Dj Tutorial, Video 1, The loop function of a Pioneer CDJ-800 turntable

0:00 Before we even touch the actual turntable, what is loop?

Alright folks, it's Jonathan here. This is video number one in a selection I'm doing on the loop function of this guy here, CDJ Turntable. Now then, before we even touch the actual turntable, what is loop? What does it mean? What does it do? Right, basically this. If you have a listen to any kind of dance music, you will of course have a beat. If you listen to that beat and count, you'll have timing. So for example, house music. You've got bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. If you count, you can actually count like so. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In say hip-hop. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. In funk. The DJ Tutor.

1:18 It continually goes from 1 to 8, 1 to 8, like so

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. And it's just an ongoing saga. It continually goes from 1 to 8, 1 to 8, like so. Now let's say we want to halve that, so we've got a count of 4. So basically what we do, we do 1, 2, 3, 4. But what we do is we loop it. 1, 2, 3, 4, like so. Now let's say for example we halve that so we've got a count of 2. So again it's half of 4, we get our piece of paper and now we've got 2. 1, 2, 1, 2. Yes, you guessed it, a count of 1 but we're going to loop that like so. So basically what is happening here is you've just got one beat but... It's gone, sorry, it's starting like this. It's just doing one, one, one, one. That's all it's doing like so. Now if we actually put those next to each other, now bearing in mind this is not to scale. If I can just put that in there, that in there and that in there like that.

2:46 Which is 2 and the next

1 to 8, we've got this which is 8, we've got this guy here which is 4, we've got the next one which is 2 and the next one which is 1. Now then, what happens with a CDJ turntable is it will sample some music, it will sample a segment of music, it will sample 8 beats and it will have the 8 beats running from 1 to 8 but then it will just go straight back to number 1 And then continue again, straight back to number 1, continue again. Likewise with 4, from 1 to 4, straight back to 1, start again, straight back to 1, start again. With 2, 1, 2, as soon as it gets to 2, back to 1, 1, 2, back to 1, 1, 2 and 1, it'll just go 1, 1, 1, 1. Like I said, I'm not even going to touch it yet, this is the first lesson in basically the loop function of a CDJ turntable.

This is what it's all about. Hope it's been a help, practice and enjoy.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.