How to Enter a Beat Battle Using Beat DJ

Let the games begin

Beat-battle.net has been going viral lately as a place for producers to compete head to head, and Beat DJ is a great way to jump in. The site gives everyone the same sample kit and a countdown clock, then the participants vote on the best beat. This guide walks you through every step from downloading the kit to uploading your finished track before time runs out.

Step 1: Find a Server and Announce Yourself

Head to beat-battle.net and either host your own server or join an existing one. Once you pick a server, drop the server id in our Discord #beat-battles channel and tag @everyone so others can join or spectate.

Step 2: Download the Kit and Convert the Files

Beat-battle.net supplies sample kits as .ogg files. Beat DJ currently has trouble searching .ogg files, so you need to convert them to .wav after downloading. You can use any online ogg-to-wav converter, or if you have ffmpeg installed on your computer you can convert the whole folder at once with this command:

for f in *; do ffmpeg -i "$f" "${f%.*}.wav"; done

Run that from inside the kit folder and it will produce a .wav version of every file.

Note: ffmpeg is a separate tool from Beat DJ and needs to be installed on your system before you can use it.

Step 3: Load the Kit into Beat DJ

Open Beat DJ and point it at your converted kit folder:

src chooseFolder

Pick the folder that contains your new .wav files. Beat DJ will scan everything and make it searchable so you can start pulling in sounds.

Step 4: Make Your Beat

Now the fun part. Build your beat using whatever commands you like. One tip worth remembering: use the ps (precision sampler) command on some of your sounds to get longer chops out of them.

When you have about two minutes left on the clock, record your beat:

rec

This saves your session as a .wav file ready for export.

Step 5: Boost the Volume

Louder tracks tend to do better in votes. Once you have your recorded .wav, name it input.wav and run this ffmpeg command to bring it up in volume without clipping:

ffmpeg -i input.wav -af "acompressor=threshold=-10dB:ratio=2:attack=0.01:release=30:makeup=4,alimiter=limit=-1dB" output.wav

This applies a gentle compressor to even out the dynamics and then a limiter to keep the peak level just under 0 dB. The result is a loud, punchy mix that holds up next to other submissions.

Step 6: Convert to MP3 and Upload

Beat-battle.net only accepts .mp3 uploads, so do one final conversion:

ffmpeg -i output.wav output.mp3

Upload your output.mp3 before the two-minute countdown ends. Then stick around — voting is part of the experience and it's how you see what other producers did with the same exact sounds.

What's Coming Next

The .ogg search bug will be fixed in the next Beat DJ update, along with built-in normalization and mp3 export so you won't need the ffmpeg steps above. Down the road there may be a dedicated Beat Battle page on the Soniare site where we can run our own custom challenges and maybe even compile the best entries into little EPs.

Until then, grab your kit, set your timer, and get to work. See you on the leaderboard.