beatgrid - full manual mode

It would be useful to be able to define your own beatmarkers as well as being able to just move the entire grid and tempo.

At the moment I use cubase/hitpoints and audiowarp for this but it's a real pain.

 

Elastic beatmarkers have been suggested many times and are I think on the roadmap. But not anytime soon.

 

I think that's different from manually entering them.

I think it would be easier to implement a manual override mode where you have to enter your own beatmarkers rather than have the program calculate variable tempo.

But I may be wrong - would be nice to have both of course!

 

Well laying down a grid marker is the same as manually entering a beatmarker - the following markers snap to this one. It's the following ones that are the problem. If your bpm is wrong then you'd have to specify every subsequent marker. Or have variable bpms. Or have elastic beatgrids.

 

This is familiar topic that we see getting confused .
There is no point in placing a Manual Beatmarker if it doesnt line up with the grid. Again its the track that needs to be elastic not the grid.
Elastic grids would help no-one. Moving grids doesnt help.
Placing a gridmarker that forces the beatmarker on a track to align to the grid is the solution.
Which is basically what Lethal said.
Moving the grid as the OP suggests would be a bit pointless?

 

AN elastic grid would make an elastic track

You seem to be the one confusing things here moderator... Elasticity is the result of applying manually (thus eventually irregularly) placed markers to a track. Maybe we need to use the word "mesh" instead of "grid", as in 3D software.. to illustrate the "putty quality" of such markers).

 

That makes no sense in relation to syncing tracks which the whole meaning of elasticity is applied.

How ?

You need to understand the point of elasticity in relation to Syncing tracks. An elastic Grid would be a useful as a chocolate kettle dude.

How would an elastic grid on one track allow for the next track to be aligned and synced.

A Grid HAS to be static. It has to fit on a track that is a certain BPM.
The Track needs to be elastic to fit the defined Grid length, which is in turn defined by the BPM.

A grid set on a track that is 125bpm will have exactly the same length between the beats/bar as another track that is 125bpm. The grids on both tracks have to be exactly the same in length so that both tracks will sync up.

If one of the tracks has some fluctuation in the bmp the 'track' has to be elastic to match the beats to the grid.

You are completely misunderstanding the point of Beat Grids and elasticity .

 

Monkey Bra In Sushi?

 

AbletonLive-like elasticity (warp markers if you will... to get back to the topic Coredump started) is what I believe most people mean by an elastic approach in regard to sound. If all tracks were tight as a metronome static/regular grids would be way sufficient.

PS: Do "moderators" on here actually work for NI ? Hope not. That'd be scary.

 

Yes i understand the issue. NI have mentioned that a 'Warp like' feature will be introduced in the future.

This feature will warp the track to make it fit the beatgrid.
I still dont think you get the point of a grid and how it works.
Warp markers bring the music in line with the bpm. Ableton warps the track.


Moderators work to make this forum a place where people can come and share or gain knowledge about Traktor. We are not paid , its a voluntary position. Im not sure how any of this makes things scary ?
If im told i dont understand an issue when i do then im gonna say so..?

Karlos

 

I'm scared. Hold me.

 

Actually; what I would like to be able to accomplish with Traktor is to "beat grid" a track like M's "Razzia 2" ("This Club Is Closed Forever"; a 90's eurotechno version of "Hall of the Mountain King") that has a speeding up tempo - and be able to sync into that (ie. have the other tracks tempo follow the changes in the grid accordingly). What I definetly would not want is the "Razzia 2"'s tempo to be "gridded" into something regular.

Also; being able to "beat grid" Moby's "Thousand" would be quite interesting :lol:

Edit: I hope the two example songs mentioned don't give people the wrong idea of my music taste... granted, I like playing the hits of the 90's, but that's only because I've been playing them ever since they were originally released

 

The problem is that one of the tracks here would have to be radically changed to drag the beats into line with another if it fluctuates.

Either way one track has to be stretched or contracted to fit the other.

I agree that some tracks sound awful after they have been Warped. I dont Warp my old tunes, i know them so well i can DJ them without a grid.

 

Yep. However, that is what computers were born to do; crunch numbers. And they do it very well.

The problem isn't very difficult to solve... after all, all the computer needs to do is ascertain that the *next* two beatmarkers play out at the same time. This means that the track that is synced will need to be speeded up (or slowed down) the necessary amount - and calculating "the necessary amount" is very simple mathematical problem to solve.

After all, isn't grid only supposed to do that; to make it certain that the grids stay in sync? On my opinion, the best way to do that is to set a target in the future (the next beatgrid "line") and make sure both tracks get there at the same time...

 

Yeah all true. It would depend on how much the track drifted between the markers and how much the drift is corrected before the next marker.

The drift could be very obvious between the beatmarkers. That would mean lots of beatmarkers, and lots of work to keep a track completely in sync .

Its what happens between the 'beatmarkers' that worries me with this method. There could be a lot of drifting and movement.

A track that has a bpm of 126 but drifts quite a bit could fluctuate a few bpm either side. If the next track is the same but drifts at different rates theres gonna be some crazy fluctuations on both tracks going on.

I suppose if a human can do it a computer can also.

 

I fail to see the problem; only one of these tracks would still be the master, right? They don't sync to each other but instead, the synced deck syncs to the master deck's tempo. Thus, only one fluctuating tempo (whatever it might at a given point in time be). Of course, I'd be interested in knowing how this would sound (and in fact, I was about to start writing a small testbed application that would "do" exactly that - simulated most likely because I don't have a sturdy enough audio engine to link it against - but decided against that after a while).

Since computers do lack intuition, there is very much a human can do that a computer can't. However, if and when we're able to provide the computer with enough data to overcome the need for intuition (as is the case with beatgridding; telling it when the beats occur so it won't have to "make a guess") there is very little a computer can't do - faster and more precisely than a human being ever could. Which, I must admit, is a very worrying thought.

 

Not a chance..... it isn't going to loose, like, a quarter of a beat or something, not in one beat... that's 25% difference! When tracks warp, they usually do it slowly, in which case, an 'elastic' beatgrid would solve this problem easily. The bpm will not speed up enough between individual beats to cause a problem. If the record was synched to a master then Traktor would just have to adjust the pitch by a little (0.1% max, I guess). If it were master then it would similarly just adjust the other tune.

You could do this by having a beatgrid marker which you could place, and then specify the number of beats between the two markers. Traktor could then split up this area between the two markers by that amount, which would then leave each 'beat' marker sitting bang on the beat. You could also have weighting, so that if there are, say 32 beats between 2 markers, then you could have a clicky button and you can adjust the ratio of the length of the first beat to the length of the last and thus have a smooth proportionally ascending (or descending) bpm (such as the Moby - Thousand example from earlier. Simples.

Yeah, but if a computer can do it, doesn't mean that a human can

 

Hi!

I have another proposal. Instead of that elastica beat grid, why not allow all beat grid points to be moved separatly? not like warp mode in live however.

When you're going to lay the beatgrid on a track you have those buttons on the deck that allow you to move the first beat grid in "time". Then, if you have problems with another point of the track, you need to put another beatgrid point.

Well, what if all the beatgrid points were independent from one another and each one had those moving buttons? It would save A LOT of time instead of always having to play, see if the metronome matches the beat, erase, scratch a bit to the side and the hole thing starts over again...

 

Just Got Ableton

I have just purchased ableton, as bloody traktor cannot do exactly what I want it to... wanted to spend the money on a midi controller, but had to spunk it on ableton instead, simply to be able to warp my tracks. I have now warped my first track, and whatdyaknow, it now all works. Now the system that Ableton uses IS EXACTLY what Traktor should be doing! Ableton's warp points are used whenever the track goes out of alignment. When Ableton then plays the track, it will always hit that warp point bang on time (not 1/8 of a beat after or anything like that). To be fair, if you do warp a track, it doesn't actually adjust the (beat)grid, but rather squashes/stretches the wav/mp3 file between the last warp point and the current one. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT TRAKTOR SHOULD BE DOING.... come on NI, reverse engineer Ableton and nick their code asap! (I am sure it would be easier to write from scratch, but whatever they decide to do, IT ISN'T THAT DIFFICULT - not when compared to what traktor does already).
I bet that now I have shelled out for Ableton (OUCH!), NI will release stretchable grids (or wavs/mp3's) within a week, just my luck!
Gotta save up again now for a newfangled MINI control surface for Traktor...ARRGH!
At least I can now play with Ableton AND Traktor with Hubi's midi loopback device... this could get interesting

 

Traktor has never been advertised as having a Warp Feature... This shouldnt come as any surprise.
However it was announced some time ago the Traktor would eventually have a Warp-Like feature in the future.
If it was so easy it would have been done already.
You also have to consider that many people dont want to warp their tracks. Traktor is, after all a DJ program not a DJ/production program so maybe thats why the emphasis has been on other features. Im sure , it will happen eventually.

At least you are one of the few people in this thread that actually understands that the Grid is never altered and its the track that has to be squished or stretched to fit the grid.