I am using a nanokontrol & say if I am mixing a 170.bpm track into a 100.bpm track, I want to do that whole gradual speeding up thing with both tracks in the mix instead of craftily switching from one tune to another. What is the best way of going about this?
I use timecode so I am guessing it’s going to be to switch everything to internal clock mode, have a dial or fader set to master tempo, gradually raise the tempo then switch back to auto or manual deck master mode?
The thing is I am trying to figure out a way of visually knowing what state the master clock is in. Due to it being a choice of displaying either the master clock/tempo, or FX panel 1 how would one set up an LED status to tell what mode the master clock is in if the FX panel is on display? As far as I can see you can only scroll through the master clock status with a controller (and there are 4 options to choose from), not have a button dedicated to internal or manual. Therefore if I am on the FX pane and in the heat of the moment (probably after a beer or 2) I could possibly forget how many times I hit the button in order to return to manual mode, or I the button might not register me pushing it, or as it’s something I won’t do too often I might forget how many times I am supposed to push the button etc.
Another thing I have just thought of is is there a way of syncing the master clock momentarily to the master deck so that I don’t sync the master deck to a tempo massively out of time potentially fucking everything up?
Uh, why don’t you hit x2 on the grid of the 100 BPM track and then raise the tempo of the 170 BPM track (which should set the master tempo automatically if it’s the track you’re mixing out of) gradually until you’re close to 200 BPM? Pretty simple.
I have my decks set to slave and use Traktors master tempo for everything. I then have a knob assigned to the tempo and increase and decrease it throughout the set whenever I need to speed things up or slow it down… works very well. The end result is that I can easily beatmix techhouse into techstep/neurofunk dnb which has long been a dream of mine (lol)
No that won’t work will it cos if I hit the x2 button, making the 100 bpm track a 200 bpm track, when I sync a 170 bpm track to it, it will be sync’d to 200 bpm. I want to sync a 170 bpm track to a 100 bpm track, bring it into the mix while I speed the whole lot up to 170 bpm while at the same time fading out the 100 bpm track. Basically so it is a seamless mix between the tracks yet the tempo raises so that I can carry on running things at 170 bpm from then on. Get me?
Precisely, it would sound crap. Can you elaborate on this mystical delay trick you speak of please.
This is kind of on the lines I am talking about. Only thing is I don’t like to have a master tempo as I prefer the freedom of changing the tempo with the pitch shift on the decks. I do sets with genres that vary massively in bpm and say I am playing house but want to switch to DnB, I can do something like turn the power off on the deck, making he house track slow down to a stop, then scratch in the first beat of a DnB track and sync further DnB tracks to that track.
If I have a master tempo I’d constantly have to stay on top of what tempo it’s at. I’d have to ensure that at the start of every set I have the master tempo set correctly (and I could start with anything). The only time I want to have to deal with a master tempo is when doing what I am talking about with the speeding up of one genre into a widely different genre (house to DnB for example). It just seems lengthy to have to sort out my master tempo with a dial, hit a button 3 time (going from auto deck mode to internal), sync both decks to the master tempo, turn the tempo up to 170, go back into timecode mode, hit the button 3 time again (to go back to auto mode)… You know what I mean?
It’d be nice if there was a button I could hit once to switch to internal mode and it would make the master tempo match the master deck and make both decks sync to the master clock… all just with one button, then hit it again to go back to timecode after I have raised the tempo.
What are you chattin about? You telling me you’ve never heard that done before? If I can be arsed I’ll record the technique later & post it up for you to hear. I just want to find the best way to do it.
If you key it (so the pitch doesn’t change with the tempo) and meet in the middle (185 BPM) it’ll sound fine. 15 BPM is not THAT huge of a difference when it’s that fast of a tempo. If you want to mix the 170 BPM track into the 100 BPM, you can still hit x2 on the 100 BPM; in that case you just need to bring the 100 (or 200 now) BPM track until it’s halfway or so. Easy as pie!
No, mate I think you’re missing the point. I mix completely different tempos all the way though my set. I used 100 bpm & 170 bpm as an example. It’s not always going to be a 100 & 170 bpm transition. I might go from 140 to 170, so by what you’re saying if I hit the x2 button I’d be trying to mix 170 into 280!? I might go from 90 bpm to 130, so I’d be trying to mix 130 into 180. Do you see what I am saying? It won’t work. Plus I want to do the whole speeding up thing. So say I am running a house track (about 130 bpm) I might want to bring in say a DnB loop mixing in time with the 130 bpm house track, and then raise the tempo of both the tracks until they reach around 170 bpm, but fade out the house track before the DnB drops.
Right, this is what I wanna do (I literally grabbed the 1st 2 tracks in those genres and knocked it out as an example). As far as I can see I gotta do everything mentioned in my original post which is kinda lengthy. I for a second got my hopes up as the master tempo displays what ever the master deck is running at, if you then switch to internal clock mode the master tempo freezes on what ever the master deck was at prior to switching to internal. Sweet, I thought, I can just sync both decks to the master clock and raise the master tempo with a dial on my controller. The problem is though, say my dial is sitting at like 3 o’clock, if I then turn it the master tempo snaps to be in relation to where ever the dial is positioned, fucking everything up. It doesn’t see 3 o’clock as it’s starting point. Is there a way of changing that (kinda like relative & absolute mode on the vinyl, if you know what I mean)? Cos if not, it means I gotta take the time to see what BPM the track is running at, position the dial accordingly and go from there… it’s just too time consuming. I want it to be a quick thing.
I didn’t say its not possible, or that you can’t do it, I said it would sound bad. Literally. If you are keylocking on Traktor, that much of a tempo difference can sound distorted. If you aren’t key locking, one will sound like barry white, or pinky and perky, depending on which way you go.
Also, I personally don’t think that beatmatch tracks so far apart makes sense to your audience. But thats my preference.
Sounds like happy hardcore without the bass dodge i get what you are trying to do but i just don’t see how its gonna work mate. what about some quick cuts at the drop? worth a try.
Maybe on that one example it don’t sound the best. Like I said, I just grabbed the first 2 tunes I came across. I hear a lot of DJ’s do it and pull it off well. If you take Dubstep for example, it’s got that broken beat like DnB has, so if you let a track play, catch a loop at the end where there aint too much goin on top of the drums, make a loop at the beginning of a DnB track, do that technique I have given as an example, maybe drag it out a bit longer as it’s on a loop, it really hypes the crowd up as the tempo gets faster and faster until eventually you’re at the correct tempo, then slam into sumink crazy… trust me it works.
ANYWAY, forget whether anyone thinks it’ll sound good or not, if it sounds shit that’s my problem. I am trying to get to the bottom of how to do it without too much messing around mid-set. I think derschaich might be right, I’m gonna need an endless dial, unless anyone knows of a way to change the setting on a dial that isn’t endless???
Yeah, that’s kinda how I do it at the moment. Except when you say wheels are you referring to jog wheels? Cos I don’t have jog wheels, I run on time code vinyl. Basically, what I do is sync the slower track to the faster track with the pitch on the faster track on the deck at its slowest speed, I then raise the speed of the faster track’s deck til the pitch is right at the top, I then quickly flick that deck to internal play mode and slide the pitch to the bottom again, flick back to time code and raise the pitch again until it’s at the correct tempo. Only problem is I got that moment where I have to flick to internal play mode and slide the pitch shift down, it’s not really noticeable but it means I can only do it as a relatively slow thing to keep it unnoticeable. Sometimes I want to do it faster. It’s a shame most Technics decks only go to +/-8. It’s all well and good having the 100% pitch in traktor but I can’t see a way around doing it on the turntables the way I want.
