A control ( usually a
slider ) on a DJ's
turntable that allows the
speed of rotation to be varied from the base speed of 33 or 45
rpm. This allows the DJ to
beatmatch when mixing two
tracks with different
bpm rates.
Usually the pitch control allows an adjustment of up to
+/- 8%. So If you have a track that normally plays at
120 bpm you can speed it up to
129.6 bpm or slow it down to
110.4 bpm. It is often possible to adjust the pitch control so that it can provide a greater adjustment (for example on a
SL 1200 deck the range can be increased to +/- 16%), however this is usually
inadvisable since it necessarily makes the pitch control more
sensitive and harder to make
fine adjustments with. Also, if you get a
gig the decks at the
venue will almost certainly have +/- 8% pitch controls.
Most pitch controls also have a
crystal lock switch which will bypass the pitch control completely and force the turntable
to spin at the
base speed. This is useful if you are trying to
synchronise the pitch controls of two decks, or work out the
bpm of a track.