S4 challenge cannot beat grid chic - good times : Rakim i know you got soul

having a play with traktor and s4 today and thought i would add to my party tunes set list

anyway after 2 hours of F^&*ing about i have turned off my laptop and given up.

this is the challenge:

grab your self copies of

chic - good times

eric b and rakim - i know you got soul

sister sledge - hes the greatest dancer


if you can grid these tunes properly please let me know what to do, i have tryed running them through mixed in key, mix meister and traktor with multi grid points, draged grid and increased decreased bm but the beats are all over the place and just ends in a train wreck! no matter what i do.

i assume ableton could do this but i really dont want to have to learn yet another program i just wanna mix for god sake!

can you grid and mix these together, i cant :angry:


HELP! :|

 

nice challenge i will try it tomorrow ^^

 

You'll be able to mix them together if you can beatmix, but as for gridding them, no. The tempo is not steady throughout the tracks.

Just use some short loops at the start and end of the tunes if you can.

 

hence the desire for warpable beatgrids.

 

eric b and rakim is really easy to grid. Traktor actually got the BPM right on my machine but started the grid a half beat off. Just reset the grid to the first down beat. The problem with this track is the 2 bar drum loop. The first kick is on beat 1 but the next 2 kicks are on beat 3 & 1/2 and 4 & 1/2. (Probably why traktor had the grid a half beat off since the majority of the kicks are on the half beat.

The other 2 tracks have the same issue. The chorus is faster than the verses. The problem is that you generally would want to mix these tracks in with the intro and 1st verse and mix out on the last chorus which is a different tempo. No way to set a grid which works in both instances. Only solution here is to learn to beatmatch manually.

 

Agree with all this.

Eric B is easy once you figure out where the actual down beat is cus the drum track is "behind the beat".

The other 2 tracks are made with human drummers playing to a click track so the BPM drifts.


Try getting hold of: The Revenge Rework of Sister Sledge. Its a brilliant version that has been warped and is easy to grid.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xlz-wXzrd4g"]YouTube - Sister Sledge - Lost In Music (The Revenge Rework)[/ame]


Chic can be looped for 16 beats on the intro quite well so you can loop in when bringing it into the mix. Its drifts in the loop but the in and out are on beat. The rest of it drifts like a tramp summer but that the beauty of it.

Heres a pic of my clear vinyl 12" copy and one of my fave tunes of all time

 

I personally had to manually beatgrid some of my favorite 70's disco music with other software than Traktor. I will try with these 3 songs and see.

 

well im glad you lot agree this was driving me crazy!

beat match manually? i heard about this before but what is it?
---

thanks for that, but did i mention lost in music? hehe. but i take the point

 

Doh... my boob. I misread your post. for some reason i got 'Lost In Music' in my head.

Sorry man.

Yeah i got Greatest Dancer at 112.091 BPM in the Advanced player and if you set an 8 Beat Loop at the beginning it loops the intro perfectly.
The outro is about 115 bpm so quite a drift.

 

yeh the intros seem to work, if i learn ableton will i be able to sort this out?

remember trying before but couldnt get my head round ableton and warping.

 

Ok, so I finally completed a beat grid correction for Eric B and Rakim "I know you got soul" and yes it was off.
I had to manually beatgrid every 4 beats. With a beer on my left and my headphones on my ears I removed all the default grid markers that the software created and did my own. Just bopped my head to the beat and started creating markers. Then I aligned the up and done. Should be perfect. I did not do this with Traktor though. Did it with MMF. Will work on Sister Sledge.

 

adding manual markers is more accurate than a drummer?

you can warp a track in mixmeister fusion?

some say that eric b didnt need warping above? try warping chic good times on mmf and let me know how it goes.

if it goes good i might have to dig out mmf rather than sit down with ableton.

 

you are joking, aren't you? otherwise... EPIC DJ FAIL

 

If andyfoz is referring to the post by ecuadoogie, think he means 'beat grid manually'.

 

Ok so I beat gridded each song manually, every 4 beats from beginning to end. After completing each track and saving it as a tweak I drag and dropped it to create a compilation. I moved each starting marker of each song to the beginning like a horse race and started playing. Since disco and todays electronic music are two different monsters the song played flawlessly in sync with little off beat but it kept on rhythm (no train wrecks). I will have to try these songs with my Traktor over the weekend and see how it goes but overall perfect. My biggest challenge was 2 songs I had trouble with.
1) Musique - In the bush
2) Talking Heads - Once in a lifetime

I will throw these songs along with the other three and see how they mix together in Traktor mocking a live setting. Ever since Traktor, I now use MMF as a tool for tweaking songs before adding it to my Traktor library.

 

You know ive had Mixmiester for years and i never even thought about using it to warp tracks. huh.

Whats your method..?

 

Yeah! me neither..? How?

 

^^BOOM! ^^

 

Im asking you... I though you said you use Mixmeister Fusion to beatgrid tracks. I assumed you were warping them cus mixmeister shows the variation of a tracks BPM.

Are we confused here

 

Warping? I never used this term either. When I beat grid a track I am manually adding markers every 4th beat and I listen to the Tic Tock Tock Tock of the metronome that the software generates. I manually move the markers to where I hear they need to be, reciting the same area of focus repeatedly. Since disco is played by live instruments the software will correct it according to my markers. I can manipulate the track by spreading the markers further apart in which I think "warping" or time stretching the song comes to play. IE making a hip-hop song into a house track without altering the pitch (Chipmunk sound).