Beatgrids in itch

[xtianw]

Ok playing with this new thing past couple days.

couple of observations. maybe its just my experience. curious what everyone else's experience is.

Editing beatgrids in itch is dead simple. seems a lot more intuitive than in traktor. thats observation 1.

observation 2? itch seems like it needs a lot of work in the analyze and bpm detection department. its a good thing editing beatgrids is so much easier in itch. because it appears i need to do it at least 10x more than i did in traktor.

perhaps this will change with itch 2.0 next month. im hoping. proper grids are apparently critical for the bridge to work the way its supposed to. and im really excited about the bridge for itch. i just hope i dont spend all my time beat grid correcting rather than performing and creating.

[Phil Morse]

Can someone explain once and for all to me why DJs are so keen to beatgrid everything in the first place?

I am a Virtual DJ and ITCH user, and I never bother with beatgridding in ITCH despite the fact that it was introduced in 1.7 as I find it easier to use auto BPM to get the tunes there or thereabouts then hold them together by ear - 90% of the work is done for you anyway and if it gets the odd tune wrong, what's the odd manual mix anyway? No great hardship.

I recently decided to become a Traktor user (because everyone else is and it's a bit embarrassing not using Traktor much when my job is writing about DJ software/hardware), and the first thing someone said to me was: My advice is don't worry about beatgridding too much, use Traktor's BPM engine and do the rest by ear." My instincts entirely.

I find that depending what tunes you have running together, they are going to need tiny adjustments anyway as rigidly beatgridded tunes often don't sound right together - they need the human touch to let the hi-hats breathe, or to reduce phasing on the kicks or whatever.

Interested to know your thoughts on this.

[lethal_pizzle]

1) Loops
2) Beatjumps
3) Tempo synced FX

[xtianw]

Can someone explain once and for all to me why DJs are so keen to beatgrid everything in the first place?

The bridge requires accurate beatgrids for ableton to sync up to serato tracks correctly. Not sure if youve been checking the serato forums, but thats supposed to release the week of namm. Less than 2 weeks away.

[Phil Morse]

Well there's one surefire reason for beatgridding, I for one can't wait for The Bridge for ITCH.

[xtianw]

Well there's one surefire reason for beatgridding, I for one can't wait for The Bridge for ITCH.

its the only reason i care about beatgrids in serato at all

[Phil Morse]

lethal_pizzle: If the software has guessed your BPM accurately and you hit your trigger points first time on the beat, surely they all work fine anyway?

[Bassline Brine]

Nothing's perfect, and it's really just a matter of doing what you need. Some people get a lot more technical with their mixes using DVS software, and other really just use it as a simplified way to access their music.

Neither way is better or worse, and beat-gridding is a direct representation of different people's use of the software. Some people go over the top with it, with others are happy with what the program does automatically.

[haze324]

Back on topic.

Beatgridding in Itch is 100x better than Traktor. Also has elastic beatgrids. I've been screaming this over on the NI forum for a while.

Looking forward to seeing what Itch 2.0 has in store

[xtianw]

Back on topic.

Beatgridding in Itch is 100x better than Traktor. Also has elastic beatgrids. I've been screaming this over on the NI forum for a while.

Looking forward to seeing what Itch 2.0 has in store

This makes me wonder if I perhaps did something wrong when I initially beatgridded my library initially. I suspected that being the case. So I set my library to analyze again last night. We'll see if its better today.