Play button (the purple round triangle): the track you press starts playing. While it plays, the button turns into a pause shape, and pressing it again stops the track on the spot.
CUE: press it while stopped and it remembers the current position. The remembered spot appears as a purple flag above the waveform. Press it while playing and it returns to the remembered spot and stops. This is the same idea as real DJ software (rekordbox).
Waveform: the center line is the current playback position, and the track flows from right to left. Press a spot to jump there, and drag sideways to move in small steps. It does not snap to the beat, so you can close a gap by hand. Jumping alone does not change the CUE.
Where you are now: the orange line in the center is the current position. The bar numbers flow below the waveform, so the number under the line is the current bar. There is no separate box for the number.
Beat offset: check whether the red lines of the two tracks line up. When the red lines are half a beat or more apart, "The beats are off!" appears below the waveform. It shows only while they are off. It does not show how many beats off they are, because you can tell from the red lines.
Line colors: red is the start of a bar, white is the beats in between, orange is the current playback position, and lime is the saved CUE. When the red lines of the two tracks line up one above the other, the starts of the bars are matched.
CUE: a lime vertical line and "CUE" appear where you set it. It stays attached to its place in the audio and flows with it, so it disappears when it leaves the 8-bar view. It is not pushed to the edge, because that would make it look as if it were there.
View range: fixed at 8 bars. A and B are drawn at the same width of time, so when the tempos differ, the spacing of the beat lines looks different. Any offset shows up on the screen as it is.
Tempo: the speed of the track changes in steps of 0.5 BPM. Pull down to go faster, push up to go slower, the same direction as the tempo slider on a CDJ. The center is the track's own speed (128 BPM). Because it changes the playback speed itself, going faster also raises the pitch. This is the same behavior as a CDJ without key lock, or a record. Matching the BPM alone does not line up the timing of the beats automatically.
Previewing in headphones: on real gear, you can check a track in your headphones first without sending it to the dance floor. This screen does not have that. Match by listening to the sound that is playing.
EQ (HIGH / MID / LOW): this changes the amount of that band. Turned all the way down to 0, that band cannot be heard, just like the EQ on real gear: when you say "cut", it disappears. When the bass of two tracks overlaps it turns muddy, so try lowering the LOW on one of them and compare.
Fader: this is the volume of that track. At 0 it cannot be heard.
What you can practice with these two tracks: bring in B from bar 9 of A, at the point marked "Play B" in the waveform strip, and overlap them for 8 bars. During that time A is in Drop (chorus) and B is in Intro. At bar 17 of A, where the overlap ends, Vocal begins at bar 9 of B. That is where A should be fully lowered, not where A ends: if you do not lower it, A keeps playing for its remaining 16 bars and stays layered with the Vocal of B. The mark "Cut A" that appears at bar 9 of B is that cutting point. It is 32 beats, or 8 bars, from the start of B. This is one easy way to practice, not the only right answer. You can overlap anywhere you like, and nothing stops you if you do not follow the marks.
Track length: what plays here are edited versions cut out for practice. A is 32 bars and B is 16 bars. Not every real track is built like this. Playback stops when it reaches the end.
Audio credits
AKulakovka, "Pop House"PixabayPixabay Content LicenseA 32-bar cut arrived that keeps going for 45 seconds after the 8-bar changeover. According to the accompanying notes, the original was 118 BPM and it was converted to 128 BPM.
BAlex_Morgan, "House Music Classic"PixabayPixabay Content LicenseA 16-bar cut arrived: an 8-bar kick intro, then the vocals come in from bar 9. The tempo has not been changed.
In this state,
both track A and track B are running, but you can hear only track A.
That is the situation.
Make track B audible little by little
Now, slowly raise the volume fader of track B.
Actionraise the fader of track B
Where only track A could be heard at first, track B gradually starts to come in.
In other words, the state of
A only
turns into
A + B
— that is the change.
With faders, rather than switching tracks abruptly, you can make the next track audible little by little.
Try lowering track A
Now, with track B still audible, slowly lower the fader of track A.
Actionlower the fader of track A
Track A gradually becomes inaudible, and in the end only track B remains.
In other words, it went
A only → A + B → B only
That is the change.
This is a part of what you experienced in "Connecting Two Tracks for the First Time," this time focusing only on the faders.
PLAY and the fader have different roles
PLAY and the fader may look similar, but their roles are completely different.
PLAY / PAUSE
→ plays and stops the track itself
Fader
→ changes how audible the playing track is
For example,
if you keep track B on PLAY and lower its fader,
track B is running, but you can't hear it yet.
— that is the state you can create.
In DJing, this difference is important.
Why lower the fader instead of stopping the track?
When moving from track A to track B,
there is also a way to stop track A suddenly and play track B at that moment.
In DJing, however, you can run the two tracks at the same time for a while while adjusting
Play button (the purple round triangle): the track you press starts playing. While it plays, the button turns into a pause shape, and pressing it again stops the track on the spot.
CUE: press it while stopped and it remembers the current position. The remembered spot appears as a purple flag above the waveform. Press it while playing and it returns to the remembered spot and stops. This is the same idea as real DJ software (rekordbox).
Waveform: the center line is the current playback position, and the track flows from right to left. Press a spot to jump there, and drag sideways to move in small steps. It does not snap to the beat, so you can close a gap by hand. Jumping alone does not change the CUE.
Where you are now: the orange line in the center is the current position. The bar numbers flow below the waveform, so the number under the line is the current bar. There is no separate box for the number.
Beat offset: check whether the red lines of the two tracks line up. When the red lines are half a beat or more apart, "The beats are off!" appears below the waveform. It shows only while they are off. It does not show how many beats off they are, because you can tell from the red lines.
Line colors: red is the start of a bar, white is the beats in between, orange is the current playback position, and lime is the saved CUE. When the red lines of the two tracks line up one above the other, the starts of the bars are matched.
CUE: a lime vertical line and "CUE" appear where you set it. It stays attached to its place in the audio and flows with it, so it disappears when it leaves the 8-bar view. It is not pushed to the edge, because that would make it look as if it were there.
View range: fixed at 8 bars. A and B are drawn at the same width of time, so when the tempos differ, the spacing of the beat lines looks different. Any offset shows up on the screen as it is.
Tempo: the speed of the track changes in steps of 0.5 BPM. Pull down to go faster, push up to go slower, the same direction as the tempo slider on a CDJ. The center is the track's own speed (128 BPM). Because it changes the playback speed itself, going faster also raises the pitch. This is the same behavior as a CDJ without key lock, or a record. Matching the BPM alone does not line up the timing of the beats automatically.
Previewing in headphones: on real gear, you can check a track in your headphones first without sending it to the dance floor. This screen does not have that. Match by listening to the sound that is playing.
EQ (HIGH / MID / LOW): this changes the amount of that band. Turned all the way down to 0, that band cannot be heard, just like the EQ on real gear: when you say "cut", it disappears. When the bass of two tracks overlaps it turns muddy, so try lowering the LOW on one of them and compare.
Fader: this is the volume of that track. At 0 it cannot be heard.
What you can practice with these two tracks: bring in B from bar 9 of A, at the point marked "Play B" in the waveform strip, and overlap them for 8 bars. During that time A is in Drop (chorus) and B is in Intro. At bar 17 of A, where the overlap ends, Vocal begins at bar 9 of B. That is where A should be fully lowered, not where A ends: if you do not lower it, A keeps playing for its remaining 16 bars and stays layered with the Vocal of B. The mark "Cut A" that appears at bar 9 of B is that cutting point. It is 32 beats, or 8 bars, from the start of B. This is one easy way to practice, not the only right answer. You can overlap anywhere you like, and nothing stops you if you do not follow the marks.
Track length: what plays here are edited versions cut out for practice. A is 32 bars and B is 16 bars. Not every real track is built like this. Playback stops when it reaches the end.
Audio credits
AKulakovka, "Pop House"PixabayPixabay Content LicenseA 32-bar cut arrived that keeps going for 45 seconds after the 8-bar changeover. According to the accompanying notes, the original was 118 BPM and it was converted to 128 BPM.
BAlex_Morgan, "House Music Classic"PixabayPixabay Content LicenseA 16-bar cut arrived: an 8-bar kick intro, then the vocals come in from bar 9. The tempo has not been changed.
For example, try creating the states where
only A is audible
↓
both A and B are audible
↓
only B is audible
Try each of these states.
Conversely,
B only → A + B → A only
going back is fine too.
Here, you don't need to match the timing.
When you move a fader, which track you hear, and how much, changes.
It's enough if you can confirm this.
Real equipment has other volume controls too
On real DJ equipment, besides this fader, there are also