Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

I just finished 1.5 hours of mixing with T3, and this thing fits me like a glove. Out of the gate I mixed one of the best sets I've done in I dunno when. I mean I coulda played out with this dead cold and banged the room. The sound quality of the Xone is phenomenal, and 4-band EQing is so suited to mixing I can't believe there aren't more mixers using it.

Tracks seem to end faster, probably because you're busy as hell DOING stuff (I set my faderfox up for decks A & B and moused C (didn't bring in D). But by the same token, my mixing will never be the same. Not just because of the band sculpting, but because the process of just dovetailing one track into another has gone out the window, and I couldn't be happier. (Oh, sure, you could do that with two decks, but WHY?) I know everyone is making a big deal out of the four decks, but the four-band EQ makes it not only possible to have them all running without sounding like several marching bands falling down stairs, it makes it natural and ideal. And the sound quality is scary better.

So the music becomes more plastic; the threads I can pick out of multiple tracks running are much more distinct. I'm gonna ditch the crossfader and use the gain faders, because what I found myself doing is bringing in and bringing down little bits of several tracks, letting them morph into each other and back. Much more natural to use the gain fades for this. Until Adrian and I finish the Kombine controller, I'm gonna look like someone typing his term paper when I use the app; it screams for ahardware controller. That's about the only reason I can see so far that I wouldn't play out with T3 yet (except parties, where no one cares if you juggle nitro with a monkey).

Sure I have gripes--pages worth. But they're details that I hope will be worked out. Some stuff is confoundingly stoopid (almost entirely layout and klunky UI issues). Much is ingenious. But they're just quibbles in the face of something that has turned out to be exactly the sort of qualitative change I had been hoping for. My initial reactions of "four decks, woop tee dooh; let's see something *different*" were dead wrong. This thing is big. I'm crazy about it.

I know that elsewhere I said I was done with the forum for a while, but I couldn't just sit here after turning in that set. Holy kraznocks, Batman, I love this thing.

 

You Flip Flopper!

 

Da flop flippingest, I tell ya. But I haven't been replaced with a Pod Person Steve, and since I *am* still me, I'll post my list in the gripes thread. Except I'm gonna hold off until after the patch, as I am radiantly confident that Every Single One of Them will be addressed.

 

Don't count on it mate. Its not htat stuff is not getting fixed but rather its that tight control is being kept over the fix list and while lots is being fixed, there are specific things getting prime treatment.

I'm glad you like the release. I believe the demo has osme fixes that were bugs in the initial release too so some of the thing others are grousing about you won't be if you are playing on the demo.

Phil.

 

I think I'm one of the lucky ones who aren't getting any issues with stability or audio. Definitely bugs, but nothing I can't live with.

It sounds odd, but this thing just *feels* good. Right off the bat, though, I notice that if you aren't someone who beatgrids, you're SOL, cuz this thing doesn't like to sync tracks not gridded (not that you can't do it by ear, but there's drift, where gridded tracks don't).

 

I had my first lengthy play with 3.0 over the weekend too and like Steve I'm also mightily impressed.

Surprisingly, no stability issuses on my old Athlon and 512mb of memory. Ran, like a dream.

I need to spend a lot more time with this baby but my initial reaction is good job NI.

 

Yep, I've had to start making sure that all my new tracks are beatgridded, as running 4 decks with 2 decks that are drifting is not pretty.

Tracks that refuse to be beatgridded (eg. bette davies eyes - love that intro to bring over breakdowns) are getting warped in ableton (does anyone else do this?) so that they will stay in time...

Ruf

 

Have not done so yet, but there are a few tracks I will be doing this to in the very near future...

 

@RufusWhite

"Tracks that refuse to be beatgridded (eg. bette davies eyes - love that intro to bring over breakdowns) are getting warped in ableton (does anyone else do this?) so that they will stay in time..."

I have started to do this with a demo version of Live 5 but the demo does not save so I have to re-record them in Spin Doctor 3. It's a bit of a pain but works beautifuly. I got an offer to buy Live 5 for half price and I think I will take them up on it this week.

 

Live is well worth every penny even if you only use it for this feature - especially Live 5 as it warps it all without you having to lift a finger in most cases.

It would be nice of course to be able to have this functionality within Traktor, but one step at a time I spose

Aside from that I've been using it just for some basic re-edits - since getting back from ibiza all my inspiration for making songs from scratch seems to have left me England will do that to you...

Ruf

 

I find when I do this in Live I'm having to tweak tracks, sometimes quite a bit. hence the reason I don't do it much. I'm betting I'm doing something wrong or different... so what / how do you do it?

Phil

 

Not sure if this will help you , but it certainly helped me get started.. http://www.drum-aberdeen.co.uk/Ableton/How_To_Warp_a_Track.html

 

@PhilL
There are some tracks that live just does not get (Dreams* (Honeyfries Dub Vs Honeyfries Anthem Mix 129 8:20 Deep Dish featuring Stevie Nicks) and you have to warp by hand 200-300 beat markers by HAND what a drag then I have to re-record it Ughh.
Now after live warps the track lets say it reads as 128.622 I set the playback tempo to 129 I just round it up.
Even after I warp tracks in Live I still have to beat grid them in traktor but once thats done. like I showed you (PhilL) they are locked and they don't drift on me.

 

Hey ryarni
Thanks for the link. I did not think to use the metronome cool.

 

Lol, I've never thought to use the metronome either, but then quite often I can warp a track without ever having to actually listen to it in live:

When you put a track into Live 5, it will usually try and guess the tempo and place warp markers for you. What I have found about live though is that it always seems to place the markers in the middle of the beat sound, I prefer to put them at the left side of the beat sound (as you would with a beat grid in traktor). I don't know if it would make any difference leaving them where they are, perhaps that's something I could try.

Anyway, if Live doesn't get it right, you will have to delete the warp markers (right click in the marker area and the context menu allows you to do it from there). You should have a rough idea of the tempo from Traktor if you've tried (and failed) to beatgrid the track, you can stick that in as the sample tempo, and place a marker on the first beat. Now I just go from start to finish in the zoomed in sample, if the tempo you've got from Traktor is not too off, you won't have to put warp markers on the track that often at all, just wherever you see the track start to move away from the beat lines. Usually you can "rough up" a track with 10-20 markers, if you want it more accurate than that it's easier to go back and put more warp markers in afterwards. Breakdowns can be a little tricky, I tend to place a marker the bar before the song goes into the breakdown, and then at any strategic points you know for definite land on the beat.

Once it's all done, bung the sample into the arrangement view, select it, and do the mixdown. Then you'll have to re-encode it to mp3 using something like Audition. Now all you have to do is re-input all your ID3 tags when you put it back into Traktor, and now you should be able to beatgrid it without a problem.

Hope this helps,
Ruf

 

didnt try with t3, but it works in 2.6 and helps you to deal with unsteady bpm... (it's based on loop-wise working, though)

- load stubborn track
- put beatmarker at the beginning of a desired loop
- make loop and correct the tempo until the loop is going round
- change the beatmarker to a usual cue point

- go to the next desired loop start point
- set beatmarker
- set loop and correct the tempo until the loop is going round
- etc.

you'll see that the grid goes away from the loop start/ end points, which means, you have kinda *punctual* tempo, this way you can mix loops and set the final tempo to somewhat near to where you usually start mixing the track in.

all sync-button freaks that cant beatmatch by ear (i hope most people here can) may still have a problem, all others: smile and bow down in adoration!

lol. not seriously