Tried to search this topic since I guess it’s a pretty common doubt but couldn’t find anything.
I’m returning to djing and this time as a digital dj. My ideas are to mix rock, disco, funk, nu-disco… things around those. So, here I was thinking, Traktor sync or normal beatmatch?
What are the pros and cons of each?
As I see, Traktor sync:
CON: Needs beatgrid for each music. That’s homework and you can’t use the tracks on other Traktor computer because it won’t have the beatgrids (is this right?)
CON: For some beatgrids is necessary a previous warp on Ableton or a lot of work on Traktor
CON: Some people like to beatmatch
CON: Too much unnatural? (what do you think?)
PRO: More time to see what’s going on on the dance floor or maybe use effects or just choose the next songs (this may be a con also since you don’t have much to do then ehehe)
PRO: Better loops and cues (you don’t risk to fail a milli second)
PRO: Controllers without jogs and 100mm pitch faders (unless for some songs that are just impossible to beatmatch and sound natural but I guess that those would be fine with a pitch knob)
Oh dear these threads never end well. I can’t believe a search didn’t throw up many results because this is debated at least once a month!!
However… Yes each track would need a beatgrid. Auto gridding happens when you import a track into one of the decks and this generally only needs minor tweaks for dance music. However, if you are playing a live recording or a tune where the timing is kept by a drummer then you may find these difficult to grid. I’m no expert with this though as I only play electronic music. You have already mentioned one solution to this problem though and that is to warp the track first in Ableton. This does take time but my experience with this has been that its very easy to do if you have a basic knowledge of warping with Ableton Live.
You will hear various views on whether people feel that using Sync is acceptable or not. My advice would be to use it if you feel comfortable with it. If you dont feel comfortable then dont use it. When it comes to looping and using beat synced effects then it makes things a whole lot easier. In truth whether you use sync or not is t something that someone else can tell you. You either use it or you don’t. It’s purely a personal preference.
I would say that if you are having to ask this forum if you should use sync or not then the impression that gives me is that you aren’t comfortable with it and you are seeking reassurance on its validity.
from what i’ve read traktor will save the gridding, cues, and loops in the id3 tags of the track so they can be used on other machines. i believe you may have to lock the track’s grid in order for this to occur. anyone know for sure on this?
if you are going to be spining a lot of rock, funk, old disco where people are actually playing the music, the traktor grid isn’t going to hold up very well since it’s static. it’s not like warping in ableton, so if a track drifts there isn’t too much you can do about it outside of beatmatching. if you are going to be spinning mostly that kind of stuff i would recommend going old school on it, or warping in ableton if needed.
personally i was happy when software started doing the beatmatching for me (though i do get on my turntables every now and then to rock out a vinyl set). sync gives me more time to audition songs and my loops are always on point without fail, but yes i do have to spend time (homework as you call it) setting these things up. in the long run it benefits me and i feel it’s worth it, but to each their own and if you enjoy beatmatching or not having to do much prep work, then i completely understand that.
most controllers have knobs you can map to fine tune the tempo by .01 so it won’t really matter there if you don’t mind using a knob for beatmatching. couldn’t speak for the jogs for nudging since i don’t use them in that manner and i guess it depends on the controller.
Do you want a difinitive list of pros and cons or do you want us to tell you that its acceptable for you to use sync (because it is)??
BTW, all beatgrids and cue points are stored in the collection.nml file not as ID3 tags so in order to use them on a different machine you just have to copy that file accross.
The advice Squidot gives is spot on with regards to live tracks.
if you’ve warped it correctly in ableton, then gridding in traktor will be easy. the question doesn’t remain for me. i happily use sync most of the time since i play a solid amount of electronic music that grids easily and i have to do relatively little work…setting up my cue points takes me much longer than gridding. try sync, if you don’t like it, don’t use it.
no problem, i’m still unsure if you need to lock it though, but djproben says it isn’t necessary in that ni post. i may have to try it myself, but i’m probably too lazy in all honesty. i would rather just play some music rather than tinker with file transferring and testing. though, if it does need to be locked to save that’s pretty important in case my laptop dies. no way i want to do all that gridding and cueing again.
The question i’ve made from the beginning was made to gather a list of cons and pros yes because there is no technique that is fully pro.
Beatgriding doesn’t seem to me a problem now. Thank you!
Pretty interesting!
One thing that kind of bothers me a lot (i’m kind of a perfeccionist)… do you find the sync to be unnatural? Like… the beats are so “glued” that may seem unnatural?
If you’re lazy as hell like me and not a big fan of effects, just beatmatch the old school way. If it aint broke no need to fix it.
Also you never know when the beatgrids are all wrong after the break because you didn’t double check the beatgrid and you’ve got a trainwreck on your hands.
I would however recommend you have an hour (mix/set time,not just the duration of tunes combined) worth of tunes beatgridded just in case you’ve had a bit too much and the concentration is starting to go.
Ever since “the incident” I’ve got about 130 dnb tunes beatgridded and at the ready in case my timing is not quite what it should be.
+1 on mastering both, the more skills you have and the more flexible you are the better.
Everybody loves the guy that shows up at the gig that can handle anything they throw at him.
Like whenever the setup is over complicated and you got soundcards to hook up, someone wants CDJs, the other wants vinyl…
Just want to say that Traktor does indeed save cue points / grids to the file itself. I know bc I transferred a bunch of songs via usb stick to a new laptop with a clean Traktor install (my old laptop was stolen - thank god for backing up!) and I was surprised to find that everything was still there. I don’t think locking the grid had anything to do with it either
Please don’t do this, especially if you’re playing rock, funk, etc. You’ll suck the life right out of those tracks. If you want to use beatgrids for such tracks, just find a loop near the beginning and/or end of the song and grid the loop and use that to mix in and out. That way you keep the advantage of the grid without messing with the track. Or just beatmatch the old fashioned way. There’s no reason you can’t combine syncing some songs with beatmatching others by ear. You just have to be careful not to press “Sync” when the beatgrid is not correct.
Probably depends on the mix, but if you really want to fix this you can sync and then turn off sync, now you can move the jog wheel and get your tracks just perfectly out of phase for a different feel.
The 2 cents worth are starting to add up. Here is mine.
I mainly play trance which is generally, as with all electronic music, very tightly quantized and so even using default beatgrids 90% of the time the beats are bang on. I also have the tracks Hot cued to the max.
I can beatmatch and occasionally just to prove I can still do it, I turn off sync and do a whole set using beatmatching. but here is the thing many purists who bang on about only being a DJ if you beatmatch are in reality only Phase matching, all software and most hardware these days can display the tempo of the track and even using CDJ’s most DJ’s are dialing up the tempo and just phase matching the track so that the queue when they start the track will be in time. When they toggle the jog wheel they are just adjusting the phase to make sure the beats arent out of sync.
My own take is that I use the tools available to try and craft new music out of existing tracks, so i use sync which manually just does the boring beatmatching for you. It leaves me free to concentrate on using effects, mashing different bits of tracks together and generally allows me to listen and mould the music without getting distracted by having to listen to a cued track in the headphones while I ‘match’ the beats which is just a waste of time if like me you are not playing full tracks one after the other but tryng to create new music out of the old.
There is one major caveat here though, this only works for me using my own setup. so being able to beatmatch is vital if you are asked to play on some CDJ’s rather than just Traktor (Which I use) So while Beatmatching is not really a nessesity for certain types of music and if using Software such as Traktor it is a good skill to have and does make you listen closer to the music while learning the technique,
For non quentized music beatmatching can be the only way to go, as you will be constantly having to adjust the phase for even the tightest of non click-tracked music.
There are things that don’t really should be beatmatched of course. Rock is more about cut and play otherwise things won’t add up correctly. Same goes with some funk. The idea wasn’t to beatmatch those. I like the idea of an initial loop.
Once again… a good idea!
I have no problems with beatmatching. Started on vinyl then cdj so… I think I have a pretty good ear for that.
Create a new music is something that kind of fascinates me. Always liked production (I left it a bit on the side but…). But the genres i’ll mix aren’t easy to make “new music” out of it. For me, messing with a rock song as a rock song is just sad and a little bit of a crime! Ehehe. It really depends.
Thanks.