Beat Mixing: Understanding Drum Beats
by Rob Wegner

October 2001

One way that you can better understand beat mixing is to understand basic drumming. This is because dance DJ's listen to the rhythm, as provided by the drum tempo, in order to beat mix. Even though most of today's dance tracks are composed with computer generated drum beats, these "drum fills" generally replicate the elements of a classic drum-set. In addition, the turntable, in terms of its incorporation into orchestras, is classified as a percussion instrument.

First, let's review the basic drum-set. As Figure 1 shows, a simple set includes a bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, cymbals, and tom toms.

Figure 1

Dance music is almost always in 4/4 time (3/4 time can be found in Polka and Waltz). 4/4 time is basically counting 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, etc. Each count (or block) of fours is a measure. If you were to hit the bass drum and snare drum every time you counted to four, it would look like this (reading from left to right)(see Figure 2):

Figure 2 (Four Beat Measure)

Now let's play the snare drum on the 2nd and 4th beat (where you snap your fingers) and the bass drum on the first and third beat. The note change will appear as follows (see Figure 3):

Figure 3 (Rotating Snare & Bass Drum)

Most DJ's cue their song on the first beat (where the bass drum often starts) at the beginning of a measure. When a DJ is mixing a "32 beat in-and-out," it means the DJ mixed for this length of time (see Figure 4):

Let's call the above 32 beat segment a "phrase." By "phrasing," a DJ is starting the intro exactly at the beginning of a segment and matching it to the outro of a song with the same number of beats (i.e., 32 beat outro). If the intro is only 16 beats, then the DJ must match that intro with 16 beats of an outgoing song's outro. Fortunately for today's DJ's, the intro's and outro's of most dance tracks are essentially drum beats.

A common mistake is failing to compare the number of beats in an intro to an outgoing song's outro. For example, if a DJ starts to beat match a song with a 32 beat intro into a song with a 16 beat outro, the change at the 17th beat of the outro may ruin the mix (particularly if the intro was noticeable). If the DJ mixed out of the song with the 16 beat outro, then the remaining 16 beats of the intro will most likely consist of just drums, which will most likely drop the energy level.

Finally, you should note that most dance songs maintain the 32 beat pattern throughout the track. In other words, even though the intro may have ended after 32 beats (or four 32 beat segments, etc.), the verse may be 32 beats (or two 32 beat segments), the chorus 32 beats (or two 32 beat segments), etc. In some instances, you may discover a song that has a 16 beat segment between several 32 beat segments. Nevertheless, you can usually expect a change after every 32 beats. This should help you to predict change(s), particularly when you need to find a segment to mix out of a song that's not working.