Did a search and so many posts came up, couldnt find exactly what I was looking for.
Anyone care to share how they set their hot cues up? I used to do it all in order so 1 would be before 2 on the screen and 2 before 3 etc. I soon learnt I wont have to look at the screen so much if my load marker was always at number 1, even if there was a cue in front of it so it didnt run in order on the screen. I now have it so that my load marker is number 1 and I have 4 loops that follow it (I only work with 5 hot cues pair track so I dont have so many to deal with). Its a pretty straight forward theory but I’ve now realised I might have to move them around again due to some loops having more going on then others. So I might put them in order of busyness, like building up in parts the higher the cue number gets.
Thing is I have like SO MANY tracks to do this to that I have already sat there and gridded up cue’d. Before I get stuck into the gruelling task of rearranging everything, I dont want to finish and realise there’s a better way of arranging my hot cues.
My only two rules right now are cue point 1 is my grid marker and where the melody/vox get the most intense, where the main mix should be out, and cue 8 is the out, where the vox are gone, or on repeat, and I can either mix or should be done mixing, depending on the type of track.
The rest, well, right now every cue point behind the 1 counts backwards, so 2 is behind 1, and every cue after the 1 counts up, so 4 might be the next cue after 1.
I try to have 5 be the breakdown.
Though, I’m going to break this down again and have 1 be the mix out point, 2 be the load/mix start point, 3 be the chorus, 4 be the breakdown, 5, 6 and 7 be cue juggle points if applicable (with a note in the comments that it has cue juggle points) and 8 be the out, and then a bunch of unnumbered cues for the sections of the song, like, Chorus/Bridge/Verse kinda things so I can visualize the sections of the songs.
Honestly, if you have everything set, stick with it and just change it as you go, I’d think. If you’re creating a new set or a mix or something, or just working around, just do it track by track. It could be easier that way.
I am using serato now but my cue points go: 1. Intro 2. Lyric/Melody Start 3. Outro 4. End 5. Alt Outro Point. The cue points are color coded 1. Blue 2. Green (start) 3. Yellow (Warning to end) 4. Red (End). The cue points are for visual reference more than for cueing to. Cheers.
Anyone on the cue juggling tip at all? Im kinda getting into making a new track from different parts of looped tracks on 4 decks. This is what I mean by different parts having more going on then others. So if I hit cue 2 its gonna be like a simple beat, then 3 might have the same beat but with more hihats, 4 the same with a melody and so on. This way Im thinking I can physically build tracks from looped parts of others and be safe in the knowledge that when i wanna calm things down a bit I reach for the lower numbers and when I want bigger parts I can go for the higher numbers.
Oh I see what you’re saying. Sounds like you wanna be DJing with Ableton. It’s set up perfectly for that style. In traktor though sounds like you have it figured out. Just place your cue points in the order that you want, chillest to most energetic. If you really wanted to get a good system you could edit your tracks in a program like ableton live and grab only the parts you want to loop, put them in the order you want and then bounce them out. I know people do this for vocal samples they want to scratch with: Lay them all out in one track, put cue points on them, away you go.
Besides from that it depends on the track. Some tracks I only like the first part, or only the break, or only some 4 bars somewhere in the middle, so I put my cues accordingly.
Before loading the track I listen to all cue points to refresh my mind, and if there’s something important I just write something in the comments tag like “awesome break”, or “skip piano on 2”.
Don’t have a load point. Cue points are always in number order left to right in the track. Grid marker can be any cue point, but the grid marker will always be something significant I might use as a hotcue. I also use cue points as visual aids because I don’t do much cue jumping. I name the cue points a certain way to jog my memory. For example:
I make use of all 8 points in traktor, my first 4 points are for cue juggling, they are placed on snares, kicks, vocals, whatever I want, then regardless of how traktor grids the track for me, I always set a grid myself – cue 5 is always that first grid, cue 6 is then the load point usually, and after that, 7 and 8 are usually not used, but when I do, its for grids…
I am definitely liking the extra 4 on kicks snares hats etc! Thats a sick idea!.. And I dont normally write the word “sick” to describe something. I have been thinking what I’d use the extra buttons on a launchpad for, and that is definitely it!
Nice one man.
haha glad i could help! its a lot of fun! you can also do some cool things with them, like, sometimes ill use my crossfader, and trigger the sample on the cue point, and move my crossfader as if i were scratching it, makes for a really cool effect
I’ve got 6 cue points (well 7 if you count the gridmarker).
1: Grid marker first beat of the track/were traktor drops it. This is locked and untouched/used I don’t have it bound to any keys/buttons.
2: opening/mix in loop
3: first interesting bit of the track
4 5 6: Loops or cues to show bits of the track and to juggle through
7: Out loop, last decent sound on the track and a safety to give me time to mix in another track.
6 is sometimes also used as a second out loop if a track has a long section that I don’t find that interesting or that can’t be mixed out into another track smoothly
When you say not bound, do you mean you have it on a cue number that isnt assigned to your controller? Thats what I do, grid marker for me is number 6 as I only have 5 hot cues.
dunno about the cue to tell you when you’re close to the end, thats the whole point of being able to see the whole wave form with a locator to tell you where you are in the track
Yeah same concept here. I use hot cues 2 - 7 and have 1 reserved for the beatgrid, as it’s the one traktor uses by default. I have a VCI-300 so I have 6 cue points per-deck but I start assigning at 2. This means if I load up a track I have beat-gridded/set up yet I can just drop cue points on the fly without messing with the beatgrid.
I don’t have a cue for track end warning I have a 8+ beat loop that is the last decent bit of the track this stops the track running into the trail off (either were the track fades away or drops to just beats) before I have time to mix in a new track. This also makes it easy to leave a beat or sound from the leaving track if your doing a long mix and want to keep it going.
