Traktor S4 BeatGriding

I am trying to understand more and find so much BS on the net and always come here for the answers..

I am learning to beat grid on the S4 and came across some videos...

Here is my question I am new to traktor. and I kind of have a noob question I saw a video of a person beat matching 126bpm's he said to do this to all tracks using that one track as a guide Do he mean only tracks that are 126bpm correct. I ask because I saw another video a person said the same but said to use the higher bpm for all tracks even lower bpm's such as 98 or higher 132 I was in shocking thinking why change the BPM of lower songs... I'm confused I saw the vid 5 times so I know I didn't misunderstand stand the gentleman am I missing something or was this guys some crazed fool giving wrong info it kind of confused me as to why he would say such a thing..

I am just trying to learn properly...

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Originally Posted by ZooYork

I am trying to understand more and find so much BS on the net and always come here for the answers..

I am learning to beat grid on the S4 and came across some videos...

Here is my question I am new to traktor. and I kind of have a noob question I saw a video of a person beat matching 126bpm's he said to do this to all tracks using that one track as a guide Do he mean only tracks that are 126bpm correct. I ask because I saw another video a person said the same but said to use the higher bpm for all tracks even lower bpm's such as 98 or higher 132 I was in shocking thinking why change the BPM of lower songs... I'm confused I saw the vid 5 times so I know I didn't misunderstand stand the gentleman am I missing something or was this guys some crazed fool giving wrong info it kind of confused me as to why he would say such a thing..

I am just trying to learn properly...

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hey man no worries bro i see your putting the effort so i'll help. You need to understand there are 2 things BEAT MATCHING and BEAT GRIDING.

1. Beat Matching - match the BPM(beats per minute) of the incoming song to the current playing song.

EXAMPLE: the track that is playing is 128bpm the incoming track is at 132bpm. you lower the 132 to 128 by slowing the song down by 4 bpm to get them to match.


2. Beat Griding - Set your Grid marker in Traktor to the first down Beat and it will grid that track for you to the correct bpm.

the reason you grid is so that if you use the sync button the software has a reference point to line up the beats.

or if you don't use the sync button then you can line up the waves correctly. or even better just use your ears but that defeats the question about the beat grid they wouldn't be needed :D

I would check out the tutorials available on DJTT as they have some good ones on beat gridding.

In particular, I like Ean's method using the metronome built into Traktor
http://www.djtechtools.com/2012/04/2...s-eans-method/

Also, here is a list of the different tutorials on DJTT
http://www.djtechtools.com/?s=beat+grid

Stick with it, once you get the hang of it it's really easy and quite quick to do.

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Originally Posted by P4ULSON

hey man no worries bro i see your putting the effort so i'll help. You need to understand there are 2 things BEAT MATCHING and BEAT GRIDING.

1. Beat Matching - match the BPM(beats per minute) of the incoming song to the current playing song.

EXAMPLE: the track that is playing is 128bpm the incoming track is at 132bpm. you lower the 132 to 128 by slowing the song down by 4 bpm to get them to match.


2. Beat Griding - Set your Grid marker in Traktor to the first down Beat and it will grid that track for you to the correct bpm.

the reason you grid is so that if you use the sync button the software has a reference point to line up the beats.

or if you don't use the sync button then you can line up the waves correctly. or even better just use your ears but that defeats the question about the beat grid they wouldn't be needed :D

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Thanks so much so if I set up my songs properly for future use and reference, I should do this to each song as I set it up for traktor?

Yes. Import your tracks, right click, analyze. Traktor will analyze bpm and make a grid. Sometimes its close sometimes not. The new 2.5 seems to get close. But if it makes a bpm like 140.006, double click, and type in 140.

Then as said, youll wanna find a good down beat, usually like a kick starting a measure, zoom in. Line up the center grid, and delete tthe old and add in a new grid to make it llined up.

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Originally Posted by MoeHawk

Yes. Import your tracks, right click, analyze. Traktor will analyze bpm and make a grid. Sometimes its close sometimes not. The new 2.5 seems to get close. But if it makes a bpm like 140.006, double click, and type in 140.

Then as said, youll wanna find a good down beat, usually like a kick starting a measure, zoom in. Line up the center grid, and delete tthe old and add in a new grid to make it llined up.

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Thanks so much for the advice I'm going to try all this when I get home from work. Is deleting the old easy? Sorry for asking so many questions I'm used to my old 1200's crates of records and my mixer an so muh other equipment it's been years since I DJed and never had anyone to show me it's all self taught so I appreciate the help

Plus it's a huge task I have about 3000 songs in my library it's kind of over whelming but ill he through them all

yes deleting is easy. use your advance Deck flavor and in the grid section just hit the trash can :D

No prob just hard to typpe on a phone.

Be in advanced mixer mode. So ull see cue/move/grid below ur track in that deck. Load song. Click on grid. Then itll switch and to the right ull see a garbage can. Thats to delete old cue. And to left of that is the insert new grid marker. Line up your grid to the beat, hit garbage can and delete old. Then hit the new grid button and itll switch to new position. Then go down the track a few times making sure other hits line up still or else ull be able to see how far off they are, then go back to 1ableton grid marker and adjust.

At least analyze ur stuff in groups of 100 or so and they be close. I regrid and lock once im playing withh the track n getting ready for playlist. Hit that lock button once ur done gridding a track and then it cant be messed up

Ean's track mapping is awesome for beatgridding your tracks. Here's the link!


http://www.djtechtools.com/2012/07/2...n-mapping-tsi/

yeah i need to dl and try that out.

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Originally Posted by MoeHawk

Yes. Import your tracks, right click, analyze. Traktor will analyze bpm and make a grid. Sometimes its close sometimes not. The new 2.5 seems to get close. But if it makes a bpm like 140.006, double click, and type in 140.

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i would just add a caveat to not always blindly change the bpm when it is .0xx amount off because sometimes that is the correct value for it to be on the grid properly throughout the song. that's not always the case, but it's something you should definitely check before you change it.

i stopped using the metronome or another track to grid and do it solely by sight at this point. i was spending way too much time worrying about songs being right on time with the metronome, only to have my ears start messing with me after a period of time. in my experience, some tracks sound better at various points of the metronome click, which don't always line up exactly with the grid thus sounding off with other songs. with my sight only gridding, i almost never have to do any adjustments while playing, though i have buttons mapped in case i need to make live adjustments. here's what i do:

01. i find the first downbeat and zoom in to see how close the grid is (don't always judge the whole grid by the first downbeat though as every now an again that is not the same as the rest of the song...see step 3).
02. if the grid is way off i will delete it and make a new one.
03. i do a beat jump by 16 bars all the way through the track to make sure there is no drifting (just hold the button down to scroll).
04. if there is drifting (rare for me) i will adjust the bpm as needed to get it as close as possible.
05. if fine adjustments to the grid are needed i will make them.
06. i go back and set my load marker and cue points at various points in the song
07. i always set cue 3 where the bassline comes in and cue 6 where it stops.
08. if i find a song to be too long or boring in parts, i set up cue points to skip sections if i feel the need.
09. i give the track a star rating, an energy rating from essentially 1-10 in a comment field, sometimes put notes, and sort into playlists.

occasionally, it can be hard to tell visually where the grid should go on the kick, so in these cases i tend to look at the snares if they are more apparent. i have been playing pretty much only house music at this point and this method has been working for me very well though your mileage may vary.

Very well put dude. I didnt think about that and adjusting bpm to line up. I do the same aswell with jumping by sixteen or thirtytwos and checking the grid. I do the same with cues and gridding by sight aswell.

I do alot of elctrohouse/dubstep/trap and seems to be okay, pretty lights music seems hard to to grid with how he samples stuff n its so wildly put together.

yeah, when i read about the beat jumping that really helped me out. before i would just mouse click to random spots throughout the song, but jumping gives you a really good visual concerning drifting.

i am still working on my house songs, but i will start getting to my downtempo and glitch hop sounds at some point. i haven't really tried any pretty lights stuff yet but i had a bitch of a time with some of my older hip hop songs. i think i may just have to go back to good ol' beatmatching on these things since i really don't want to warp everything in ableton first.

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Originally Posted by squidot

yeah, when i read about the beat jumping that really helped me out. before i would just mouse click to random spots throughout the song, but jumping gives you a really good visual concerning drifting.

i am still working on my house songs, but i will start getting to my downtempo and glitch hop sounds at some point. i haven't really tried any pretty lights stuff yet but i had a bitch of a time with some of my older hip hop songs. i think i may just have to go back to good ol' beatmatching on these things since i really don't want to warp everything in ableton first.

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yeah PL stuff is such a wide variety of BPMs its quiet hard to play. Ive noticed in his sets hes basically just playing his songs all the way through and just kicking the next track on at the end of the playing one. I can mix some of his stuff but i just keep the bpms withing 5-10bpm or so and just use tempo faders to match bpm and they seem to blend okay.