Traktor Beatgridding: Any tips for speeding this up?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
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Traktor Beatgridding: Any tips for speeding this up?

So I’m a new convert from Serato. I picked up the S8 and am going to be using it with my turntables.

I would like to know if there is any way to speed up the process of beat gridding? I have a decent sized collection of tracks that I spin/take to gigs, and I am trying to grid them as quickly (but accurately) as possible.

This is my process:

1: Try to auto map the track or manually set the grid in Traktor

  • Grid marker on first downbeat
  • Go to last beat and see if it’s off, adjust as needed
    2: If the grid is too far off:
  • Quantize / Manually warp in ableton
  • Save as .wav
  • Batch process WAV to MP3 in Audition
  • Use MP3 Tag to copy all tagging information from original file to new file produced by Audition
  • Take newly warped track to step one.

Repeat as needed.

Is there a faster way to do this but still retain accuracy?

Thank you!

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I find the S2/S4 Track Prep mapping from Ean to be reasonably helpful. Granted, this assumes a reasonably stable track to begin with.

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Practice? It gets pretty quick if you do it on a regular basis.

5

Tap those tracks in!

I’ll often do it live in traktor, if i’m cuing a track and it doesn’t look or sound right, just tap in the BPM for a few bars and it should re-adjust.

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I do it pretty much like Ean does in the video, but without a mapping. Most tracks take 5-10 seconds to lock in.

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Eans keyboard shortcuts is probably the best thing out there. such a time saver. really useful to know.

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I need to try Ean’s mapping, but really…it only takes a little longer than beatmatching.

Now, as for your step 2…I haven’t found that necessary except when I (on a whim) bought a disco track from the 70s or when I tried an ill-conceived remix project several years ago. If you have to warp a modern dance track in Live, you’ve probably done something really boneheaded. Also, if (like most people) you’re buying mp3s and then warping and re-encodng, you just destroyed anything resembling sound quality. So if you do have to do that, don’t convert back to mp3. Aiff can still hold metadata.

But, then, I’m apparently the anti-mp3 zealot of DJTT, and I’ll argue against them in their entirety until the format dies or I do.

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Eans thing is great for saving time IMO

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I’m prepping tracks in similar fashion with my Twister mapping.

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Thank you for all the tips and advice, I do appreciate.

Apparently it’s practice that makes this go faster. I’m also going to try Ean’s keyboard mapping as well as I don’t have access to my S8 all the time (I do beat gridding at work in off-times to get through my collection).

Again, thanks and I appreciate it.

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Yeah, I understand about the degradation in sound when re-encoding and MP3 and I probably will keep it an loss-less format. Good catch. Thanks

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I’ve had the Loop Recorder section on the S4 mapped to track preparation for years and years.
I’ve done the same on the S2 using the Loop In/Out buttons on each deck cus I have never in all my time used those buttons on either the S4 or S2.