Trouble dropping on the one.

[BDM107]

I have no problems beat matching or phrasing but I find my self wasting a lot of time correcting after dropping a song on the 1 even if the tempos are matched perfectly. I use Stanton 150's and the torque is pretty high, if I push the record a bit when dropping its too much but if I just lightly let it go its a lot better. Could my problem be because of bad slip mats or a high latency?

[Buszaj]

It just comes down to practice. Every turntable has a different feel to it. And there's nothing wrong with having to give the platter or record a brush to bring it back into sync.

[Fultron]

It just comes down to practice.

This 100%.

[Alex Murphy]

+3 on practice, though I'd recommend trying other slipmats. Never hurts to have a few sets of them. Now I know what you mean with the high torque feeling. On stantons I like to have a a slipmat with a lot of grip and let go of the record rather than pushing it. That's the kind of bad habit you get when spinning on lower specced turntables and compensate the lack of torque with a push.

Not sure if there's such a thing as bad slipmats, it's down to preference. I have seen many DJs going full ghetto and just using some paper You want something slippery yet grippy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhXaizRyM7U


The other trick is to use wax paper.

[Sigma]

Try baby scratch cueing. Learning how to do a clean baby scratch is pretty easy. Once you can do it, you can do a few baby scratches leading up to the "1", then release the track into the mix on time. For example, you could do 4 baby scratches, so it goes like "1, 2, 3, 4, release". You don't have to do it in a way that people actually hear the scratching - you can just do the scratches with the fader closed, then you open the fader as you release the record. If the music you're playing is quite fast, you can do half-time baby scratches, so you don't have to go mental doing fast scratches at 150 BPM or whatever.

This has 2 advantages. One is that it can help with timing, because you're rocking the record back and forth in time with the beat of the song that's already playing. The other is that it gives the record some forward momentum when you let it go. If you just hold a record still and let go, you will always get a slight bit of slur as the record spins up to speed, no matter how high the torque of the decks is. Also, if you hold a record still and then try and push it as you let go, it can be a bit hit and miss. Sometimes you'll push it too hard and the record will be a little bit ahead of the other one. Of course you can refine the "hold still and push a little on release" technique so you nail it pretty much every time, but I find baby scratch cueing to be better. Also, you can sometimes open the fader so people hear some of the scratching. Even though it's only baby scratching, it can still sound better than not doing any scratching ever.

The only disadvantage to baby scratch cueing is cue burn. That's not an issue if you're using time codes, although it will wear the records out a little bit faster, but if you're using real records and you're regularly cueing in the same spot and playing a particular record loads of times, eventually you'll hear the effects of cue burn.

If you don't know what cue burn is, it's basically where you wear down part of the groove so the sound in that part of the record goes "dull". Listen to this clip of Qbert scratching and skip forward to 1:20: -


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fgnR94oC4E

Listen to when the record gets to the "rock" part of "rock the bells". That's badly cue burned from lots of scratching. It would take a long time to wear your records down that much just from cueing though.

[jvine]

The other trick is to use wax paper. Personally, I would never do this, ever. I don't want bits of wax falling into the internals of my technics. In place of wax paper I would reccommend a thin slipmat on top of some cut to platter shape, thick, plastic, record protector sleeves.

As far as slip mats, I've gone through a bunch of no name brand ones, the stanton ones with holes, the thick wavy velvety ones, and original technics ones with plastic underneath, and nothing has served me better than butter rugs.

[Buszaj]

+1 for baby scratch technique. I always start records this way into a mix. Never fails. (Mind you I spin electronic, so my fader will be closed for the first few phrases, makes it somewhat easier)

[djmunster]

we used to spray pledge furniture polish on the platter and buff it in then use a slipmat at the time it was a blue felt technics slipmat we dident have butter rugs and stuff like that spray the polish and watch thoes things get slippery as ice,i dont know if it does any damage but i bought my first pair of technics in 1989 and they still work fine and thats after using pledge about every 3 months

[sense]

baby scratch for the win helps you drop in time and on beat.

[Mixxed]

Good stuff from everyone!

[Tobias Enstrom]

Another pledge user here :)

Spray on to the cloth then start the platter and apply cloth for about 10 revolutions. job done