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rekordbox

Rekordbox is awesome -- but here are the bugs I've noticed

First off, 4.0 is amazing and there's so much promise in this system now. I've made up my mind to abandon Traktor and move to RB. I love it. Cleanest and most intuitive user interface, Retina support, Related Tracks feature, and of course plug-and-play with Pioneer gear. I'm really excited about all of it.

In my play-testing this weekend, there are definitely some missing features and a few bugs that I'm sure the team is probably aware of, but I wanted to mention them here just in case. I'm playing on a DDJ-SZ with firmware 1.20 and the latest drivers.

1) Key lock. EDIT: I'm an idiot. Key lock is Master Tempo, and it works brilliantly.

2) EDIT: Engineering is aware of this issue. Quantize and cue point issue. There's something seriously wrong with using Hot Cues and Quantize in conjunction. I'm not using any kind of sync, yet very often, when I hit a Cue point, it will trigger an entire beat late. Surely, this one is already on your radar.

3) Color coding and harmonic sorting order for Keys in browser view. Other DJ softwares include this feature. I'd like to see my keys in sharps or flats, but still be able to sort my tunes by the key's harmonic order. Right now, sorting by key is alphanumeric. I guess the assumption here is that most folks use Open Key notation, but I personally do not. And in either case, color coding of the key would help tremendously, too. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but having RB truly understand the 3 popular key notations in use today would greatly improve the accuracy of the Related Tracks feature as well. Color coding keys in the deck view would also help them stand out at a glance.

4) No way to edit track meta data. I tried in both Performance and Export mode, but I couldn't find a way to e.g. change a track's star rating. As far as I understand, this field is read on import from iTunes and then duplicated in Rekordbox since there is no ID3 field for it. That's all well and good, but previous versions of RB allowed the user to change the rating.

5) EDIT: Apparently editing the beat grid in Performance mode is possible by clicking on the deck number. Cool! The ability to edit the beat-grid while in performance mode would be much appreciated. As users adopt RB, it's really painful to sit there and grid all of your tracks in one go. It'd be significantly easier if I could grid tracks as I loaded them up to play. I realize that this is a fairly significant UI change, which may impact Pioneer's ability to get to this one.

6) The ability to remove a Track from your Collection while browsing the iTunes node. It's tedious to see something in your iTunes node and wish to remove it from RB, but have to then go find it again under the Collection tree to do so. Please enable the right-click menu option to remove tracks from the Collection regardless of where the user happens to be browsing.

7) EDIT: Possibly slated for roadmap, but no guarantee. The ability to change controller mappings. I suppose Pioneer is attempting to lock down the set of controllers that work with RB. But even for supported controllers, being able to tweak or tune the mapping would be valuable. For example, I will rarely use the Sampler performance pads on my DDJ-SZ. I do, however, use the Beat Jump feature extensively -- yet Beat Jump is mapped to Shift + Hot Cue. I'd love to assign Beat Jump to the Sampler button (which would also be more consistent with RB's UI, btw). Again, this is another huge UI request, I get it..

8) Browser search function should ALWAYS be accessible from Cmd+F / Ctrl+F. This one is pretty self-explanatory, but a savvy user should never have to click on the browser search bar during a performance. The platform-appropriate hotkey shortcut should always bring focus to the search box, from anywhere.

9) EDIT: Preview will work on the DDJ-SZ if RB is set to Internal mixing mode. I kind of assumed that the Preview feature would Just Work(tm) with my DDJ-SZ, but it doesn't. What's worse, is that none of the available outputs in the audio mapping preferences in RB allow me to target the headphone output. Is this a limitation of the hardware (I'm new to the SZ), or RB, or am I missing a simple preference setting to get Preview coming through the headphones?

This sounds like a lot of harping, but in truth, I had _so_ much fun playing on RB this weekend, and like I mentioned above, there's tons of promise in this software. Kudos to Pioneer and the RB team for what they've done so far. Please keep the updates rolling!

Jay Dolan 7. Dezember 2015 13:57

Offizieller Kommentar

As noted, the MT button on the software (or Master Tempo button on your hardware device) will activate the "key lock." You could use a pitch effect within the software if you want to achieve the inverse of changing the key of the music without altering the speed.
The quantize issue is already noted by engineers.
The problem is Camelot requires licensing, but they are aware of users requests for other notation options and that may be included in a future update. It's a low-priority as they address more serious issues right now.
I'm not sure why you're not able to change metadata, I have no problem in editing all fields. Are you making changes within rekordbox and expecting those changes to be reflected elsewhere?
It's not apparent at first, but glad you found it.
This is because the tracks are not synchronized back to iTunes and removals are not carried forward.
Something we may see in future updates, but no timeline.
Be sure that you actually have a shortcut assigned in order for it to work:
If you're using internal mode it forces it to the headphone output as an overlay, otherwise you'd need to be using hardware that supports the preview output (such as a DJM900 or 2000).

Pulse 8. Dezember 2015 06:49

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Datum Stimmen

14 Kommentare

1. Theres a MT button right above the pitch control to turn on master tempo to keep the key the same pitch while speeding up the track if thats what you mean

8. You can hit CTRL+F anywhere an it will put the cursor in the search field to search the collection. I never had an issue with it not doing that from anywhere in the program

BriChi 7. Dezember 2015 14:18 0 Stimmen

Thanks BriChi, spot-on re: Master Tempo. So that takes #1 off the list :)

As for #8, as one example, try clicking on a waveform and then hitting Cmd-F. I'm pretty sure there are other places from where you can't get to Search, too.

Jay Dolan 7. Dezember 2015 14:31 0 Stimmen

that works fine for me, i just tried. Loaded a track, clicked on the wave to jump through the track, then hit CTRL+F and it went right to the search window

not sure if you're on a Mac or PC, Im on my Macbook so maybe if you're on PC its a PC bug?

BriChi 7. Dezember 2015 14:34 0 Stimmen

No, I'm on a MacBook Pro as well (Retina, late 2013, running El Cap). Weird!

Jay Dolan 7. Dezember 2015 14:35 0 Stimmen

3) I agree. As it is now the key sorting is pretty much useless in rb. Sorting alphabetically works only if you use open key notation, but the open key does not work in the CDJs. I rely on the traffic light system of the CDJs nexus and I'm quite happy with it, so I do not want to change the notation in my rb library. It would be pretty easy to implement a musical sorting with standard musical notation.

5) It is possible to change the beatgrid in performance mode, it's a bit hidden. I don't remember exactly how it's done, my trial has expired so I do not have access to performance mode. I just remember that you had to hover the mouse pointer somewhere on the deck and a pop up menu would appear.

Edit: here a link on how to access the beatgrid editing from performance mode https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203838423--Solved-Edit-Beatgrid-or-first-Beat-in-Performance-Mode

Julia O 7. Dezember 2015 14:38 0 Stimmen

very weird, I have no issues with CTFL+F, I actually mapped COMMAND + = sign because it was quicker for me being righty and again, never had an issue

what if you try to map something else to search as a test

BriChi 7. Dezember 2015 14:39 0 Stimmen

That's awesome, Julia. I'll give that a try tonight. Thanks. I'll give re-mapping Search a shot this evening as well, BriChi.

Jay Dolan 7. Dezember 2015 14:42 0 Stimmen

cool, keep us posted!

BriChi 7. Dezember 2015 14:48 0 Stimmen

@JAY

The preview does work although it's strangly not mapped to any hardware buttons. I suggested using SHIFT-Browse button press as a logical thing to use.

To use preview you need to enable internal mode. This basically turns your controller into a 'dumb' midi device and all the processing (including faders effects etc) happen on the computer. To preview, click the waveform of the track. Hopefully pioneer enables hardware control of this as I tend to preview at least one or two sons to make sure I haev the right remix/edit..

DJ Chase 7. Dezember 2015 16:52 0 Stimmen

I was curious if putting Rekordbox into Internal mode might solve that one.. That's good to know, and thanks! I guess the question is: what hardware features on the mixer do I surrender in doing so?

Jay Dolan 7. Dezember 2015 19:03 0 Stimmen

2. If you have quantize activated, the result is what you've noticed - also the hot cues will be aligned to the grid. If you push the hotcue sort of 1 millisecond after the beat grid associated (problably) with the cue point, it will jump to the next beat.

You have to deactivate quantize to have full manual control of the hot cue.

Fredrik Orre 7. Dezember 2015 20:58 0 Stimmen

Hi pulse, thanks for the official response! I've edited the original post to indicate all of the feedback I've received. Thanks again to everyone who has helped me out.

If I could just clarify the ones that I feel are still open / could be considered feature requests or improvements:

3) Colored keys. I'm only suggesting that RB add a few parsing modes for the Initial Key field, and map them all to an internal representation that includes a color coding system. The expectation is that RB understands that "Am" and "Em" go together, and renders them in complementary colors. How could this require licensing? It's like licensing that 1 + 1 = 2 ;)

4) I'm trying to edit track metadata from within the iTunes node, because I do all of my browsing, searching and loading from my iTunes Smart Playlists. Is that my problem? Do I have to find the tracks from the Collection node in order to edit them? Seems kind of arbitrary: RB clearly knows that the tracks are in the Collection -- why not enable editing of imported tracks from anywhere. And no, I'm not looking for non-ID3 information (ratings) to be reflected back into iTunes. ID3 fields, however, should be written to the file when applicable.

6) Likewise, I'm not expecting to remove a track from an iTunes Smart Playlist in RB -- that makes no sense :D All I'm asking is that, for tracks that RB has in its Collection, enable removing them from the Collection regardless of where I happen to be viewing them (e.g. iTunes node). I have an iTunes Smart Playlist that targets all tracks I wish to "retire," and so being able to purge these from my Collection via the playlist would make that operation very simple. I purge things from my Collection so that the Related Tracks engine (a feature I'm quickly growing to love, btw) doesn't show me tracks I've decided to retire.

8) I dunno what the deal is here. I'm running El Capitan, default RB key mappings, no accessibility features turned on, etc. There are plenty of ways I can manage to make Cmd-F stop working until I click back on the Browser view (clicking on a waveform in an active deck is just one example). It's by no means a show-stopper, tho.

Thanks again!

Jay Dolan 8. Dezember 2015 13:40 0 Stimmen

@Jay > ...

3) Sorry, I meant the Camelot system must be licensed - colouring would be free, of course. ;) It certainly would make it quicker at a glance, and I know Serato's recent implementation of this feature does make it quick, seeing a red key next to an orange key vs. a blue key without needing to read the key itself is easy and quick. Hopefully we'll see something like this implemented. One other lightning-fast way to find compatible tracks is to use the Related Tracks pane on the right side, you can configure it in a variety of ways (I have mine set to match the master deck, same genre, Related Key 1, +/- 4% BPM), and that will show you what you can mix easily with the currently playing track.

4) Yes; rekordbox can't edit the iTunes database, that would be why you're experiencing this issue. I now understand why that was happening.

6) If you remove the track from your collection, it removes it from all playlists. Removing it from a playlist doesn't remove it from the collection, removing it from iTunes also doesn't remove it from the collection.

8) Have you tried changing the mapping for it?

Pulse 8. Dezember 2015 19:38 0 Stimmen