Hey everyone!
I own a DDJ-400, and practiced with this gear a lot. Now I borrowed a XDJ-RX from a friend, to practice for a gig where they have that gear.
Now I experience some beatgrit problems on the RX, with the same music I've been practicing with on the DDJ - without problems. All my tracks are analysed in Recordbox true normal mode, and set on a USB to put into the RX. It looks like this:
So, the grid is on beat on both tracks, both tracks are "normal" analysed in Recordbox, the BPM is the same, and on my DDJ-400 I have not this problem. As you can see, on the RX the beatgrid moves in a special way: the first beatgrid is off to the left, second 3 on-grid with the other track, and the following beatgrids are offgrid to the right. With some tracks I don't have this problem, but I have this problem with multiple tracks, and I have no idea why this happens. Beat sync works to solve it, but I don't want to have to do that as a proper DJ.
Has anyone any idea how this problem is made and how to solve this problem? In this way it is not going to sound good, whatever I try.
Thank you!
This is because the upper waveform is pitched up to make it match the lower waveform. It needs to compress the grid so they align at the middle. If you want them to be the same width and match the whole way along, press the SYNC button.
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Thank you Pulse for your reaction.
I'm sorry, but I think I don't really understand what you mean, and where the problem is coming from. I don't have this problem with the wavevorms/beatgrid on the other controller. And when I press the SYNC button, this button does the beatmatch work for me, but I just want to beatmach myself as a DJ. When I turn the SYNC button off, the problem starts over again. Can it be that there is another button I accidentally pressed on the controller that this happens? Or that something did go wrong in Recordbox due to my act? I'm trying to find the source of the problem, so I can solve it without using sync.
Not something you did, this is perfectly normal. Without a target to stretch to, the waveforms can only go slower or faster for beatmatching.
I agree to this, Pulse is right :-)
It first looks weird, but after some thinking it is correct. Imagine you have two strips of paper, one with marks every 10mm, the other with a mark every 12mm. The marks represent the beats. Now when you align these strips that hey match in one point (which is your imaginary play position), you will see that they don't match in the other positions.
I believe it could have been implemented to stretch the waveform (technically: normalize the scale of all waveforms on the display according to the pitch), but maybe this was not done for some reasons on the XDJ RX.
In the end it is only a visual thing, your beatgrid is still fine. But I agree it can be a little bit irritating.
Hey. Thank you both for your reaction.
I understand what you mean, but I don't know if my problem is clear. I'm playing the genre Techno, this means that it has a consistent beat, but on the XDJ RX (and only on the RX, not on my DDJ-400) tells me (and your answers too) it is an inconsistent beat. No one who is playing the same genre as me, has ever seen this problem on a DJ controller with this genre. It isn't just a visual thing, because I can't properly beatmatch on the RX now, since the beatgrid 'jumps'. The only way I can beatmatch on the RX is with sync, but that isn't a solution for me: I want to solve this problem in a propper way, but I don't know where the problem lays. And since I have no problems with my DDJ-400, and most DJ's are beatmatching without using sync, why can't this problem be solved in another way on an more expensive device as a RX? I also don't understand why I have this problem on the RX, and not on my DDJ-400 with the same tracks?
I try to explain the problem one more time, with the picture below. Maybe that helps to explain myself and the understandig of eachother. Unfortunetaly I can't post a video, but I will talk it through. I Qued the beginning points of both tracks, the BPM is the same, and pressed play on both tracks. At that point my first grid (where I set que) are playing exacly at the same time, so the beatmatching is good for the first grid. At the time the tracks are playing and are arrived at the red line you see in the picture, my first grid jumped slowly forward, and the grids after the red line are slowly jumping to te left. So, it is inconsistent. And I don't know why, because the beat in the track isn't analysed that way, isn't inconsistent, and this problem doesn't accure on my DDJ-400 (and so in Recordbox on my computer while I'm using my DDJ-400).
Hi Daisy, I believe we got your point.
You are not alone, there were also some discussions "in the internet" about this, e.g. on reddit here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Beatmatch/comments/94xwcb/xdj_rx_driving_me_crazy/
This behavior of the display is "by design" on the XDJ RX.
Basically you have the choice:
- Use the SYNC button and have the beatgrid display stretched properly
- Do it the "real" way and only by ear and don't give too much on the display
Personally, I often see that even if I align the beatgrids visually perfect on phase meter, it is still only an approximation. Because my beatgrids are not always perfectly set "on the beat". And honestly, why should I bother? This can - and should! - be fine-tuned by nudging the jogwheel and trusting your ears. You will hear when the match is (not) perfect.
Only thing is, with XDJ RX display it is harder to see if/which one of the tracks is running slightly faster/slower than the other, because it is only displayed properly in the middle of the screen. But you will get a feeling for it when doing it by ear.
@Daisy > Again, we understand the issue, but please note that what you're asking for is easily achieved by pressing the sync button. I'm not sure why so many DJs feel they have to avoid it - it's a tool to help assist your performance. By allowing the hardware to match the beats you get more time to spend interacting with the crowd, playing with effects, finding more music to play, etc. Don't think of it as a feature that will make you less of a DJ. The fact that you have waveforms in your face has already put you way beyond the DJ who had vinyl, and the only real tool he/she had was pitch.
