Traktor Scratch Pitch accuracy
So I just got a pair of technics. I calibrated them back to the factory settings so that all the dots sit still when in the right pitch.
However, Traktor shows +8 pitch as 154 bpm for a track that is 140. I was wondering if pitch was equal to an increase in BPM. So shouldn’t a track that’s 140 when set at +8 pitch on the fader be 148 bpm?
Thanks guys.
No, +8 is a measure of percentage increase so +8 on a 100 bpm track would be 108 but +8 on 140 would be 151.2 (ish) so maybe traktor measures it somehow differently hope this helps
yeah, go to the settings to see what your pitch range is set at
someone over at djforums posted this recently. I found it to be very helpful
70-80 BPM Range
1.4% = 1 BPM
2.9% = 2 BPM (2.6% = 2 BPM after 75 BPM)
4.2% = 3 BPM (4.0% after 75 BPM, 3.8% after 79 BPM)
5.7% = 4 BPM (5.1% after 77 BPM)
7.1% = 5 BPM (6.7% after 74 BPM, 6.3% after 79 BPM)
80-90 BPM Range
1.3% = 1 BPM
2.5% = 2 BPM (2.3% after 87 BPM)
3.7% = 3 BPM (3.3% after 87 BPM)
5.0% = 4 BPM (4.5% after 88 BPM)
6.2% = 5 BPM (5.7% after 89 BPM)
90-100 BPM Range
1.1% = 1 BPM
2.2% = 2 BPM (2.1% after 95 BPM)
3.3% = 3 BPM (3.1% after 95 BPM)
4.4% = 4 BPM (4.2% after 95 BPM)
5.6% = 5 BPM (5.2% after 95 BPM)
100-110 BPM Range
1.0% = 1 BPM
2.0% = 2 BPM
3.0% = 3 BPM
4.0% = 4 BPM
5.0% = 5 BPM
110-120 BPM Range
0.8% = 1 BPM
1.8% = 2 BPM
2.6% = 3 BPM
3.6% = 4 BPM (3.6% after 115 BPM)
4.6% = 5 BPM (4.3% after 115 BPM)
120-130 BPM Range
0.8% = 1 BPM
1.7% = 2 BPM (1.6% after 125 BPM)
2.5% = 3 BPM (2.3% after 125 BPM)
3.4% = 4 BPM (3.2% after 125 BPM)
4.1% = 5 BPM (4.0% after 125 BPM)
130-140 BPM Range
0.8% = 1 BPM
1.5% = 2 BPM
2.2% = 3 BPM
3.0% = 4 BPM
3.9% = 5 BPM (3.7% after 135 BPM)
In the settings, go to Deck Details, then in Deck Heading change one of the fields to “Tempo” and watch how far +/- it’ll go when you adjust the pitch fader no matter what track, you can even just spin the timecode without anything loaded in the deck. It’s a rough approximation (.1 decimal places) but you’ll get a good enough idea. You most likely won’t see +/-8ish but more.
I’m using a friend’s Vestax decks which are rated +/-10%, the effective range is higher. One does -13 +11, the other -13.8 +12 so it’s down to tweaking each deck. the interesting part is they both zero at the center, there isn’t one that’s significantly off.
To make sure Traktor isn’t actually misreading things too much I set the pitch to +3% as read by TSP from the timecode on both decks (slightly different position due to differing ranges on each physical deck), then set one deck to audio through and phase/beatmatched a real vinyl with the ripped track in the other deck. Pretty much only phase matching needed outside of the displayed 0.2 fluctuation from the decks.*
Rinse and repeat at +10%.
Bottom line : see what % TSP displays and you should have a pretty good idea of your deck’s “real” pitch range (ie. probably not bang on +/-8).
@theory28 the pitch range in the Transport settings is unrelated to how TSP interprets the timecode input. makes no difference whether I’m at +8, +10 or +35 even after recalibrating. The displayed pitch fader is not affected by timecode speed (stays at the center when the physical pitch changes) but the other way around is true - you can add an extra speed bump to what your decks can achieve by moving the internal fader.
*again this isn’t precise. And seeing it idle with a fluctuation of up to +/-0.2 makes you wonder how precise that thing is. Displaying “bpm” in the other field shows very little fluctuation there and it does move in .01 increments if you want to.