Transpose / Keylock DJ soft comparisons

[deevey]

following on from the harmonic mixing thread, this is something I do by Ear BUT do it using the Keylock / Transpose in either Ableton or Traktor rather than tag all my tracks with keys, which unrestricts me alot more with what I can play together.

The question I have is which DJ soft gives the best function ?

Ableton Does a great job, But Traktor makes anything more than a .5 shift sound like a 192kbps MP3 affecting the top end badly... Deckadance not much better, VDJ even worse (when I last tried).

Thoughts appriciated.

[photojojo]

Did you can change the quality of the keylock in Traktor?

[deevey]

Yes its set at the highest, artifacts are still VERY apparent in comparison to Ableton .. mostly on quiet vocal and synth breaks

[DennisHuiberts]

I strongly advise to NOT use keylock in Traktor at all. Not only is the quality not what you would expect, but it affects system stability as well. The stability issues translated themselves into artifacts (much like cracks and pops you get with latency problems and sometimes when I jumped to another cuepoint while playing, the mix just trainwrecked (yes, all my settings are right)).

Just set keylock settings in Traktor to eco and make sure the key lights in each deck are off.

[deevey]

I strongly advise to NOT use keylock in Traktor at all. Not only is the quality not what you would expect, but it affects system stability as well. The stability issues translated themselves into artifacts (much like cracks and pops you get with latency problems and sometimes when I jumped to another cuepoint while playing, the mix just trainwrecked (yes, all my settings are right)).

Just set keylock settings in Traktor to eco and make sure the key lights in each deck are off.

Kinda defeats the purpose wouldn't you say ?

I've been using it for over 2 years .. there's nothing wrong with my:

A) System stability,
B) Latency or
C) Audio quality overall.

Never had a Cue go crazy or skips like yourself, and I'm using 4 decks + chained effects alot of the time? If I did i'd go crazy!

My Issue Just audible artifacts on the top end when transposing more than .5 +-

I simply wish to be able to use "A" keylock with some form of DJ soft (if possible) with the least possible artifacts. I'm well aware zero artifacts are a technical impossibility, but minimization is "key*"

*pun intended

[theory28]

im a little lost on the topic (sorry) but keylock has never done me wrong.

[deevey]

Keylock doesn't do any wrong so much as changes the sound quality to the point of being audible (depending on the amount of transposing).

The question is: What DJ Software provides the best quality keylock/transpose? or perhaps theres a decent VST that will work in Torq ? (which i'm gonna give a whirl)

[lethal_pizzle]

I've personally never heard anything wrong with the Traktor keylock. There was a comparison on this website about a year ago about it... but I appreciate it is a subjective thing. Some people's ears are more atuned than others.

Obviously, the closer you have the tempo to the original the better, keylock by it's very definition means adjusting the sound, either by dropping grains of it out, or by adding extra grains based on the adjacent grains of sound.

[deevey]

Hrmmm, Tried the Torq beta out and it "seems" to sound a lil more Punchy than Traktor, Still Audiable mind you .. I guess i'll try out some VST's and see what happens.

Maybe its just my Cans, Sony V6's which are notoriously "toppy", which is where the artifacts are most noticable to me anyhow.

Yeah obviously the closer the Keymatch the better, it could have been on here I read a comparison before, I believe it was Ableton best. 2nd Traktor at the time.

[padi_04]

Hrmmm, Tried the Torq beta out and it "seems" to sound a lil more Punchy than Traktor, Still Audiable mind you .. I guess i'll try out some VST's and see what happens.

Maybe its just my Cans, Sony V6's which are notoriously "toppy", which is where the artifacts are most noticable to me anyhow.

Yeah obviously the closer the Keymatch the better, it could have been on here I read a comparison before, I believe it was Ableton best. 2nd Traktor at the time.

ableton with the right settings, otherwise it sounds like paper