Why cant they add tempo anchors?

This would solve alot of beatgrid problems [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBaDi6m5kko&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - M-Audio Torq 1.5 DJ Software: Set Tempo Anchors[/ame]

 

NI has already said in the OTR that a warp like feature is on the road map.
There is absolutely no date-line i can give or any further info at this time.

What i would say is that whilst i realise this is a much requested feature, Traktor has a billion features that Torq doesnt have so i suppose its been down to priority up till now.

Yes for fluctuating BPMs. Not for people who simply have trouble beatgridding.
I think this is seen as a panacea for all beatgrid issues and maybe it is but im guessing (based on what i read on the forum a lot) is that many peoples problems are caused by simply not understanding the whole beatgrid concept.

Just a thought.


Karlos

 

Their is no way that torq is on traktors level this software is perfect its just fustrating

that a small issue like this makes many popular songs useless in traktor while other

softwares are behind in almost everything against traktor they are ahead in this

important feature.
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And by warp like feature do you mean the grid is warped or the actual song is warped?

 

I really dont know how or what or even if they are currently developing this kind of feature so i cant really comment on how it would work but its not usually the point that the grid is warped rather that the track is warped or brought into line with the grid.
Remember a Grid is based on a bpm. If the BPM changes the grid shouldnt change as a track with the same BPM that your trying to sync to will have a grid of a different size. The grids wont align . The track needs to stretch or compress to fit the Grid so that 2 grids can be successfully aligned.
This is the misconception about Grids within Traktor.

Tempo Anchors are great for small fluctuations and even better for the intros and outros of songs. On a track that has a lot of bmp drift the bpm between 2 tempo anchors will still fluctuate eventually therefore you would need lots of tempo anchors to grid a whole song. That would be the same as warping the track to make it one constant bpm. This often sucks out the natural flow and 'feel' of a track.

Karlos

 

This often sucks out the natural flow and 'feel' of a track.

Exactly my point im sure 99% of djs with traktor wont want that instead would want a

grid that is able to adapt just like the torq tempo anchors or mixmeister they dont

mess with the track at all and the mixes come out flawless so Im sure traktor is able

to do this.
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ive done complex salsa tracks in mixmeister and came out flawless

 

Yeah but with any software that mixes 2 different bpms stretching a grid isnt what keeps 2 tracks in sync. The tracks themsleves have to be altered to fit each other.

Mixmeister is non-destructive it just speeds up or down a track to make it align the Beats.
The way i understand Mixmiester is that every beat line is a Tempo anchor.

If a grid is elastic then the track has to be elastic cus the grid has to fit the tracks Beats. And for the BPM to be constant the grid has to be an made of equally measured sections.

Karlos

 

isnt stretching a grid and sync lead to the same result just different ways of gettting

to it? So isnt it betterto go the non destructive route.

 

FWIW I think that Traktor will have to have 'tempo anchors' to keep up with the competition. It would work like Mixmeister (ie. non destructive). With the Elastique algorithyms the sound engine is already there, just a matter of implementing the GUI concepts.

 

Only if you stretch the track as well. The grid has to align to the Beats. The grid need to be on the Beat line which is determined by the bpm.

Agreed. (in principle) whether the technology is ready i cant say.

 

aaaargh my head hurts.....

warping the grid, not the track:

so.. traktor would need realtime tempo analysis (the changes in the grid would have to be reflected in something like a tempo track) to keep beats passing at a constant rate, meaning the speed of the deck would be changing constantly as traktor corrects itself, a bit like when you use timecoded vinyl.

warping the track, not the grid:

I'm sure this makes much more sense, it's simpler to warp a track into a constant tempo than to constantly change the pitch of the deck.
yes, there will be loss of quality with timestretching algorythms, but not like traktors REALTIME timestretching, this could be done at home and the warped track saved alongside the original, so theoretically you could have timestretching quality akin to the CDJ1000 or a top DAW.

Perhaps a combination of the two?

in the UI you warp a beatgrid to fit the track, then you render it and save it as the "tempo solid" version, removing the need to timestretch realtime.

although having said that, ableton and other DAWs seem to manage realtime timestretching just fine, so NI really have to decide if they want to save constant BPM versions of all your iffy tracks, or make/use a low CPU useage algorythm for monitoring and constantly adjusting your tracks as they play, which would require lots of additional data to be saved. (every single beat between warp markers minimum)

 

Hi Djprince!

It is better to be non destructive for sure, and I understand the concerns about killing the groove. What is needed first of all is to be able to perfectly overlay a beat grid over any song, meaning each and every beat marker corresponds to a real beat on the song. This is easy to implement, has been done in a number of software.

You then do what you want with this grid.

1) You can beatmatch the old school way; and the grid is just a safety net: when you mess up, you just press sync to get things back in time. You can also imagine here a progressive sync to eliminate the 'snap I'm on it' which often sounds un natural. The longer you press sync, the closer the fit between the beat grid of the tracks. Would help a lot on disco tracks, etc...

2) You 'groove beatmatch'. This is more or less what Traktor is already doing when in 'sync' mode, it force the song in 'sync' to the beatgrid of the 'master' song', but this could be taken to another level entirely.

Please take a look here: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcDaWRXlvIE"]YouTube - Ableton Live 8 Tutorial - Groove, Shuffle & Swing - NEW![/ame] and imagine having half of those features to play with when mixing. You could do perfect matching of songs groove, or morph one song into another. You could mix together songs that were previously unmixables.

Applying grooves could also be used to transform songs while they are playing.

 

hey

yeah just to confirm, you don't HAVE to stretch or adjust the track, both ways would work. You could obviously stretch or compress the audio slightly so that it is a constant all the way through and then match it that way. But i would call that a "Warp" feature i.e. you'r warping the track.

On the other hand i would call an "Anchor" feature (and i've not used torq so i dont know if its how theirs works its just a guess.) one that warps the grid instead, so the song remains unchanged but the grid shifts and changes to compensate.

So for example say you had a song that was played by a real drummer, and he was fairly steady for the verses but when the song kicked into the chorus he got a bit carried away and sped up a bit, and then went back to normal at the verse again.

What you could do was set 'anchors' at each of the changes, so that for example the laptop knows that the tempo is 125 for the verse, and here are the beats, so can line up the incoming track in the other deck to match. It reaches the next 'anchor point' (or you could call it 'Key Beat Marker' or whatever) that says ok, now as of this point the song has changed to 127 bpm, and here are the beats now, and the laptop would make slight adjustments to the incoming track thats being sync'd to it, speeding up its bpm slightly to match and adjusting it back or forward a few milliseconds to keep it in line. Then it reaches the next anchor, which tells it ok now the song is back to 125 bpm again and the lappy would slow it down again slightly and if needed nudge it forward or back to ensure it was still in line.

So in effect, it would be just like a human DJ manually adjusting the pitch fader and jog wheel of the incoming track as they go to keep it in line.

And the 'key markers' wouldn't need to even be so spaced out they could be every few markers or even every marker if needed and the laptop would just make subtle adjustments at each one to keep the incoming track matching.

Now obviously the down side of this is that while it'd be ok for most tracks it may sound a bit funny for a handfull and make the incoming track sound jumpy or otherwise unusual, so it'd be ideal to have both options. For ones that you wanted to keep the feel of the slightly faster and slower parts, keep the human element that often builds the tension or power of the song, then you could and for the few that did sound funny you could use a 'warp' like feature so even out the tempo differences in the first track and then the second one would line up no problem.


k

 

Presumably the 'tempo anchors' would work within the present clock paradigm. As in:

* with the int or ext master clock, Traktor would timestretch the slaved tracks to the master clock
* if the deck is the master, Traktor would not timestretch the deck, however the master tempo would fluctuate according to the tempo anchors
* if the deck is a slave to another deck, Traktor would timestretch the slave deck to the tempo of the master deck (which may be fluctuating as previously)

 

this video is exactly what im talking about stretch the grid [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Wyib6IOg0"]YouTube - M-Audio Torq Tempo Anchors Part 1 (Video 4)[/ame]

 

Yes i understand the point and what is happening in Torq with Temp Anchors but that is not Grid Stretching. Maybe im being picky but that is Grid Reseting .

The track will still drift between the anchors. An anchors attaches itself to a Beat point and the grid is then reset.

Dont get me wrong i think its neat i really do but it is not Grid stretching.

The anchors of one track will be forced to align to the playing anchors of the Master track therefore speeding up or down the actual track (non-destructive)

If you had a stretched grid it would just be a wobbly grid with no master tempo and the tempo would still fluctuate making it impossible to sync to the master track.

A tempo anchored grid is a track that refers back to the same master tempo on each Tempo anchor. Its a reset grid. Please understand that after each tempo anchor the bpm is the same as the tracks average tempo just like a Traktor grid and that it starts to fluctuate again and needs to be anchored again at a further point similar to placing a second grid in Traktor but obviously a better solution and more effective as it remains one grid not multiple grids.

Yeah it works and its one grid rather than multiple grids which isnt a smart or pretty solution but the only option in Traktor currently.

 

I asked a similar question some time ago:
http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showpost.php?p=474875

The "drifting" I was talking about was drifting vinyl recordings and/or old funk/disco stuff that has a live drummer.
There never was a 1.0.3 update (the 1.1.2 came instead), and the next major update after that would be the 1.2.1 (I would call it a major one).
So, if they havnt forgot it, I sure hope they will have it out really soon, until then I will continue to Warp my tracks.

 

I want to use Traktor for playing disco and being able to use looping would be a fantastic help!

If Traktor could detect beats in a Recycle style and allow manipulation with individual markers that would be really great.

Thanks

 

+1

 

After I have deleted the initial (nr 1) cue mark that apparently was the first beat for the beat grid the beat grid disappeared.

After that Traktor has correctly recognized the peaks and that enabled correct looping in a disco track. That was my goal. I can't, however, sync tracks in this mode, but it's not required as a I would mix by the ear anyway.

Probably I've discovered something obvious for a long-term user, but it's vague for the newcomer. Is there some sort of the mode switch that removes the beat grid?

Thanks

 

Yes. When you remove (all) the grid marker(s) from the file, there is no more beat grid.