Traktor, beatmatching, and possibly DJ ethics

[epsy]

One tip to help facilitate beat matching is to assign one fader to pitch bend of the deck that is focused and have the spacebar on your keyboard scroll through which deck is focused. Saves you having to assign 3 other faders to the other decks.

[dubgiant]

There was a thread that was just made about how promoters are turning away DJs with only a laptop and a controller. People are relying on technology too much. I understand if you already know how to beatmatch, Sync is very useful and you can use the time to mess with effects, etc. If you don't learn how to beatmatch, what happens when Traktor counts the BPM wrong? Trainwreck.

This is a post i posted on djforums a while back... hope it helps some people on seeing why learning manual beatmatching and practicing it is important. You never want to have to turn down a gig because of a handicap. I don't mention sync but using waveforms to beatmatch is pretty much the same thing.

A DVS like Serato or Torq is equivalent to a GPS in a car. You should not learn your directions while driving around with a GPS just as you should not learn how to beat match and mix with a DVS. The car is your setup. You need to learn how your car drives and how it responds to you before you go on the road just as how you need to learn how your setup works before you mix, scratch, and DJ.

A good driver with a sense of direction can get to their destination without a GPS, safely. A good DJ can mix songs without visual waveforms and a BPM counter within a DVS. Now when the good driver occasionally gets lost, he can pull out the GPS and use it to guide him in the correct direction whilst using good judgement to make sure the GPS is telling him the right instructions. (Some couple followed their GPS in the wrong direction for 500 miles or something). Even great DJs sometimes train wreck but a DVS with visual waveforms and a BPM counter can help the DJ in a tough spot when things go wrong.

Basically, while a GPS and a DVS are good things to have, they are also luxuries and should never be relied upon to get the job done. A good driver would learn to drive and learn the roads by heart before he goes and buys a GPS for those times when he needs help. A good DJ should learn to beatmatch and mix by ear before he goes out and buys a DVS to help in those critical situations.

This was just an analogy I came up with today while I was driving. This btw, it not aimed towards people who use DVS's instead of carrying 1000 crates of vinyl. This is for the beginners who think a DVS is the first step they should take in learning how to DJ.

I was one of those beginners 3 years ago and I bought Torq and thought it would be the best way and easiest way to learn. For the first year, I could easily mix tracks with the help of my laptop. But I soon learned it hindered my skills and I disconnected it and started at square one. I bought a CDJ setup and used notecards to cover the BPM and practiced and practiced. For some people, its easy. For some people, its hard For me, It was not too easy but not too hard. Within a few months, I had it just as good as I did when i was staring and waveforms. The bottom line is, do you want to be in control, or do you want to rely on a machine. I found out that I could be the one telling the machine what to do instead of the laptop telling me what to do and I found the experience much more satisfying.

im pretty high so i dont know if that makes any sense but hopefully it will help some beginners decide whether they should buy a DVS from the getgo or learn without one and get it later. peace

[Fyoog]

A good driver with a sense of direction can get to their destination without a GPS, safely..

Your analogy is pretty good but why would you buy GPS if you had already a good sense of direction? Because I a majority of the journeys you do it's going to get you there quicker than a sense of direction so that when you do get to your destination you have plenty more time to do what you wanted to do in the first place!! You're still driving the car and making sure everyones safe and doing the manual things to make the car work. It's like saying why buy a car when you have legs?

Same applies with mixing, I can beat match because I learned on vinyl and yes it helps but is by no means essential so telling someone to spend money on a traditional set up just because there is a vague possibility that they turn up to a gig and there, for some strange reason, they aren't able to us their laptop set up (and I'm really struggling to find a reason other than a difficult promoter) or they have laptop problems but the same would be true if you turned up to a gig having learnt on CDJ's and you got there and they only had 1210's!!! So are we honestly saying to people starting out that they should learn on all platforms now "just in case"? Also what if you got there and one of the CDJ's had broken, should we learn to beatbox just in case of this?

I think that beatmatching is a very useful thing but there is SOOOO much more to being a good DJ that this is a slightly moot point now with the way technology is heading.

[MeAngry]

Word! I rely on my sync button too, but mostly for BPM's and not for beat matching. Although I use loops most of the time, I still drop in a song at the right beat just to get the right feel for a rhythm. And if Traktor screws up with the auto beatgrid, I can still fix it myself. Although I have to say that the BPM is correct 99% of the time, while the grid start is 95%.

[JamesT]

just remember, Traktor syncs the beat grids, not the tracks so you have always got to be careful. When I started out with a controller I mainly used the sync button so I could learn the basics of track phasing and cueing, after I got that down I started to learn how to beat match properly, I enjoyed that side of mixing so much that I ditched the controller and invested in a DVS set up.

Try and learn how to beat match, you wont get it perfect at first, but once you do you'll appreciate the auto-sync function a lot more and wont take it for granted...

[mistertuckshop]

I'll admit I can't beatmatch for shit - I really want to learn but not entirely sure how to go about it. So yeah, I use the sync button. But I'm well aware of when Traktor screws up the beatgrid and have taught myself how to fix it, so it's not like I just dump a track into Traktor and assume that it's going to play right.

[Phil Morse]

Someone put me right on this (I'm not a big Traktor user), but some rhythms just sound WRONG over others even when beatgridded perfectly, if they're not tweaked on the fly.

For instance, if a hi-hat is really prominent on the track you're trying to bring in, and the hi-hat on the track you're mixing out of is a bit off-time as part of it's overall rhythm, you're going to have to make adjustments to both EQ and timing to keep the mix sounding tight.

This can only ever be done by ear - beat gridding is not going to help you get around "groove" in a rhythm, because as far as a cold computer beatgrid is concerned, you've just made things worse, not better.

[Fyoog]

^^^ You're right, after beat gridding all of mine there is a very small percentage that don't need any tweaking thereafter when you hit play. Literally all synch does is match the tempo so basically making sure the pitch fader (if you were using a traditional set up) is in the right place. As we all know this, by far, doesn't mean it's going to sound good.

[wrong chris]

who gives a shit really. SYNC isn't going to save a bad djs life. SYNC isn't going to make a good dj a great dj.

track selection will make or break you. if your idea of creating a playlist is jam as many peak-time bangers one after the other into an hour, stop now and start listening to more quality mixtapes and go out to more quality shows and STUDY.


mixing technique is mad important but not anywhere near important as track selection, that's where you put your soul into the work. that's where you get the chance to show what you're really made of.

[completej]

whether you get there with a gps or the stars, whether you beatmatch or sync with software, all that matters is if the passengers and the driver enjoyed the ride.