiple times, it's been working out pretty well for both myself and the audience it would appear : )

Just to add my 2¢ to this subject. When I first started getting into Glitch/Future Bass it was very annoying putting things together mainly because with a minimal selection one track would be 70bpm another would be 86 then another would be 98 as you can see with not having many tracks to chose from it causes plenty of griefs. After spending lots of time and money and having a massive collection I realized you have so many choices to choose from I usually will start at 70 and progress using tracks that are just a few bmps more and slowly the speed increases and this makes the crowds dance movements progress as well.

As far as drastic changes such as 70 to 90-100 range or 100-90 range to 70 I will try and find melodic intros with a drop that compliments the bassline from the other tracks that way it carries over. The smoothest transitions by far are tracks that transition themselves such as boom n pow- Akira Kiteshi it starts midtempo and drops into 70 bpm range. Either way it all comes down to what you want to do to the crowd. Do you want to slowly progress it or do you want to hit the crowd with something new and different to create shock factor and keep the crowd in suspense

138 BPM
=
96 BPM Dot 1/4 and obviously 72 BPM on 1/2

If you don't mind constricting yourself to a rigid tempo plan then this is a great place to start. 100-105 bpm stuff can slow down to 92 without to much hassle, and anything lower into the 70's should sit at 72 fine.

As Drk.mttr already demonstrated, delays are fantastic to sue for easy transitions.

Example:
138 BPM - 92 BPM

Open the fade to grey fx rack in ableton and turn off the sync on the delay and set it to 652 ms. Now when you move the tempo slider the delay won't be effected creating lots of buffer issues whilst it tries to slow down alongside the tempo.

Now with the 138 track playing whack the fade to grey to maximum and you'll start to hear the 1/4 dotted echo kick in. Feel free to set the tempo at 92, the sound won't be effected.

If your using a more advanced delay plugin this is where you can introduce proper feedback loops (or use the 'freeze' function on the pingpong, or whatever delay you what) and start doing some real trickery.
My little tip now is to let that loop keep going and apply some tempo based fx (turnado, stutter edit, instajungle, the finger etc) after the delay in the fx chain. As the BPM is now at 92 you'll start to introduce a 4/4 rhythm even though the loop is a 1/4 dotted. Insta madness imporv funtime!

Then drop your 92 bpm track. Jobs done.

fuck man all these bpm calcs are making my head hurt. can't we all just be like dnb and make tunes between 100-105bpm? also make tunes with long intros for mixing purposes.

hehe i know none of you probably want to simplfy things that much but just image in glitch hop was a vinyl genre not a digital one.

*fuck im a terrible speller when high, you know what the fuck i mean

I hear everyone, good thread.

Blitchy, either this helps or hurts more:

What about 30 60 90 120 150 180, 210? Then you have 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175... And of course, 40, 80, 120, 160, 200.

So you have 120 (standard) and 150 to 'teleport' between bases: For example, 60, 90, 120, 150, 75 or 80, 120, 60.

I'm working on more 3rds than halves (which are easy), digging on calculating those delays.

When playing on vinyl I used to have my sets work from 70 -> 140 than go halftime and start the process all over again. But ableton lets me absolutely mangle the BPM of any track with a simple knob twist on mp APC (Love it!) so I've been known to do all kind of transitions live.

Personally this is where songs with tempo changes can come in useful, that was it sounds natural as the producers created the song with it and it'll get you from A to B. I have a cassius remix that goes from dubstep to glitch hop, planning on using it tonight. Also, some of the posts above couldn't be more true, some songs sound better at different bpms. Oddly enough I find Ill.Gate & Bassnectar's Probable Cause sounds pretty great at 110 BPM. Gives the song a whole different pumping electro feel, just my two cents