After a few weeks or so using my new CDJ Nexus, I've notice when loading my songs on the CDJ my grids are off. The reason I'm noticing is because the sync function on my CDJ appears to be off on many of the tracks, with exception of a lot of my minimal techno tracks. I've since re-analyzed the tracks, and key in rekorbox. Now I want to adjust the beat grids(s) in rekorbox. My question is, when I adjust the beat grids, do I have to do every track individually, and do I have to reload the adjustments on my USB stick. Or is there a single select solution that will align my rekordbox beat grid? Also, when you narrow-in on the 'perfect' grid position, and then later down the track it appears off, can you adjust the off portion without moving the entire grid of the track? Bottom line, what the best solution to get the perfect grid on all the tracks in rekordbox?
Thanx in advance for your time
DJ 6Sixx
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Oh mate, what you're looking for is what ALL of us want but alas you have to adjust the grids manually on each track individually in Rekordbox. Your observation on adjusting on the decks then being off later on is because the only adjustment you can make is shifting the entire grid which is really a waste of time because nine times out of ten the grid needs shrinking or expanding.
If this was introduced as FW upgrade I'd be so happy !!
Well it looks like I got a lot of work to do:-( I'm going to give it a shot. If anyone has any advice please share.
Thanx
It gets better - after you spend countless hours on grids, cues, loops and the like, they'll drop another v of RB that requires you to re-analyze your tracks. Then you get to do it all over again! Womp.
Yes, I see, and after a day or so, I've only completed 42 tracks,(((Yikes))), and constantly having trouble with some tracks aligning right in rekorbox, this is crazy:-( ......makes me think, Rekordbox or Traktor.....hummmmmm, leaning toward going back to the T word;-)
I'm a first time user of rekorbox coming from Traktor Pro (never had a problem), and now I just completed beat gridding almost 152 of my fav tracks in reckorbox (still have about 752 more to go), and now rekordbox is 'freezing' when I shut it down. (could this have something to do with me beat gridding, it was not freezing before then?) Of course now, I am really worried after buying 2 CDJ Nexus and using them in an upcoming spring bash. I'm am actually thinking about using my old Traktor set-up/mixer/ and 2X 1's for this gig. I'm usually not a big complainer, but I will have to say, at this point, my experience with rekorbox has been VERY disappointing:-(
FWIW, since inception, I've somehow managed to abstain from ALL Internet posting media (e.g., blogs, forums, customer reviews, etc, etc, etc), that is, until I made the move to Rekordbox. Sadly, my CDJ2000nxs purchase has forced me to break my vow of silence. I'll never forgive you Pioneer.
@ 6Sixx Answers to your first post:
1. Do I have to adjust each track individually? Yes, each track should be loaded into Rekordbox and the beat grids should be checked and adjusted, if necessary. Not all tracks will require adjustment, but most of them will. It should not take a lot of time to do. I can typically fix a beat grid in about 10-30 seconds per track.
2. Do I have to reload adjustments to my USB stick? When you make changes to the beat grid in Rekordbox, the grid position information will be part of the next export to a USB stick or other media device. So, the answer to your question depends on when you make your grid adjustments and when you perform your export. If you load a new track purchased today and fix the grids right away, then export the track to your USB stick... then you should not have to reload that track again unless you decide to make edits to the grids or cue points, hot cues, etc... If you load the track to the stick, and then decide to make grid adjustments then you will need to export again to the USB stick.
3. Can you adjust the off portion without moving the grid of the entire track? Yes, you can do this. There is a button which locks down all grid points to the left of the cursor postion, allowing you to then move the grid points to the right.
4. What is the best solution for getting a perfect grid? To answer this I will give you my grid procedure which I perform on every new track I buy:
New Track Grid Process
1. Load new track into Rekordbox collection. Zoom into waveform, and press the beat grid adjustment window button.
2. Locate the first down-beat. Visually check for alignment of grid marker to first beat. Grid marker should also be red if this is the first beat. If not, you can use the Set First Beat button to change the color of that grid marker to red.
3. Perform an audible check of the first few beats by using the metronome. Play the track and listen for the metronome clicks against the few few beats. If the metronome sounds slightly off, then use the arrow buttons to move ALL of the beat grid markers together. Don't use Shrink/Expand grid buttons yet.
4. When you are satisfied that the first beat is lined up correctly, then go to the first beat marker and set a Cue point there, and then press the Make Adjustment From Current Position button. This will lock down the first grid marker so it can't move when you adjust others.
5. Skip ahead to a point near the end of the track and check the beat grid markers there. Visually inspect to see if the are lined up to the grid. If not, then use the Shrink/Expand buttons to move the beat grids and align them. Once you have them visually aligned, audio test against the metronome.
6. At this point, I like to do a quick spot-check of the grids against the metronome by playing the track and then randomly clicking the top waveform to see if the grids stay aligned everywhere. Usually 3-4 random clicks is enough to confirm.
For most tracks, they will be aligned correctly by this point and you should be done with grid adjustments. I can normally perform the above steps in a matter of seconds.
Sometimes there may be some tracks which don't have a perfectly stable tempo. These tracks may have parts of the beat grid which is off after you perform the above steps. To correct these tracks continue with the following steps:
7. Go back to the beginning of the track and play against the metronome. Listen for the metronome clicks drifting out of sync with the beats. When you begin to hear some drift, stop the track and rewind to a point where you know the beats are still aligned properly.
8. Get your cursor lined up to a good beat grid marker, and click the Adjust Grid From Current Position button. This locks down the grid points to the left of the cursor.
9. Skip ahead a few bars until you see the grid points off-beat, then use the Shrink or Expand buttons to line up the grid again. Check your work against the metronome. When you are happy with your next section of grid marks, lock it down again using the Adjust Grid from Current Position button.
10. Repeat step 9 until you have aligned the full track and are happy with it.
It's not a difficult process, and it does not take a lot of time per track. The best advice is to do the work right-away when you buy new music, rather than trying to do all of your tracks in one sitting.
Right on Fuse - I use the same process for what it's worth. I try not to spend a ton of time on this as I find that regardless of how 'perfect' your beat grids are, depending on the various elements of the tracks (e.g., snares, depth of low end, etc) there needs to be some level of manual adjustment post-sync. Most of the time it get's me >90% of the way there which is the big time saver, but never find it's as accurate as my ears.
If you are happier mixing on Traktor, then go back to Traktor. It's not like anyone is holding a gun to your head... ;)
Honestly though, the CDJ-2000 is an outstanding piece of equipment. I can mix perfectly on them every time. The only prerequisites are high-quality music files, and thorough preparation in Rekordbox. If you have both of those ingredients then the results can be excellent.
However, if you still prefer Traktor then you have some really good options there, too. Have you tried using Advanced HID mode?
Thanx Fuse Promote! I will copy your post for reference while I work on my rekordbox file. So once the track(s) are gridded, will reckordbox automatically save the change? I don't see a lock button or something similar? By the way the HID/w Traktor works flawless with my CDJ nexus, however, I purchased the CDJ NEXUS as a stand along system so that I could perform without a laptop:-( yet have the capability of a sync technology. I'm not looking for perfection, but reliability.
The changes to beat grids are saved automatically. There is no SAVE button or anything like that.
If you wish to use USB or SD Card media, then you will need to Export the music via Rekordbox after you have finished the grids.
Big up to Fuse for the exhaustive guide on beatgridding :)
I'm also an ex traktor user, so here my 2 cents.
First of all do the beatgridding immediately after downlaoding the music, you'll be bored to death to check it for an entire music collection :P
IMHO the quality of the rekordbox algorithm is only slightly inferior to Traktor, not much worse :) Anyway if you intend to use the sync function on the nexus you must check all the beatgrids manually. In my experience I'd say that I find about 1 wrong grid every 10-12 tracks with rekordbox and 1 wrong gris every 15-20 tracks with Traktor.
Generally the bpm is correct, most of the wrong grids I find are about the phase and rarely the downbeat, also the downbeat detection is generally correct.
When the bpm is wrong, you can see immediately: if the figure is not round you probably have a wrong bpm detected i.e. a song showing 123.99 bpm is most likely a 124 bpm songs. If you start such song with the metronome you will hear a good match at the beginning and a wrong match at the end of the track, so you can save time and check directly at the end of the track. Most of the time you will hear it and by adjusting the bpm to the next round figure you fix the problem(set it to 124 in this example). Rarely it happens that the track is really at 123.99 bpm, and traktor would say exactly the same figure 123.99, anyway most of the time when the number is not round it is a symptom of a wrong bpm detection.
The phase tends to be wrong when the first bars of the track have irregular or strange drum patterns, you will see after correcting a few wrong beatgrids that you'll be able to tell which tracks will have wrong grids just by listening them before importing to RB :P When the phase is wrong it is really wrong, i mean painfully to listen wrong :D Rarely it is slightly off.
The downbeat is generally correct, but a good way to check it is to look for the first beat after a breakdown (not always the first beat of a track is also a downbeat). WIth some drum patterns it's hard to understand which one is the downbeat, in this case I turn off the metronome so i can listen better to the drum pattern.
One thing that you need to keep in mind when using the auto sync is that the cdj ignores the downbeat when you press the button, it will just match the beat to the closest one, so either you push play at the right moment or you do a first rough beatmatch to put the two downbeats close to each other looking at the running lights on the display. Remember, the more precise is your beatgrid, the better the auto sync will work, exactly the same like in traktor.
Also, if you have the last firmware (1.10) you will have the bug that the master is not automatically reassigned when the track you mixed out of ends or you stop it so you need to put in your routine the action to deactivate the master after mixing out the track, I always do it even tho i beatmatch by ear because you need the correct master assignment for the key detection.
If you beatmatch by ear the running lights will only help you to get close, i honestly cannot see any difference in the lights between a perfectly matched pair of tracks and one that has a small but audible mismatch, only very big mismatches will show up on the running lights. The lights are useful only to get you near the match and to match the downbeats, something that you can also achieve pushing cue and play buttons at the right time.
I hope it helps.
thank you Fuse and Julia!
this is information i couldn't find using google and seems to be on point with the proscess we've been trying only you've given a few tips to help simplify the proscess. much apreciated!