Im currently a Serato user and have asked the Rane team so many times to give us greater pitch range. This means if i bowl up to a club which only has +8/-8 turntables i can switch a button to multiply the input by a certain amount. This would in effect be as if i were DJing on +20/-20 (or more) turntables.
Ive seen that Traktor does give you this option with Traktor Pro but will it allow you to utilise this feature in Scratch Pro when in timecode mode (using a standard turntable)
This would be the final sway over to Traktor if the answer is yes.
The pitch adjustment limit isnt caused by the program, its due to the use of timecode. Serato, Traktor, or any dvs reads the frequency of the timecode vinyl/cd and when the vinyl/cd is pitched up the frequency of the tone on the timecode increases as well (you hear this as the tone being pitched up). When the dvs reads the frequency going up, it will speed up the audio file being played. So to put it simply, the dvs’ pitch range is determined by how far the cdj or turntable can pitch change the timecode. The only way I could see this changing is if the dvs maker could make the same frequency correspond to two different pitches/speeds.
You can use the internal pitch fader with traktor scratch, but you lose all dvs funtionality until you switch back to relative or absolute mode. One thing you could do is run 2 decks running dvs while having two decks running internal (or midi if you wanna call it that) that way if you wanted to do a big pitch jump you could use the internal pitch fader on one deck, and still have the other two dvs decks running cuing up a track thats in a +8/-8 pitch range.
Its a good suggestion but it all needs to be vinyl/timecode.
I was under the impression that Traktor could actually do this, meaning multiplying the input by a percentage. In preferences you can choose %10/35/50 or 100.
Does this do what i actually think it does, answering this question? If not, whats it for?
If not, midi mapping a fader to quickly pitch the track internally and moving back to relative mode wouldnt be too much of a pain. It could be easier though.
Its such a hugely demanded feature for many many people on the Serato forums, firstly requested in 2004!
The internal pitch percentages do not apply to the use of dvs, just internal/midi mixing. When using timecode you are still limited by the pitch range of the pitch slider on the cdj/turntable.
Yeah this is possible man, of course it is, I do it all the time (if I understand you correctly that is).
Say you have a track running at 135bpm (or faster) and you want to mix a track thats 70bpm (or slower) in with it, obviously the decks won’t do that naturally as the pitch range is too small. So all you gotta do is have a button on your laptop or external midi controller with a sync button assigned to it for each deck. So say the 135bpm+ track is on the master deck (which can be set manually or automatically), you just hit the sync button on the slave deck and the internal pitch will jump up to match the other deck, yet you still have the pitch on the external deck to control. You can’t have a CONSTANT lock if you are using the time code vinyl on BOTH decks as obviously they run independently like records would, what you have is that momentary push of the button to snap the slave deck to match the master deck internally, and then you can ride the pitch on the TT. If you want a constant lock you can either switch both decks to internal mixing mode, or have the master deck on the time code vinyl and the slave deck on sync (provided the slave deck is on internal mode). So if you speed up the master deck on the TT, the slave deck will always be locked no matter what (then just unsync to go back to full time code).
What I think you are trying to achieve is regular old mixing but with tracks with widely different tempos? So yeah, all you gotta do is hit sync on the track you are mixing in and it will match the master deck (but not lock). So in theory you don’t hardly ever have to touch the pitch controls on your decks any more, just keep hitting sync as soon as you hear it drift out of time. Your external TT might be on say +2% pitch yet it could be on +30 internally, then if you move your external pitch down to say -4% the internal pitch is obviously going to slow down too, so all you do is hit sync and it will snap back up to +30 internally. You can even fuck around with the external pitch while repeatedly pressing sync to keep the internal pitch on +30 to match the other decks tempo. There’s lots of tricks you can use with speeding up tracks smoothly beyond the range of a +/-8 pitch all the way up to 100%.
Hope that helps
edit
And obviously you have key lock so you can have a track running super fast, but retain the original key
Yeah you would just have to hit the relative button to get it back into relative mode. Just realize that if you switch back to relative it will go back to whatever pitch it is on the cdj/tt’s pitch slider, and not the internal. So if you pitched it up/down more than the range on the cdj/tt you will hear the pitch change.
That sounds great and if thats right then great. I still think manual control over it would help. Do i have to remain in sync mode in order for the track to stay were its been put?
Im actually mixing tracks to Ableton Live and i need to be able to actually mix them non-dependent of what tempo im in. This is another reason why i need a solid solution to this.
Internal mode is simply not an option for me. Im so so used to the turntables and i just dont like the feel of anything else.
Peedot… what youre saying is if i switch to internal, pitch then go back to relative it would have made no difference… basically youre saying relative mode wont read the offset of the internal pitch?
Not true, if you are on internal mode, your time code vinyls are spinning with your needles on them and you hit the relative button, it will switch to relative mode and the internal pitch will stay at the speed is was when you were mixing internally, therefore making a seamless transition from internal to relative (Traktor has no way of knowing where the external pitch slider is, it only knows what tempo the track is playing at due to how fast the record is spinning). Say you are on internal mode with the pitch at +6%, your external pitch on the TT is at -2%, if you hit relative mode the internal pitch will stay at +6%. If this didn’t happen things would become an absolute nightmare as tracks would suddenly slow down or speed up when making the transition from internal to relative. The only time the internal pitch will snap to a different position is a.) when you hit sync so it matches the other deck, or b.) when you load a new track into one of the internal decks the pitch resets itself back to zero.
Listen, Apricotjam, trust me when I say what ever you want Traktor to do DJ wise it can do, they’ve thought of everything. It’s a powerful & deep program. The only thing it can’t do is sync AND CONSTANTLY LOCK 2 decks if they are both running on time code vinyl (2 timecode decks are only sync’d momentarily when you hit the sync button).
If you’re that concerned, list everything you need to know in this post and I’ll make a video showing you the answers
if you could show me how i could pitch using the internal and switch back to relative whilst keeping the music rolling id appreciate it.
the sync button i dont want to use as im going to be mixing tracks in serato/traktor to tracks in ableton, not the other way round so its important this works in 2 ways…
when i turn up to a club with only ±8 turntables i can mix records out of range with each other.
just mix one tune loaded at a time into the virtual decks at any tempo i want using timecode.
I also want to see how quickly i can jump to the next loop? Are cues loops also or are the always independent?
I have a little mini midi keyboard with 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 & 32 beats assigned for each deck. This allows me at any point during the song to loop a section v quickly and i can choose how long it is depending on which button i hit.
I have seen that traktor does this but i think you have to loop, then scroll down to how short/long you want your loops to be… this would loose the spontaneous looping fun for me!
Also, any advice on moving from serato to traktor.
Sound Quality… some people tell me serato has better sound quality.
Can it adjust all your tracks to the same volume like Serato?
I’ll try get a video together. But in the meantime I’ll answer what questions I can. I can’t comment on running traktor along side ableton, never tried it. I can only comment on each program independently as that’s how I’ve worked with them. What I do know is you can set a master clock and have them both running along with each other as a rewire application, I very much doubt you can do it with timecode though, I’d imagine it only works internally. If you want to change the master tempo you’d probably have to assign a midi controller to do it (again, Ive not tried this so you might have to ask someone else that question).
Answering questions on a Traktor basis alone;
Yes you can 100% turn up to a club and mix any tune with each other regardless of how wide the deck pitch range is, and you CAN do this with time code, this is exactly how I work and I probably wouldn’t have bought Traktor if you couldn’t do it. I use time code and I do mash up sets where I mix shit like hip-hop at around 90bpm with house thats around 130bpm or even DnB that’s around 170bpm. I have a folder with all my beat gridded tracks in and mix them all together. Check in the mixes forum, there’s a mix I did called something like ‘big fucking bouncy mix’ or some shit, I mix jay-z with some house track, and then I do the same with beastie boys and some other house track.
Yes you can play any tune at any tempo using time code. But, bare in mind if you boot up traktor (again forget about ableton for a minute), and the first tune you load is say 100bpm but you want it to run at 170bpm (outside a +/-8% pitch range)… remembering this is the very first tune you load into any deck so therefore you have no other tune (at 170bpm) to sync it to, you have to either 1.) type in a master tempo of 170bpm and then hit sync so that the internal pitch jumps momentarily to that tempo then ride the external pitch to keep it at 170bpm, or 2.) have an external midi fader or knob assigned to the pitch fader on the internal deck that you can slide up to reach 170bpm, or 3.) use the mouse to manually drag the internal fader up to reach 170bpm, or 4.) have a midi fader or knob assigned to the master tempo, slide that up to 170bpm then hit sync to snap the internal pitch fader up to 170bpm. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are more ways then that.
You can jump to loops and cues instantly, there is no delay… UNLESS, you have the master quantise settings set to snap, which basically means that when you hit a cue or loop button while another track is playing it will always be in time no matter what. So if you are half way through 2 beats (not bars, so we’re only talking a small amount of time here), and you hit a cue button, it won’t play until you are bang on the beat (it’s a good thing). Basically what that means is if you want to do crazy freestyle drum rolls or mad hits that are shorter than one beat in length you have to turn the snap function off. One thing you can’t do is jump from one cue point to a different cue point on a completely different track instantly, there’s a split second delay when loading a new track (not really a big deal).
You can assign the loops to have individual buttons for 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 etc, beats. OR you can assign loop length buttons, or loop in points, out points, and so on. Basically the answer to that question is yes, and some.
Only used Serato for about 10 seconds when a guy in a club let me use it to check the latency with scratching so can’t comment on moving over from it.
Sound quality; I used Final Scratch before Traktor and fuck me, the sound quality difference is amazing. Somebody put a post up in this forum about the differences between Serato and Traktor. It was the first time they used Traktor in a club but had been using Serato for ages. He said he couldn’t believe how good the quality was on Traktor compared to Serato, he said he heard things in the music he hadn’t heard before on tunes he’s played loads of time on the same system. So if anything I’d imagine Traktor out does Serato on the sound quality front. The post I’m talking about isn’t that old so try search for it.
Yes, there is an auto volume level option so all the tracks you load are at the correct gain, I have mine on all the time. There is also a master limiter but I turn that off.
Ahhhhhh, damn that was a long ass response! You better be grateful for this shit cos I had no one tell me any of this, I had to figure it all out for myself!
Anyway, like I said before, anything you can think of DJ wise they probably already thought of it and the answer will probably be yes. What I’d recommend is going to your local DJ shop and trying it out for yourself. I dunno how many more questions I can answer, my head hurts! Nah, you’re alright mate, hope all that helps.
you could sync the tracks with a button on your keyboard. you could do what you want to do but you would need a midi controller with faders to get the extra range. or you could slow a track down more by setting the timecode speed to 45 and hitting the 33 button to get it to play slower
