Traktor behaving *very* strangely - please help!

Traktor and my Denon MC6000 have worked flawlessly for about 6 months, until recently, possibly post 2.6.1 upgrade, but can't quite be sure. After about 5 minutes of mixing tracks, the following behaviour starts to occur:

1) Tracks that are synced, will occasionally show different BPMs, even though they are synced
2) When a track is not playing, the waveform shows it is still moving (slowly) - sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards. Occurs sometimes on 1 deck, sometimes on both, including C & D. If, for example, I let a track run to the end, and stopped it, half an hour later, it would have "rewound" back to the beginning. If you cue up a track, and leave it, until you ready to start it (using the button, rather than the jogwheel), it won't be in the right place. This is effing infuriating.

My way of background, the MC6000 has latest firmware (confirmed). I have the latest Denon ASIO driver, I'm using the latest Traktor mappings as per Denon's website (v.1020) - the ones for Denon in the NI settings folder don't solve the problem. And as I said latest version of Traktor (2.6.1.15205).

The mixer is in PC mode, with internal mixing, and latency set at 10ms, which has never caused problems before.

My PC is very high spec, and is also fully up to date with all drivers etc.

I've tried re-installing Traktor and still no joy.

If I use the audio card in the PC (without setting up separate outputs for headphones), but just to test, I still get the same problems with tracks moving when they're not playing.

Also tried adjusting sensitivity of jogwheels. No joy.

Only thing I haven't done, is tried using the mixer on a different pc, as my laptop was stolen recently.

Also haven't been able to search and find anything like this, so I'm properly stuck.

Any suggestions, very gratefully received..

 

this sounds like your beatgrids are not correctly set.

 

Thanks, but no, beatgrids are definitely correctly set. 2 tracks can be synced and play end to end perfectly beatmatched, but Traktor will (occasionally) show their bpms being different by +/- 1/2 bpm, I.e a significant margin, which would be immediately obvious after a few seconds in normal circumstances. Not the beatgrids. The issue is more the tracks "moving" when they're stopped, which is just crazy. 5 minutes later, the problem can disappear again, and then return.

Checked everything I can on the hardware, and I'm totally confused.

 

I've seen that only once on my Macbook pro using a Pioneer DDJ SX deck B was showing wrong BPM and when I stoped it it continued to play realy slow I tried turning the DDJ SX of and on again and did not solve the problem then I restarted Traktor and problem was gone. This has only happened once for me and I have Traktor running allmost 24/7. So I think it's something to do with Traktor as I have a mac and ddj sx while your on windows and denon.

 

how can the tracks be synced in traktor when they show different bpm's? *confused*
please provide a video or screenshot, i'm not sure if i understand correctly what is going on.

 

Problem that was with the time it happend to me. was not that it went out of sync just the deck display showed 125.78 or something like that when it was actualy playing in sync with deck A witch was 126. and when I stoped the deck it continnued playing really slow.

When I started mixing the 2 songs I moved the pitch slider for deck B to match the BPM of deck A and beatmached them. After a while them still being in perfect sync deck B was displaying wrong BPM. I tried after mixing out of song A to raise the BMP to 127 witch was the original tempo and it then showed something 126.XX even if centered.
But as I say it has thankfully only happened once to me.

 

Well, sometimes, you need manually to enter the BPM. Not every track could be BPM analyzed.

 

It's NOT a bpm / grid issue! Forget that side of things...

For 5 minutes or so, traktor behaves absolutely normally, then I'll start to notice that the two tracks I'm mixing, and are synced (and I've mixed 100 times before, and the grids are spot on) are showing completely different bpms. Then when I stop one deck, the track moves slowly backwards/forwards. When I cue up another track, it won't stay on its cue point, and will drift off.

Strangely, traktor was completely normal when I was in record mode. Went 100 minutes without a glitch. What is wrong?

And I do appreciate any comments, but for the last time, it's not a beatgrid issue!

 

Happened to me before.. Perfectly beatgridded tracks .. Suddenly onone the pitchfader starts movin up.

Lucky it only happeded at home.

I have no idea what it is.. Restart helped for me and the issue didn't occur again since then.

Maybe raise a ticket with NI?

 

could it be the controller is sending some kind of "nudge" signal, due to malfunction or due to wrong calibration, but sync is in "absolute" mode so nudging does not alter the mix?

have any of you guys seen that happen with the controller unplugged? (with the internal audio interface)

just a thought while reading your problem description. raising a ticket and performing tests with them will probably be the quickest way to ascertain what's going on.

another one, if volume in the place is too loud, it may produce vibrations, and these move the jogwheels. i saw that happen with my old vci100.

 

i still like to see a video or screenshots...

 

I'll upload something to sendspace, and share the link. You have to see it to believe it - clearly this is not something that anyone has come across before - explains why I couldn't find anything in it in any forums.

I'll also raise a ticket with NI.

Put something up later today

Thx

 

please attach pictures here with the forums software, not a 3rd party website!

 

The drift problem is happening to me too. I set up a whole set of DnB tracks and beatgridded them. I was playing them using only the laptop keyboard and my Rane TTM56 mixer. No problems at all. Perfectly synced every time. I should note here that I have not noticed the OP's problem of the BPM changing while the tracks remained synced. Yesterday I hooked up my Trigger Finger and mapped it. It was working great, but after a short time I noticed that while a track was stopped (in either deck) the tracks would very slowly creep backwards. This caused several drops to be off before I really noticed it. I tried changing several settings like snap/vinyl mode, taking it out of sync mode, etc. to no avail. Very curious to see what might be causing this as I have a gig this Saturday and I mos def do NOT want to deal with this in front of a club!

To recap, the drifting problem only started after I hooked up my controller. I'm running Traktor Pro 2.6.1 with an M-Audio Trigger Finger and an Audio 6 interface with an HP lappy running Win 7.

Just talked to a buddy who's a Traktor vet. He had a similar drift problem himself a while back and reckoned it was a resource problem. He recommended shutting down everything else and trying again. I just did that. No drift now, working fine.

If it comes back I'll post again but for now it's looking like a taxed lappy was making Traktor wig out.

 

My buddy was having a similar problem with the track playing slowly after it was stopped. After checking his controller manager I noticed he had an old custom mapping with the in and out ports set to "all ports". I deleted the mapping and he hasn't had the problem again.

 

I've experienced a similar issue, the first time was live, at a club, and once at home. In my case, the issue happened after I'd been playing for a while (~30min). All the sudden, while in a mix, one of the decks starts slowing down on its own. I wasn't able to recover it with the jog wheel, so I'd hit the sync button a couple times. Once it happens the first time, it continues happening intermittently.
In both cases, I was running 3 controllers (S2 and two Midi Fighters) and a 2011 MBA. The CPU never goes past 50%. At this point, I'm wondering/hoping it has to do with the USB port running the Midi Fighters not being plugged into power.

 

Been away for a few days, so haven't had a chance to pick this up again, but am sort of relieved to know I'm not the only one seeing this.

I can't believe it's a resource problem on my pc - it's very high spec - i7 16gb ram, and nothing else open, and load rarely above 15%.

As requested, attached is a zip file containing a MOV file taken with my iPhone which shows both decks drifting backwards - Deck B is moving quite quickly, Deck A is a little slower, yet both decks are NOT playing.

Just to recap - I have recently started seeing 3 issues:

1) Tracks draft when not playing (see attached video)
2) When select cue points, it may jump to a place about half a beat off the cue point
3) Records which are synced (and could play together for 5 minutes) occasionally show different BPMs.

The only time when I don't see issues 1 and 3 is when I'm in record mode.

 

Could be an issue with your USB ports running out of power. If your gear has its own power packs try using those else get a mains powered USB hub that can power all your USB devices without draining all the power from your PC USB port.

 

Denon MC6000 is mains powered, so I assume not an issue?
---
Just raised a ticket with NI, so see what they have to say..

 

I experienced similar issues with my Denon MC3000

Take a look at my video: http://youtu.be/ouaiPT0EH-g
You can see the left deck slowly floating und the changing BPM's on the right deck.

As I mentioned in my topic http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=189947 I didn't ever see that again after switching from BeatSync to TempoSync