On the BeastMaster, I noticed that...

[Adrian5]

Set it to the bass kick because the point of beat matching to to have the kicks overlapping perfectly. This gives you a solid thump and then all you have to do is adjust the bass levels and you will make a seamless transition.

Snares aren't always used and are often in different positions of the song. Matching to snares doesn't make sense.

[DvlsAdvct]

It depends on your music. I always set to the bass drum because it's the first beat of the bar. But, if setting it to the snare works better for you than rock out.

You don't set your grid markers for beatmatching. You set them to find and line up your beats IN Traktor. The act of mixing shouldn't be done based entirely where you set your beatmarkers but however you feel comfortable.

[Adrian5]

if your playing house music and you want good beat matching in traktor, you set your grids up for beat matching. The sync function is suppose to save you the time of jogging tracks so you can concentrate on other stuff.

[DvlsAdvct]

yeah, that's right. It doesn't matter, though, whether you set it on the kick or snare as long as it's on the downbeat.

Trust me, I know what sync is for, and it works for more than just house music My point was simply that it doesn't matter which beat you put the grid on, as long as it works for you.

but I use the kick drum.

[BentoSan]

If you are putting it on a kick then make the sure the kick that you are putting it on doesnt have any swing(slightly off timing to sound like a real drummer). With drum and bass i like to put my grid on the drop because thats allways nice smack bang on time then setup a loop before the drop to see if i can hear the attack of the kick on the drop - if i can hear the attack then the grid is too far forward.

[MisterMoleyMole]

Bento .. what do you mean by the attack exactly ?

Cheers
Gav

[Jester]

Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release

Its the very first part of the thump. the th.... if you will

[MisterMoleyMole]

Hmmmmm .... confused more now.

I think its better to be able to hear the attack as if you couldn't then when you looped you would cut the start (or attack) of the kick wouldnt you ?

Maybe i'm in a totally different neck of the woods here ?

[DvlsAdvct]

Set a grid point on the first beat after a break.
Set a 16 bar loop right before the break, so the loop ends where the grid marker is.
When you play the loop you should not hear the first beat where the break ends and the drum beat kicks back in. If you do than your grid is pushed too far forward and isn't correct. If the loop repeats without the drum beat being heard then you shoul be okay, just check that it isn't pulled too far back.

The attack he's talking about is the beginning of the kick.

[janzak]

Thanks for all the replies guys!

I played around with it and it doesn't appear the meat basher is syncing up automatically using neither quant nor snap so I guess it's a matter of practicing manually hitting the spot - I have a pretty good sense of timing and tempo but I still only manage to hit the spot maybe 1 in 100 times... I'm talking keeping the big thump of a kick when mashing down to 1/4 or even 1/8 giving a seizure-inducting rally of kicks but I just... can't... seem to keep... the attack... guhhhhh.......